Escaping Salem

A significant portion of the book examines legal procedure and philosophy of the time period, albeit largely with respect to witch trials. In what ways did criminal trials differ then? What might that tell us about the evolution of legal procedure in the United States?

It’s often difficult to fairly examine historical events, given how different the modern mindset is, and we see this frequently throughout the text. In what ways does our modern understanding of these events cloud our ability to fairly examine them?

Witch hunts and witch trials were heavily gendered. To what extent was this a factor in the Stamford trial? To what extent does the author address these concerns?

What parallels, if any, can we draw between the gendered concerns of witch trials of the era and modern feminist concerns in, for example, the workplace?

Throughout the text, the townspeople and magistrates questioned the reliability of the source of the accusations: Katherine Branch. Based on the evidence presented in Escaping Salem, to what extent do you feel is Katherine Branch reliable?

Chapter 4, “Angry Speeches and Strange Afflictions,” details the stories the townspeople had about the accused, stories that often reinforce their beliefs. However, upon closer examination, many of these stories are logically unsound. Choose one story and explicate it, considering, as you do, alternative explanations for the phenomena described.

William Jones, the Deputy Governor of Connecticut, sought expert advice regarding the trial, both before it and following the hung jury. Yet, following Mercy Disborough’s conviction, the magistrates chose to ignore the expert recommendations and allow the jury verdict to remain. Given the text’s assertion that the death penalty was not taken lightly, why might the court have allowed Mercy to be sentenced to death despite knowing that the evidence against her was insufficient?

One theme of the text is the disconnect between the roles and authority many people held and the experience those roles and authority required, such as the magistrates’ lack of legal education and expertise. Write an essay in which you closely examine this phenomenon in the text and consider how we might apply those lessons to the modern era.