Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience

Samuel Sewall was one of nine judges appointed to hear the Salem witch trials of 1692, and alone among them publicly apologized for his role in the incident five years later. A historian of American culture, Francis (creating writing, Spa U., England) finds in that apology, and in Sewall's life in general, a demonstration of the end of the Puritan view of the world as a simple struggle between Good and Evil. He draws on Sewall's extensive and detailed diaries as well as on other primary sources. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR