Explaining the Salem Witch Trials
MODERN HISTORY STUDENTS:
I have a bunch of scans that for some reason won't upload here. Please use the suggest a Book form under Books and Stuff tab to contact me and I'll send them straight to your email!
I have a bunch of scans that for some reason won't upload here. Please use the suggest a Book form under Books and Stuff tab to contact me and I'll send them straight to your email!
If you choose this topic for a research project PLEASE come and talk to me - I've done quite a lot of research in this area, and most stuff you find online isn't very accurate.
There are lots of different theories that explain the Salem Witch Trials. The most import include:
Feminist - the most obvious and most commonly cited - Most witches tried across Europe and America were women, so it's often construed as a misogynist event. However, men were killed too - in some areas, more men than women were killed - and the majority of accusers were also women. The problem is less about gender than about the stereotypes of female behaviour and the role of gossip.
Scientific - The oft-told story about herbalists being accused as witches by early modern (cause this is NOT medieval!) medical practitioners, doesn't really stand up to scrutiny cause hardly any accused witches were actually herbalists, and plenty of herbalists were not accused. This is especially the case in Salem. Instead, think of what a fever can do to your brain.
Back before refrigeration and supermarkets, people had to save all their autumn harvest and that was pretty much all they had to eat until the next year's harvest. This meant that important staples like wheat (for making bread) sat around for the better part of the year. If the wheat got too humid it would grow a mould called ergot, which is a dangerous kind of mould for humans (as opposed to many cheese moulds which are ok or even beneficial to eat - think Blue Vein cheese). One of the symptoms of ergot poisoning is hallucinations, so you can imagine what might happen to a community after a very damp winter.
Psychological - think about when one person in your class sees a cockroach and then everyone starts screaming and getting agitated about it ;now imagine that the thing they saw was a devil. One of the explanations views the Salem events as an example of mass hysteria - with victims and accusers all getting into a big scary emotional event that keeps escalating. Another says the girls were just trying get attention and it backfired badly, then they got trapped in their own narratives.
Religious - the other very common explanation. Christians of this time believed in a real live physical devil who they thought could appear to selective victims and make promises in return for their souls. They were really scared that the devil possess them and/or that the possessed people would ruin their community. Having a fit at the idea of meeting the devil makes a lot more sense if you understand this background.
It has been hypothesised that witches conducted secret ritual where they ate things like hallucinogenic mushrooms (the red ones with white polka dots you see in fairy tales which can kills you) and therefore imagined they were flying. While it's possible that bad mushrooms could have been a problem, it's very unlikely that this was a key cause because paganism had been stamped out for centuries. Pagan rites were virtually non-existent in Europe at the time, but elements of African religions were brought to America with slaves. If you are interested in this argument, you might choose to focus on Tituba's role in the trials.
Another religious explanation explores that idea that churches created common enemies to unite their congregations against other churches. This is more useful as a theory to explain the European witch trials than the Salem witch trials because it relates to the time when the full impact of he reformation (protestant vs Catholic) was becoming clear at all levels of society. History Today has an article about this theory.
Marxist - a lesser known explanation - Marx was a theorist who wanted to create equality between different social classes. If you look at the geography of Salem and where the accusers and accused lived you'll see what could be viewed as evidence of class oppression. Find out what happened to a witches possessions (and land) after they were tried.
Primary Sources
The University of Virginia has all the primary sources you could want - especially all the legal documents at the Salem Witchcraft Papers. decide whose stories you want to tell before going into this archive cause it's gigantic.
One of the most ridiculously influential books about witchcraft was the Malleus Mallicarfum, which gave symptoms of witchcraft for readers to look for, told frightening stories about what witches did and specified means of eliciting confessions and details of punishments. There are also lots of woodcuts (an early form of printing pictures) from the early modern period that demonstrate some of the most common attitudes and ideas about withcraft, including illustrations of witches sabbaths, magic spells and executions. Many of these pictures come from popular books and news sheets, so they can be seen as representing common attitudes of the day. |
Secondary Sources
I have hard copies of some of these books and articles. Contact me it that works better for you!
Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England - the chapter called "the function of witchcraft" will help you understand how the trials helped to maintain order in a very specific kind of society, including the function of public trials and executions in maintaining a community-based rather than individualistic society.
"Word Witches and woman Trouble: Witchcraft, Disorderly Speech, and Gender boundaries in Puritan New England and The devil in the shape of a woman give a much better feminist analysis than most stuff you find on line because the first looks at the way the accused women defied their social role and the second looks at how this relates to the Puritan religious experience (chapter 4 "Handmaidens of the Devil" is very good for this), rather than just setting up a men vs women dichotomy.
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Boyer and Nissenbaum) does just what the title suggests. Chapter 4 is especially useful if you're taking a Marxist or economic interpretation of the events.
The Devil in Massechusetts - Starkey's books is a more narrative history, ascribing all kinds of emotions and psychological motivations to the characters and may be worth looking at from a historiological perspective. Ch 1-3 are also valuable if you're trying to explain teenage reactions from a psychological viewpoint, and ch 4 is all about the Black servant Tituba's role which might be useful from a religious perspective or if you're looking at racism in the social interpretations.
Curse, maleficium, divination: witchcraft on the borderline of religion and magic may be useful if you're looking at the magical elements
Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England - the chapter called "the function of witchcraft" will help you understand how the trials helped to maintain order in a very specific kind of society, including the function of public trials and executions in maintaining a community-based rather than individualistic society.
"Word Witches and woman Trouble: Witchcraft, Disorderly Speech, and Gender boundaries in Puritan New England and The devil in the shape of a woman give a much better feminist analysis than most stuff you find on line because the first looks at the way the accused women defied their social role and the second looks at how this relates to the Puritan religious experience (chapter 4 "Handmaidens of the Devil" is very good for this), rather than just setting up a men vs women dichotomy.
Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Boyer and Nissenbaum) does just what the title suggests. Chapter 4 is especially useful if you're taking a Marxist or economic interpretation of the events.
The Devil in Massechusetts - Starkey's books is a more narrative history, ascribing all kinds of emotions and psychological motivations to the characters and may be worth looking at from a historiological perspective. Ch 1-3 are also valuable if you're trying to explain teenage reactions from a psychological viewpoint, and ch 4 is all about the Black servant Tituba's role which might be useful from a religious perspective or if you're looking at racism in the social interpretations.
Curse, maleficium, divination: witchcraft on the borderline of religion and magic may be useful if you're looking at the magical elements