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    Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall
    Unavailable
    Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall
    Unavailable
    Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall
    Ebook480 pages8 hours

    Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall

    By Eve LaPlante

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In 1692 Puritan Samuel Sewall sent twenty people to their deaths on trumped-up witchcraft charges. The nefarious witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts represent a low point of American history, made famous in works by Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne (himself a descendant of one of the judges), and Arthur Miller. The trials might have doomed Sewall to infamy except for a courageous act of contrition now commemorated in a mural that hangs beneath the golden dome of the Massachusetts State House picturing Sewall's public repentance. He was the only Salem witch judge to make amends.

    But, remarkably, the judge's story didn't end there. Once he realized his error, Sewall turned his attention to other pressing social issues. Struck by the injustice of the New England slave trade, a commerce in which his own relatives and neighbors were engaged, he authored "The Selling of Joseph," America's first antislavery tract. While his peers viewed Native Americans as savages, Sewall advocated for their essential rights and encouraged their education, even paying for several Indian youths to attend Harvard College. Finally, at a time when women were universally considered inferior to men, Sewall published an essay affirming the fundamental equality of the sexes. The text of that essay, composed at the deathbed of his daughter Hannah, is republished here for the first time.

    In Salem Witch Judge, acclaimed biographer Eve LaPlante, Sewall's great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, draws on family lore, her ancestor's personal diaries, and archival documents to open a window onto life in colonial America, painting a portrait of a man traditionally vilified, but who was in fact an innovator and forefather who came to represent the best of the American spirit.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061753473
    Unavailable
    Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall
    Author

    Eve LaPlante

    Eve LaPlante is a great niece and a first cousin of Abigail and Louisa May Alcott. She is the author of Seized, American Jezebel, and Salem Witch Judge, which won the 2008 Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction. She is also the editor of My Heart Is Boundless the first collection of Abigail May Alcott’s private papers. She lives with her family in New England.

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    Reviews for Salem Witch Judge

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    • 4/5
      LaPlante, a descendant of Judge Samuel Sewall, studied his life in an effort to understand more of the man who was her ancestor. She begins with his marriage and the life which eventually led to his being selected to sit on the court as one of the judges for the Salem trials. She does a great job presenting his family life and the struggles he had with Puritanism and his own family's misfortunes. She shows his repentance of his involvement in the trials and his subsequent life. The reader is given a glimpse into what it was like to live in New England in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Drawing from Sewall's own journals as well as other primary and secondary sources, the author has successfully painted a portrait of her ancestor that will be studied for years to come.
    • 3/5
      This is an extremely detailed biography of Samuel Sewall, written by one of his descendants. He was an interesting man. Of all the officials involved in condemning accused witches to death, he was the only one to publicly repent of his actions. He later became a supporter of Native American rights and sponsor of a scholarship fund for Native Americans (though largely because he wanted to convert them), and wrote the first abolitionist tract (long before popular sentiment in the North turned against slavery). and also argued in a manner for the spiritual equality of women.When I say this is detailed, it is sometimes painfully so. I found that the early chapters dragged as they spelled out seemingly arcane details about his youth and family background. Things picked up when the narrative reached the witch trials, but I found the account of that disaster (the focus of the title) less detailed than I would have expected, especially given the excruciating detail about other matters. This is probably due to Sewell's reluctance to discuss the trials in his diary, as noted by the author. (The diary was major primary source material for the book.)There were also some times when the narrative was a bit difficult to follow. One example is Sewall's trip back to England. LaPlante hops around in time talking about certain political events that led to other events while he was abroad; by the time she returned to the main thread of the story, I had to go back and re-read to see "when" we were at.It was rather fascinating to catch a glimpse of Puritan piety through the eyes of an intelligent man. There was a lot about Sewall's faith and how it informed his decisions for better or (in the case of his work in the witch trials) for worse.The story is also a reminder of how challenging life often was for the colonists, even those who were well off financially and socially.I kind of wonder who the target audience was for this book. If for scholars, why no footnotes? If for popular consumption, why not written more accessibly? However, there is an extensive bibliography, and LaPlante does frequently name sources of information within her text. And she says up front that most of the material is from Sewall's diary.This was the story of an interesting man, but I feel it could have been told more effectively. I suspect that the fact that the author is a descendant of her subject may have actually had a negative impact on the project.
    • 5/5
      This is an excellent book, written by Eve LaPlante, a descendant of the Salem witch trial judge (and later chief justice of the MassachusettsColony) Samuel Sewall. It gives insight into the overly sensitive Christian sensibilities of Colonial Puritans, and some into this particular man, who like the Biblical Pharisees, was all about righteousness-- both others and his own. Yet able to miss the truths of God and the love of God right in front of him at the same time. And how can one make restitution for having a part in the deaths of 20 innocent people? It was especially interesting to read this biography in tandem with an excellent novel, The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent, a descendant of Martha Carrier, one of the witches jailed in deplorable conditions with her children, sentenced to hang by the Salem judges and the fear and hysteria of the time. Talk about sensibilities!