How would you explain the outbreak of witch persecution in New England towards the end of the 17th Century?

AS and A Level English

How would you explain the outbreak of witch persecution in New England towards the end of the 17th century?

Witch persecution was not new to New England in the late 17th century but it had

never been so popular in earlier years. There were several factors that contributed to

the sudden surge in accusations of witchcraft at this time; these were made up of a

combination of social changes, economic conditions and more importantly, the timing

in which they all happened.

The most prominent example of witch persecution happened in the village of Salem,

New England in 1692 when three young girls became sick and delusional. As the

doctor, William Griggs, found no cure for these complaints he suggested that the

problems might be of supernatural derivation, sparking the witch-hunt.

A recently published book by Cotton Mathers named ‘Memorable Providences’,

which talked of the supposed witchcraft of an Irishwoman, had described the

symptoms of the afflicted; the girls’ actions were remarkably similar. The book was

widely read and commonly debated upon, making it all the more believable.

Undoubtedly it was the recent local history of Salem that was at the root of the

accusations; the loss of the Massachusetts Charter in 1686 deprived the Puritans of

‘their lock on the colony’s government’. This caused legal insecurity and great

distress to all the colonies, it was not until 1691 that a new charter was obtained for

Massachusetts and even then it was very different from the previous charter. No

longer was political participation reserved for members of the church, now it was

changed to the more English property qualification method. The desire for a godly

New England seemed to be slipping away.

These social changes endangered the ideology of the predominantly Puritan

population in Salem; any alteration to their way of life was feared. The people

believed in the Devil as enthusiastically as they believed in God and bad fortune of

any type, from children becoming sick to dryness befalling milking-cows, was seen as

a sign that the Devil was at work. The hysteria surrounding the witchcraft scare was,

in some part at least, religious. However, the trials were organized by the community

rather than by the church.

The accusations occurred in a situation of fear and uncertainty; the drought of 1691

and the floods of 1692 had unsettled the villagers who relied heavily upon ...

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believed in the Devil as enthusiastically as they believed in God and bad fortune of

any type, from children becoming sick to dryness befalling milking-cows, was seen as

a sign that the Devil was at work. The hysteria surrounding the witchcraft scare was,

in some part at least, religious. However, the trials were organized by the community

rather than by the church.

The accusations occurred in a situation of fear and uncertainty; the drought of 1691

and the floods of 1692 had unsettled the villagers who relied heavily upon farming to

support themselves. Also there had been a recent small pox epidemic causing added

burden to the villagers. On the other hand Salem Town could weather the storm, this

conjured feelings of resentment and jealousy with the villagers. This just added to the

unrest already felt due to the villagers desire for autonomy. They had wanted

independence from Salem Town for some time and although they had been given

permission to ordain the first minister in 1672, they remained politically dependent.

War also had its effects on the inhabitants of New England.

‘In 1690 New England had allied with New York in a combined campaign against New France, a disastrous failure that had contributed to the

economic ruin of British America.’

With an Indian war raging only 70 miles away and the internal conflicts within Salem

itself it seemed plausible that the Devil was close by.

Salem was divided into two separate parts, Salem Village and Salem Town, but they

were set apart by both economy and class. In the prosperous port town lived the

wealthy merchants with their rich, expanding markets; in the village lived the poorer

farmers who struggled to make ends meet. This was a cause of many jealousies.

As well as this there was a split within Salem Village itself; the eastern part consisted

of flat meadows ideal for farming, it was close to the Ipswich Road and waterways so

it was easy to supply the town with food, hence gaining both economic and political

power. The residents there became Blacksmiths, Carpenters and Innkeepers; they

enjoyed an affluent life. The western part of the village was hindered with hills,

marshes and rocky terrain not ideal for farming; it was rather isolated which

prevented any involvement in the town market. People who lived there felt that the

way their eastern counterparts thrived threatened their Puritan way of life.

