Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials

The Salem Witch Trials mark a grim chapter in the early history of European settlement in the Americas. Many know the rough outlines of what happened, but in this groundbreaking work author Marilynne K. Roach blends new scholarly research with narrative storytelling in order to conjure up for the reader what it might have been like to be in the town of Salem during that fateful time between 1692 and 1693. By using the stories of six real women as focal points, Roach is able to offer factual details about their lives as a representative microcosm of the larger event. Through the eyes of a widow, an aristocrat, an old woman, a downwardly mobile mother, an enslaved Native American, and an indentured servant, the reader gleans new insight into the dark side of colonial Puritanism and into the events that led twenty innocent women to be executed for suspected witchcraft.