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Emerson "Tad" Baker II (born 18 May 1958) is a historical archaeologist and professor of history at Salem State University. [1] He is well known in academic circles for his extensive work on witchcraft in Colonial America, as well as for his work on numerous archaeological sites along the East Coast of the United States. He currently resides in York, Maine.
Baker was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1958 and attended Applewild School and Phillips Academy. Before attending Bates College in Lewiston, Maine (where he would later meet his wife and play/lead the rugby club), Baker spent a year in the United Kingdom studying at Cranleigh School, where he learned to play rugby. After graduating from Bates with a BA in history in 1980, he received his MA in history (with a concentration in historical archaeology) from the University of Maine at Orono in 1983. [2] In 1986, he received his Ph.D. in history (with a dissertation on failed Anglo-Indian relations in early Maine) from the College of William & Mary under the guidance of James Axtell. [2]
From 1988 to 1994, Baker served as executive director of the York Institute Museum and Dyer Library. He joined the faculty of Salem State College in September 1994.
A specialist in the history of seventeenth century Maine, Baker has been featured as an expert consultant on the PBS mini-series Colonial House; he has also provided historical consultation for Parks Canada, National Geographic, Plimoth Plantation, National Park Service, Historic Salem Inc., Beverly Historical Society and many historic district commissions." [2] He has also served as an expert witness for archaeological matters in several court cases in Nova Scotia and Maine.
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Cotton Mather was a New England Puritan minister, prolific author, and pamphleteer. One of the most important intellectual figures in English-speaking colonial America, Mather is remembered today chiefly for his Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) and other works of history, for his scientific contributions to plant hybridization and to the promotion of inoculation as a means of preventing smallpox and other infectious diseases, and for his involvement in the events surrounding the Salem witch trials of 1692–3. He also promoted the new Newtonian science in America and sent many scientific reports to the Royal Society of London, which formally elected him as a fellow in 1723. A controversial figure in his own day, in part due to his role in supporting the Salem witch trials, he sought unsuccessfully the presidency of Harvard College, which had been held by his father Increase, another important Puritan intellectual.
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death for refusing to plead, and at least five people died in jail.
Matthew Hopkins was an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the English Civil War. He claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament. His activities mainly took place in East Anglia.
King William's War was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg. It was the first of six colonial wars fought between New France and New England along with their respective Native allies before France ceded its remaining mainland territories in North America east of the Mississippi River in 1763.
Increase Mather was an American Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administration of the colony during a time that coincided with the notorious Salem witch trials.
Samuel Sewall was a judge, businessman, and printer in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, for which he later apologized, and his essay The Selling of Joseph (1700), which criticized slavery. He served for many years as the chief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, the province's high court.
Thomas Danforth was a politician, magistrate, and landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A conservative Puritan, he served for many years as one of the colony's councilors and magistrates, generally leading opposition to attempts by the English kings to assert control over the colony. He accumulated land in the central part of the colony that eventually became a portion of Framingham, Massachusetts. His government roles included administration of territory in present-day Maine that was purchased by the colony.
Bridget Bishop was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.
William Stoughton was a colonial magistrate and administrator in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was in charge of what have come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials, first as the Chief Justice of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, and then as the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693. In these trials he controversially accepted spectral evidence. Unlike some of the other magistrates, he never admitted to the possibility that his acceptance of such evidence was in error.
Aviva Chomsky is an American teacher, historian, author, and activist. She is a professor of history and the Coordinator of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean Studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She previously taught at Bates College in Maine and was a Research Associate at Harvard University, where she specialized in Caribbean and Latin American history.
Salem State University, commonly Salem State or SSU, is a public university in Salem, Massachusetts. Established in 1854, it is the oldest institute of higher education on the North Shore and is part of the state university system in Massachusetts.
George Burroughs, was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is best known for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, something it was believed a witch could never do.
Jonathan Corwin was a New England merchant, politician, and magistrate. He is best known as one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692, although his later work also included service as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literary and dramatic depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
William Avery Baker was a distinguished naval architect of replica historic ships and a maritime historian, who was curator of the Francis Russell Hart Nautical Museum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1963–1981.
Thomas Brattle was an American merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College and member of the Royal Society. He is known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials and the formation of the Brattle Street Church.
Steven R. Carter was an American literary critic, and academic.
Grace White Sherwood (1660–1740), called the Witch of Pungo, is the last person known to have been convicted of witchcraft in Virginia.
Stephen Nissenbaum, is Professor Emeritus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's History Department specializing in early American history through to the nineteenth century. Most notably, he co-authored a book with Paul Boyer in 1974 about the Salem witch trials, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, called "a landmark in early American studies" by John Putnam Demos.
The First Abenaki War was fought along the New England/Acadia border primarily in present-day Maine. Richard Waldron and Charles Frost led the forces in the northern region, while Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin worked with the tribes that would make up the Wabanaki Confederacy. The natives engaged in annual campaigns against the English settlements in 1675, 1676 and 1677. Waldron sent forces so far north that he attacked the Mi'kmaq in Acadia.
