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This chapter provides a description of the witch trials centered in Salem Village, MA, in 1692–1693 and overviews the main strands of interpretation of the causes of the witch craze. The focus of the chapter is on the primary sources of our knowledge of the trials, including the trial records as well as the contemporaneous eyewitness accounts and commentaries. The chapter argues that while these writings have been studied closely by historians, they have yet to receive careful attention from literary, rhetorical, and text‐historical perspectives.

Historians credit Thomas Brattle for epitomizing a dynamic scientific community in New England that was beginning to understand and keep pace with European scientific developments. Brattle's role in the progress of scientific expertise in colonial New England is examined.