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In February 1692, several young Salem girls, after they were caught practicing magic, claimed they had been afflicted by witches.

Their parents began searching for the witches, and hysteria mounted, especially as pastor Samuel Parris proclaimed, "In this very church, God knows how many Devils there are!" A public witch-hunt led to the arrest of 150 people; 19 were hanged for witchcraft, and one man was executed for refusing to testify.

Christian History asked historian David D. Hall to explain what motivated these troublesome proceedings. Dr. Hall is professor of American religious history at The Divinity School, Harvard University, and author of "Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England" (Knopf, 1985).

Some twenty years before the Salem witch-hunt, a young woman living in the household of the minister of Groton, Massachusetts, began to "carry herself in a strange and unwonted manner." According to the minister, Samuel Willard, 16-year-old Elizabeth Knapp saw apparitions and experienced violent "fits" over a period of three months.

In the midst of one fit, she spoke in a "hollow" voice, and called the minister "a great black rogue" who "tell[s] the people a company of lies."

Willard answered back, "Satan, thou art a liar and a deceiver, and God will vindicate his own truth one day." Others in the room took up the confrontation, telling the Devil that "God had him in chains."

The answer came back, "For all my chain, I can knock thee in the head when I please."

Meanwhile, in her own voice Elizabeth told how the Devil had promised to make her a "witch" if she would sign a "compact" to become his servant.

Events in Groton, and later in Salem, proceeded from the assumption that Satan lures certain people into compact with him, promising them, as he promised Elizabeth Knapp, that all "should be well"—they need not worry any longer about sin and salvation.

The people of Groton, however, also believed that, in the full course of God's providence, good would overcome evil. They witnessed the spiritual healing of Elizabeth as she, under the prompting of Willard, confessed that "the occasion of her fits" was "discontent" with her situation as a servant. She also said she was guilty of neglecting the means of grace. Though at times she accused an older woman in the town of causing her bewitchment, no wider witch-hunt erupted in Groton.

But witch-hunts did arise in other New England towns—Ambridge in 1659, Hartford in 1662–63, Boston in 1688, and infamously in Salem Village (now Danvers) in 1692.

One minister, Deodat Lawson, hearing of the troubles in Salem Village, came there in late March of 1692. He witnessed 12-year-old Abigail Williams "hurried with violence to and fro in the room" and "sometimes making as if she would fly." Then the names began to flow: Good wife Nourse, Good wife Corey. … A judicial hearing quickly followed, with Abigail Williams and some nine others testifying that they had seen the "likeness" of these women praying to the Devil.

No one heeded Martha Corey when she remarked that her chorus of accusers were "poor, distracted children." Thus empowered, the accusers piled name onto name. Before the legal process was suspended in October 1692, nineteen persons had been executed.

What tensions rose to the surface in 1692 and resulted in this witch-hunt?

As the story of Elizabeth Knapp of Groton reveals, some tensions originated in the religious expectations of Puritanism.

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