Congregational strife in the western part of Salem village was worsening with time;

the tools the farmers worked with were very primitive and with each generation the

farms became ever smaller as they were divided between the sons. This built on the

long-standing jealousy strongly felt, and was undeniably an important factor in the

outbreak of witch accusations.

When Reverend Samuel Parris became the new minister in Salem village in 1692 he

strongly denounced the flourishing economic status of Salem Town as the influence

of the Devil, this increased the conflict between these two factions. This may well

have been the final instigator, which saw the eruption of witch persecution.

People who supported Parris mostly came from the poor half of Salem village and,

unsurprisingly, were instrumental in the witch trials.

There was an established feud between the Putnam and the Porter families deriving

from political prominence, the Porter family were from the eastern part of the village

and had become recently influential whereas the Putnam family lived in the west and

had, in the past, been powerful. These two families were at the heart of the witch trials

as more than a third of the accusations came from the Putnam clan, although they

were aimed at people with a high social standing rather than directly at the Porters.

This is significant as most of the people accused of witchcraft lived in the eastern

plots and the accusers resided mainly in the western farms. This has led some to argue

that long-festering local feuds and property disputes played a part in the prosecutions.

With one half of Salem becoming wealthy whilst the other half faced certain decline it

appeared a way of not only exorcising guilt and rage but also bringing the successful

into disrepute.

Salem does not reflect other witch trials in that a normal neighbourly quarrel wouldn’t

result in an accusation, since most of the defences came from the eastern half of

Salem village. People seemed to heed social status before the ‘evil’ reputation of a

witch.

Woman seemed to bear the brunt of this; almost all the people accused of being

witches were woman and the men who were indicted were linked with or supported

them. It was noted by Tindall and Shi that

‘Many of the accused women, it turns out, had in some way defied the traditional roles assigned to females. Some had engaged in business transactions outside the home; others did not attend church; some were curmudgeons.’

Most of the women were middle-aged or older so could no longer bear children, this

was seen as a woman’s primary role in 17th Century New England. Coupled with this,

the majority also had no brothers or sons so stood to inherit property and live as an

independent woman who could maybe even vote. The idea that a woman could live

autonomously wasn’t socially accepted in Salem at that time.

Others were associated with the supernatural in their daily lives, such as fortune-

tellers, the first woman to be accused had told voodoo stories to the first ‘victim’.

Another important aspect was that, often, the accusers did not know the accused

particularly well. In many circumstances it seems that misfortune would befall

someone who had been uncharitable to a neighbour so in order to prevent any feelings

of guilt (which plagued Puritans who felt they weren’t living in Christian way), and to

find a reason for their calamity, they would suggest witchcraft as the cause.

A considerable proportion of the indicted were mobile and not originally from Salem

village, therefore had few friends to defend them. This pattern is a clear indication

that the irregular social dynamics of Salem contributed to the hysteria surrounding

witchcraft.

It cannot be ignored that the accusations of witchcraft developed from the tales of

adolescent girls. It has been argued that this phenomenon was nothing more than their

over-active imaginations, intended to enlighten their otherwise dreary daily routine.

The outbreak of witch persecution owed its subsistence to many united factors. The

combination of a frontier war, the unstable economic conditions, faction strife and

envies together with the consequences of adolescent imagination all occurring at the

same time resulted in this regrettable tragedy. It seems that the internal conflict within

Salem itself needed a way to be played out, and ultimately the product of this was the

ensuing witch-hunt.

Bibliography

Conlin, Joseph. R., The American Past A Brief History, Third Edition (Harcourt Brace Jonanovich, Inc., 1991)

Jenkins, Philip, A History of The United States, (Macmillan Press Ltd. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, 1997)

Maurois, Andre, A History of the United States, (England, 1948)

Tindall, George. Brown, & Shi, David. E., America A Narrative History, Fifth Edition, (W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London, WC1A 1PU, 1999)

Jenkins, Philip, A History of the United States, p24

America A Narrative History, p 142