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The Salem Witch Trials: a Microhistory

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The Salem Witch Trials: a Microhistory The Salem Witch Trials: A Microhistory A Senior Project presented to the Faculty of the History Department California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bailey Hitch; Bachelor of Arts by Bailey Hitch June, 2010 © 2010 Bailey Hitch 1 The Salem Witch Trials: A Microhistory The Salem witch trials have captured our nation’s collective imagination, terrifying, disgusting, and mesmerizing us for centuries. Moreover, they puzzle us. What happened in Salem to allow for the wild accusations of a handful of villagers, mostly young women, to lead to over two-dozen deaths and over a hundred imprisonments? I believe that by looking closely into the lives of two accusers, Ann Putnam, Jr. and Mercy Lewis, we can gain a better understanding of the motivations for and nature of the witchcraft accusations. In mid-January of 1692 the largest American witch-hunt began. Although not originally unique in substance or size, it soon escalated to a scale heretofore absent in the New World. The scare began with the afflictions of Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, the young daughter and niece of the Reverend Samuel Parris. The girls were in fits and complained of torments. After several weeks a physician, most likely the village doctor William Griggs, concluded that the girls had been bewitched. Shortly after this diagnosis Elizabeth and Abigail named the Parris’ slave, Tituba as their tormentor. From here the craze began to grow, as other girls and young women joined the ranks of the accusers. At first the accused people fit the profile of a typical alleged witch: poor, elderly, and female. 1 As the crisis grew though, accusers began to point fingers at respected members of the community, including ministers, church members, and political figures. The crisis spread from Salem Village into the neighboring cities and towns, most notably the nearby town of Andover. The hunt began to lose steam in October of 1692 and by November the crisis had ended. One hundred and forty-four people had been 1 Richard A. Horsley, “Who Were the Witches? The Social Roles of the Accused in the European Witch Trials,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 9, no. 4 (Spring, 1979): 689. 2 accused of witchcraft, twenty had been executed, and four had died in jail. 2 While these basic facts on the witch hunt at Salem have been known for hundreds of years, it is the question of why the hunt happened the continues to puzzle historians today. The literature on this topic is rich and diverse. Most notably perhaps is the work of Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. In Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft the authors argue that the witch crisis was caused by divisions created by geography, wealth, social leadership, church membership, and dependence on Salem Town. 3 They argued that the divisions in the town between agrarian villagers and villagers more closely tied to capitalism and Salem Town spurred on the trials, which reflect Salem’s divisions. 4 Boyer and Nissenbaum’s work was groundbreaking and introduced the idea that economic and geographic factors may have played a major role in the trials. Mary Beth Norton’s recent work on the subject has also been very important. Her controversial book, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 , claims that the Indian wars on the northern frontier played an integral role in driving the 2 Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Frances Hill, The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials (New York: Da Capo, 2002); Peter Charles Hoffer, The Devil’s Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996); Mary Beth Norton, “Essex County Witchcraft,” The William and Mary Quarterly 65, no. 3 (July): 483-488; Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 3-4, 19-21; Bernard Rosenthal, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Marilynne K Roach, The Salem Witch Trials (Lanham, Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing: 2004); Marion L. Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (New York: Doubleday, 1989). 3 Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974). 4 Ibid., 105-107. 3 accusations. 5 Although this has been considered before, no one has given the Indian wars so much credit for their role in provoking accusations. Norton argues that while there was an initial wave of accusations that were unrelated to the frontier, the second and more violent phase was driven largely by colonists’ fear of Native American attacks. 6 Another approach literature on the Salem trials has taken has been to look at the extent of the accusers’ guilt. Are they to be held accountable for their actions or were they influenced by illness, hysteria, legitimate fear, or, especially in the cases of the younger accusers, their families? Some historians, such as Marilynne Roach in The Salem Witch Trials , argue that the accusers believed that what they reported was the truth. In this case the majority of accusers would be innocent of malicious action.7 Mary Kilbourne Matossian argues in Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics, and History that the bewitched were innocent for other reasons. 8 She believes that their experiences were hallucinations and convulsions brought on by food poisoning and that they were reporting what they thought to be true. There is also a body of literature that disagrees with this and argues that the accusers were fully aware of what they were doing. One such historian is Bernard Rosenthal. In Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 he argues that the accusations were intentional and pre-meditated and the idea of the accusers as a ring of 5 Mary Beth Norton, In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 12. 6 Ibid., 81. 7 Marilynne K. Roach, The Salem Witch Trials (Lanham, Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004), xvi. 8 Mary Kilbourne Matossian, Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics, and History (Yale University Press, 1991). 4 hysterical girls is a myth. 9 He focuses on the motivations of the individuals involved and less on the overarching conflicts and tensions within Salem. Finally, there is a subset of this literature that looks at how gender influenced the trials. Carol Karlsen argues in The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England that New Englanders’ fear of female sexuality contributed to the hunts. 10 Similar to the work that has been done on European witch-hunts, her work looks at the impact of religion and traditional beliefs on people’s attitudes toward women and witchcraft. In The Devil’s Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials , Peter Charles Hoffer looks at gender from a different angle, arguing that gender played an important role in the lives of the accusers. 11 Not only does he suggest that some of the driving accusers were sexually abused, he also suggests that the young women’s repression may have caused their behavior. Keeping in mind this body of literature, I believe I have added to it by conducting a close study of the lives and accusations of Ann Putnam, Jr. and Mercy Lewis. As part of the Putnam clan that Boyer and Nissenbaum argue was so instrumental in village dissension and later witchcraft accusation, a study of Ann Putnam’s influences and accusations reveals the extent of political, geographic, and economic influences. I believe that Ann’s accusations reveal family influences that were motivated by the divisions mentioned in Boyer and Nissenbaum’s work. Her parents’ roles in the trials show that the family was involved and possibly influencing her actions. This is 9 Bernard Rosenthal, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 36, 38. 10 Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of Woman : Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987). 11 Peter Charles Hoffer, The Devil’s Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1996). 5 reinforced by the accusations made by her mother, who named many of the same women that Ann named. There is also a strong correlation between the families politically opposed to the Putnams and those accused of witchcraft by Ann, which again supports the case of familial influence. Ann is a prime candidate for this study because of the prominence of her family and the many accusations that she made. In addition to Ann Putnam, I will be looking closely at the influences on and accusations of Mercy Lewis. Because she came from the northern frontier and experienced the Indian wars she is an excellent accuser to study in order to evaluate the effect of the Indian wars on the trials. I believe that her accusations draw on the Indian wars and were influenced by her experience on the frontier. 12 I would also like to argue that Mercy impacted Ann’s accustions. As a young woman working and living in the Putnam household, Mercy had close contact with Ann Jr. Her influence is visible in the younger girl’s accusations, which also reflect the violence in the north. 13 I believe my paper will be a valuable addition to the work already done on the Salem witch trials because it takes a close and focused look at two important accusers. By examining their influences and accusations in detail we can see the importance of inter-family politics, discussed by Boyer and Nissenbaum, and the Indian wars, discussed by Mary Beth Norton.
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