HST296A: Reading Notes, 16-Feb-2005
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum,
“Salem Possessed: The Social
Origins of Witchcraft,” in Colonial
America 3rd ed., pp. 343-372.
Did Salem change anything? What does the witch episode tell us about
"underlying social tensions in colonial New England?" Boyer and
Nissenbaum, applying community studies methods, conclude that " a
dee[ly disturbing rift between commercial and expansive Salem
Town...and rural Salem Village...best explains the pattern of accused
and accusers." But is that enough to explain what happened?
It was not about purging the poor, deviant and outcast: it included all
ranks. (p. 346)
eastern village:accused. western: accusers
factions surrounding est. of Village church and hiring of
minister Parris. In 1691 Parris supporters voted out, antiParris voted
in. No $$ for Parris. 1st four afflicted were Parris-related
More rich are anti-Parris, more poor are pro-Parris. More Town side are
anti-Parris, more Village side are pro-Parris.
Meanwhile: Salem Town has become more prosperous but the distribution
of wealth is more polarized, concentrated in fewer hands. Merchants
outnumber farmers in town government. "many fine houses" in town, not
Village faction lines develop along those who identify/side with Town
and those who don't.
Eastern villagers have best land, best access to road/river
transportation (esp. along Ipswich Rd- which had most anti-Parris),
able to rise in wealth
So, the Village church is not just a church - it's a counterweight to
the town-dominated side of the village. Some rich, many supporters are
solidly middle class with possible expectations to do better, many
poor. A surprising group to lead the "leading role in witchcraft
persecutions." (p. 364)
Tavern keepers also at risk. Taverns as sources of concern - strangers,
gathering places for trouble.
Intensity: "what was going on was not simply a personal quarrel, an
economic dispute, or even a struggle for power, but a moral conflict
involving the very nature of the community itself." (p. 365) At risk is
the body community itself.
NOTE: Behave in the best
interest of the community. "The important thing is not whether very
many people actually did. . .but rather the fact that when they did
not. . .they felt they were not behaving properly." (p. 366)
Villagers see Townies as threatening that belief because they are
chasing "emerging mercantile capitalism." (p. 367) Satan seduces
through fear but also through material blandihments. (see also Demos)
Accusers feel guilty when not adhering to body community and so turn
guilt into accusation:
Madame Bubble (and even later South-Sea Bubble) from Pilgrim's
Progress; the enticing, money fondling "witch" 8 years before Salem.
John Demos, “Underlying
Themes in the
Witchcraft of Seventeenth-Century New England,” in Colonial America, 1st ed., pp.
Demos asks not "who was to blame" but rather "why did it cause such a
stir?" Anthropology (for strategy) and psychoanalysis (for theory) may
provide better approaches than history (which usually confines itself
to the rational). "neither New England society nor the
seventeenth-century personality provided satisfactory outlets for man's
agressive tendancies." How does the relationship between land
distribution and family structure feed into group conflict?
('Who's to blame when the situation degenerates? Disgusting things you
never anticipate. . . ' (!!) ...parti[sanship] gone out of
Salem as symptom: "The subject is important not in its own right, but
as a means of exploring certain larger questions about the society and
the individuals directly concerned." (p. 115)
He proposes to look at the "complex relationships between the alleged
witches and their victims." (p. 115)
3 categories; witches, accusers, witnesses
He sees a "system" of witchcraft belief in 17th cent. New England, but
Salame provides a demography of the people involved
"the witches were predominantly married or widowed women, between the
ages of forty-one and sixty." or their families (p. 118)
Accusers, at least in court as might be expected, were men
(representing women, though)
"What appears to have been common to nearly all these people,
irrespective of their economic positions, was some kind of personal
eccentricity, some deviant or even criminal behavior that had long
since marked them out as suspect." (p. 121) That integrates well with
Wall and the importance of reputation/adherance to community values
But how does that mesh with
"Nearly all the people involved came from the southern half of the
town." (p. 123) Again, Boyer/Nissenbaum??
1) witches age: middle; accuser's ages: younger generation
2) witches were deviants
3) charges involved neighbors
"That there was a great deal of contentiousness among these people is
suggested by innumerable court cases from the period, dealing with
disputes about land, lost cattle, trespass, debt, and so forth. Most
men seem to have felt that the New World offered them a unique
opportunity to increase their properties, and this may have served to
heighten competitive feelings and pressures."
OK, court cases might just be that is the standard way of negotiating,
and this generation had to negotitate a lot, cf: Powell. (Then again,
maybe Puritans are a self-selected genetically vitriolic people--they
left England after all!!)
"First and definitely foremost in the minds of most New Englanders was
the idea that witches gave free rein to a whole gamut of hostile
aggressive feelings. "
"Another important facet of the lives of witches was their activity in
company with each other." (p. 126) (Well, duh--would 17th cent. NEs
have done other than congregate!?)
aggressive impulses, (and covetousness), not libidinal ones
also projection (cf. Boyer/Nissenbaum)
he then proceeds to discuss orality but really he sounds like he is NOT
re: other cultures:
"They report that witchcraft belief is powerfully correlated with the
training a society imposes on young children in regard to the control
of aggressive impulses. That is, wherever this training is severe and
restrictive, there is a strong likelihood that the culture will make
much of witchcraft." (p. 130)
And then he wanders off into breastfeeding again...oy!
The accusers were especially sensitive and pushed over the line into
pathology but "their behavior clearly struck an answering chord in a
much larger group of people." (p. 133)
What post-settler generation was this? Pop. pressure?
Hmm...maybe Salem looms large because humans, at least western
post-18th cent. humans, are fascinated with scary things! We just keep
writing about it and writing about it, and one idea sparks another...or
maybe guys are fascinated when women go berserk...)
Three reviews of Jane Kamenshy's Governing
the Tongue: The Politics of Speech in Early New England. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
1) Bailey, Richard "The Clapper of the Devil's Bell in Early America" American Speech, Vol. 74, No. 4,
Puritans enacted Deuteronomy: filial rebellion is a capital crime,
though no one was killed and few tried. Deference rules, but if the
Calvinist belief means all have "equal access to divine truth" then all
Public repentance included repeating the offending speech!
Witchspeak: words meant to do harm
We continue wrestling with the same difficulties: "disputes persist
about words as deeds and words as mere air"
Bailey concludes with the usual scholarly "we know about this, why
don't those historians, but maybe we should investigate this historical
time period more closely"
2) Hall, David D, review in The Journal of American History, Sept.
1999, p. 754-755
"The people of the seventeenthcentury Mass. regarded speech, or the
spoken word, as the foundational means by which God revealed himself to
mankind." yet speech has its dark subversive underside, hence the
desire to regulate it.
Kamensky focuses on three episodes: initial decade of settlement,
restlessness of second generation youth which coincides with Quaker
challenge to orthodoxy, and Salem.
Concluding chapter: transition to 18th century indifference
He doesn't buy her argument that women's speech was especially
3) Gustafson, Sandra in The
William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 56, No. 3, 671-672
The colonies proscribed speech while trying to free it to be more
(Here's an example of adaptation in new world environment!)
"Massachusetts Puritans believed that violent words, repeated within
the context of an officially controlled performance, could heal the
breach that they created." (p. 672)
However, women who spoke with authoritative accents were likely to be
punished (Anne Hutchinson, witches)
Kamensky argues that the Salem witchcraft crisis, coinciding with the
loss of the colony's charter and the imposition of the common law,
effectively dismantled the Puritan system of speech regulation. The
spoken word lost power in the process." (p. 672)