American History To 1887

Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's Salem Possessed explores the preexisting social and economic divisions within the Salem Village community, as
an entry point to understand the accusations of witchcraft in 1692. According
to Boyer and Nissenbaum, the village split into two factions: one interested in
gaining more autonomy for Salem Village and led by the Putnam family, and
the other, interested in the mercantile and political life of Salem Town and led
by the Porter family. Boyer and Nissenbaum's deft and imaginative look at
local records reveals the contours of communal life in colonial New England
and provides a model through which to understand the witchcraft accusations
as part of a larger pattern of communal strife. Such a tight focus on communal
and social causes for the events of 1692, however, loses sight of the religious,
gendered, and individual forces that played equally pivotal roles in the
outbreak.
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's Salem Possessed: The Social Origins
of Witchcraft redefined the standard for the possibilities social history offers to
understand the events and people of early America. Through a painstaking
and creative 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 village long before 1692. At bottom,
geography and history divided Salem Village and Salem Town. Situated in the
interior from the bustling mercantile town of Salem, Salem Village remained
primarily an agricultural community. Boyer and Nissenbaum argue that this
polarization of 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 and
consequently supported the village minister, Samuel Parris, and the drive for

greater autonomy from Salem Town. The opposing faction, led by the Porter
family, identified itself with the mercantile town, near which most of the Porter
faction lived. In opposition to the Putnam faction, the Porters opposed the
minister and wanted greater association with the town of Salem. The bitter and
contentious disputes between the two factions within Salem Village both
before and after the witchcraft outbreak, demonstrate a pattern of communal
conflict which transcended the events of 1692.
These same fault-lines, according to Boyer and Nissenbaum, explain the
pattern of witchcraft accusations. The same villagers who stood with the
Putnams to support Parris and petition for an independent church for the
village, show up as complaints on witchcraft indictments in 1692. Similarly,
many of the accused witches in Salem belonged to the Porter faction or,
according to Boyer and Nissenbaum, represented the projection of the
grievances caused by such factionalism upon more obtainable targets like
Rebecca Nurse and Martha Cory. Through such a reconstruction of the
factional village of Salem, Boyer and Nissenbaum explain the Salem witchcraft
episode from within the larger history of the transformation to a modern
capitalist society, and the divisions and conflicts that naturally arose from this
change.
Boyer and Nissenbaum's intensive focus on the dynamics of Salem Village
blind them to other dynamics contributing to the witchcraft outbreak. Although
the outbreak originated in Salem Village, the majority of the accused hailed
from surrounding villages such as Andover, removed from the Putnam/Porter
disputes and known for its harmonious community life. As Bernard Rosenthal
points out, "the study stops short of inquiring into why the outbreak spread
throughout Massachusetts Bay and caught in its net people having nothing to
do with the quarrels of that particular village." The dynamics of village dispute
can help to explain the origin of the outbreak, but cannot explain why this
outbreak became an epidemic.
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. In his review of Salem Possessed, T.H. Breen
argues that 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. Writing forty-five years
before Boyer and Nissenbaum, Perry Miller believed that "I do not need to
demonstrate that belief in witchcraft was, for the seventeenth century, not only
plausible but scientifically rational," because in 1939 Miller believed that the
subject was well rehearsed. After the publication of Salem Possessed,
however, we could use such a rehearsal. Miller's work demonstrated the logic
of a Puritan theology which numbered witches and demonical presences as
among the punishments God could inflict upon his inattentive people. Taking
the theological and cosmological logic of the Puritans into account allows the
Salem outbreak to be understood in its own terms, rather than simply in terms
of economic rationalization and communal strife.
Any complete understanding of the Salem witchcraft accusations most also
attempt to explain why the vast majority of accused witches were women.
Carol Karlsen included Salem Possessed in her critique of histories of Salem
which, "note that witches were usually women, most works pass over the fact
quickly or conclude that witches were scapegoats for hostilities and tensions
that had little to do with sex or gender." Although the directions the
accusations took undoubtedly reflected pre-existing tensions within the
community, Karlsen argues that the accusations also reflected societal ideas
about women and the ways men reconciled changes in gender roles.
Although the intensity of Boyer and Nissenbaum's focus on Salem Village
obscured forces foundational to a complete understanding of the events of
1692, through Salem Possessed, in the words of one reviewer, "new stage in
our understanding of the dynamics of the processes of community
development and social conflicts has been reached." Boyer and Nissenbaum
help us to understand not only the ways in which the outbreak of accusations
in Salem was part of a larger pattern of communal conflict, but also serve to
warn us that the divisive powers such conflicts have the potential to instigate

modern witch hunts.