Salem Possessed Analysis

Salem Possessed redefined the standard for the possibilities social history offers to understand the events and people of early America. Through a painstaking look at local records such as legal records, the Salem Village record book, the minister's book, and tax records Boyer and Nissenbaum discovered a long-standing pattern of contentious behavior of which the witchcraft accusations in 1692 was just one episode. Their analysis provides an invaluable insight into the social history of New England generally, and the factions of Salem Village that led to the tragic events of 1692, in particular. Boyer and Nissenbaum's explanation for the outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Salem hinges on an understanding of the economic, political and personal
issues which divided the village long before 1692. One of the reasons that could have potentially caused the witchcraft crisis is the geography and history that divided Salem Village and Salem Town. Situated in the interior from the bustling town of Salem, Salem Village was primarily an agricultural community. Boyer and Nissenbaum argued that the opposite interests between the town and the village created a similar divide within the village itself. One faction, led by the Putnam family, most identified itself with the traditional agricultural activities of the village. The opposing faction, led by the Porter family, identified itself with the mercantile town, near which most of the Porter faction lived. It can also be said that the witchcraft crisis was first brought on by a few young girls of Salem. Girls who lived in this time period had their husbands chosen for them by their parents, because of this they were fearful of their future and began to cast spells in hopes of seeing their future husband and what their husbands trade should be of. Originally it was mainly young girls who met in small, informal gatherings to discuss the future. It was Abigail Williams, the niece of Samuel Parris, and Betty Parris, Samuel Parris’ daughter, who first started showing symptoms of the erratic behavior.
On one instance Abigail Williams ran through the house with her arms outstretched, screaming. She also pulled logs from the fireplace and tossed them around the room. After this episode the number of afflicted girls grew from two to eight. When the afflicted girls were question about their behavior, they accused Sarah Good, Sarah Osbourne and Tibuta Indian of bewitching them. However, it wasn’t just young girls who accused these adults of bewitching them, once the erratic behavior began to sweep its way across Salem, it was Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the nearest members of the upper house of the provincial legislature, who began physical examinations and determined that Martha Cory was guilty of witchcraft and that she needed to be thrown in jail with the other women. Abigail Williams also affiliated herself with the accusations when she accused George Burroughs, a former minister in the Village, of being the mastermind behind the entire breakout. However, perhaps on of the saddest victims of false accusation was Sarah Good’s four-year-old daughter Dorcas Good, who was sent to Boston Prison where she was chained up for nine months. It can therefore be seen that the vast majority of accused witches were women. Most history books pass over the fact quickly or conclude that witches were scapegoats for tensions that
had little to do with sex or gender. Although the direction the accusations took undoubtedly reflected pre-existing tensions within the community, it can be argued that the accusations also reflected societal ideas about women and the ways men reconciled changes in gender roles. Boyer and Nissenbaum's almost exclusive focus on the socio-economic dimensions to the witchcraft episode obscures the importance of individuals and of Puritan religious beliefs.
Boyer and Nissenbaum assume a direct causal relationship between socio-economic conditions and individual behavior. Indeed, the authors manage to trace almost all personal motivation back to the pocketbook. While their deft reconstruction of Salem Village's factious society and the economic changes which contributed to such divides is quite convincing, the intellectual jump they make to connect these pre-existing divisions with the personal motivations of accusers is largely speculative and circumstantial. Boyer and Nissenbaum's analysis of communal conflict also omits the religious ideas behind the trials - the very ideas which the people of Salem would have believed to be most important. It can be said that a reason that escalated a town squabble into death was the Puritan theology. This theory numbered witches as among the punishments God could inflict upon his inattentive people. Therefore, this allows the Salem outbreak to be understood in its own terms, rather than simply in terms of economic rationalization and communal
strife.