I’ve heard multiple theories that the witch hysteria was a convenient excuse for people who wanted to get revenge on neighbors or to take away their wealth, and that no one really believed that there were witches but just used the accusations in an opportunistic way. This seems to belie the other common theory that some sort of fungus (ergot, I believe) was making them all crazy and preconditioned them to truly believe that humans were causing misfortune through supernatural means.
So that leaves me wondering if it’s believed by historic scholars that the people of Salem genuinely thought that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft, or is it believed that witches were merely an handy way of besmirching unpopular people? Which theory has a plurality: the witches were “real,” or they were an excuse to cover reprehensible behavior?
Belief in the possibility of human neighbors practicing witchcraft was certainly real, though not every person alive at the time believed in it equally. There may have been other things going on that played into people’s willingness to credit those particular accusations with those particular people. I recommend Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692 by Richard Godbeer as a nice window into the time period. It’s about a neighboring town that acquitted all of its accused witches, instead.
generic terms for specific events do not promote a better understanding of the subject. Majority of accusations were not done by “people”, they were done by a small group of teenage or pre-teenage girls who did not stand to gain any wealth from it. And of course expressing public doubts in the validity of such accusations had its risks - they could and did easily accuse the dissenters next. Property of people executed was confiscated by the government.
A prominent contemporary viewpoint on the matter was that yes, the girls were bewitched but no, their accusations were not valid but rather they saw illusions intended to falsely accuse normal people (pious Christians, if you will) in order to subvert society and religion. Sort of along the lines of, don’t listen to mentally ill people’s explanations of what makes them mentally ill, especially since the underlying cause was understood as intelligent beings (witches, devil) rather than a disease.
According to historian Brian Levack you need three things for a large scale witch hunt.
#1. A belief in diabolism (people making deals with the devil) #2. A belief in maleficium (the efficacy of harmful magic) #3. Inquisitorial justice system (where the court is actively investigating the facts of a case)
All of these things were present in and around Salem in the 1690s. I am inclined to think that the folks in Salem Village and the surrounding area did believe that there were really witches in the area causing problems. Of course a few years later I suspect that most of them realized they made some terrible mistakes as most of the accused and executed were exonerated.
That’s a possibility though I don’t know if it was a conscious decision on the part of the accusers.
Ergot poisoning was a real popular theory in the 60s and 70s but isn’t such a popular theory these days. Modern historians like to find logical reasons for behavior we don’t fully understand. It’s easier to explain Hildegard of Bingen’s (12th century) visions as the side affect of migraines because it’s something we can easily understand today.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive and the recent history on the subject presents a more complicated narrative of Salem Village then most of us got growing up or watching the history channel. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian Levack is a pretty good place to look for recent sources on the Salem witch trials as well as giving you a really good overview of European beliefs about the subject from 1450-1750. While it isn’t the definitive book on the topic, Levack wrote a very balanced book and cites the work of scholars other than himself.
There wouldn’t have been a large pre-existing legal system for trying witches if people hadn’t believed witches were real. But human nature being what it was, “evidence” of witchcraft was a lot easier to find in somebody you already disliked. I think the accusers convinced themselves that what they were saying was true.
I see this as support of what I wrote above. If the accusers had intentionally made false accusations, they would have known at the time that the people they were accusing were innocent. It’s unlikely then that they would have later expressed remorse.
You may be right. Ann Putnam, one of the teenage accusers, apologized for her actions when she became an adult. Of course she said it was Satan who deceived her into making those accusations.
Um…
FRE 803(16) (exceptions to the hearsay rule): Statements in ancient documents. Statements in a document in existence twenty years or more the authenticity of which is established.
And (18) Learned treatises. To the extent called to the attention of an expert witness upon cross-examination or relied upon by the expert witness in direct examination, statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets on a subject of history, medicine, or other science or art, established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness or by other expert testimony or by judicial notice. If admitted, the statements may be read into evidence but may not be received as exhibits.
Looking at modern witchcraft situations, it’s pretty obvious that accusations are related to social tensions. For example, when I lived in Cameroon we had a rash of “tomber-tomber,” where high school girls would go into fits, presumably from witchcraft. The interesting thing was that all the girls were from the north of the country and all the accused spell casters were from the south.
Now, people really did believe that these girls were bewitched. And the “evil southerners” theory was one that made a lot of sense to them. They were probably not just cynically using witchcraft as an excuse to settle scores. But the fact that those social tensions were there probably meant that any witchcraft accusations would erupt along those lines. And likewise, it’s not improbable that these social rifts could lead to accusations of witchcraft.
The accusers may have convinced themselves along the way that they were really bewitched, but it must be remembered that this whole thing started out as some teenage girls trying to get out of being punished.
The girls were playing fortune telling games, not unlike the “I believe in Mary Worth,” stuff that goes on at slumber parties even today. When the town minister caught his own daughters fooling with such stuff, they were in big, BIG trouble. So of course they blamed their slave Tituba, and that scary old beggar woman, Sarah Goode, and…and… It just went on from there.
Samuel Parris was a lousy parent not to see through the whole thing immediately. “Not my kids! They’d never do something like that!” Sound familiar?
But you’re apparently saying that their thoughts were something like, “I’m in big trouble now. Dad’s going to ground me for a month. Wait a sec…I’ll just say Satan made me do it. Dad’ll buy that.”
My belief is that their thoughts were more like, “What hath I done? How could I hath been ensnared in such diabolical practices? Diabolical…why surely that is it. The Prince of Lies must have entered my heart and led me astray.”
People believed in Satan back then. They figured he was an active presense waiting to attack. They didn’t have any modern notion of things like the sub-conscious mind. So a teenage girl caught practicing magic could honestly believe that Satan was a rational explanation for her behavior.
The Salem Witchcraft Trial were an interesting mix of causes. But there were people practicing folk magic, without a doubt – there have been several books on the topic. The one I first read was Chadwick W. Hansen’s Witchcraft in Salem, where he provides ample evidence of evident practices, and of people’s beliefs as well. Others have written about it since.
On the other hand, I serious doubt that the kind of witchcraft people seemed to ythink was taking place actually was. – No pact-with-the-devil stuff (which really was suspected), and no one trying to curse someone else fatally.
on the other hand, the girls really do seem to have been afflicted with something. The descriptions of their afflictions goes far beyond them simply being wild-eyed and screaming – the accounts speak of them being contorted into odd positions so tightly that strong men couldn’t undo them, or of their stomacjhs swelling up, and other physical extremes. There were times when some girls were, indeed, shown to be “faking it”, but other times it’s very hard to believe it wasn’t in earnest. In addition, there are reports from townspeople (not accused, or of the group of afflicted girls) that seem to be hallucinations.
Exactly what was going on to precipitate this isn’t clear. There was enormous social tension in the village – read Boyer and Nissenbaum’s Salem Possessed for a rundown of it all. It’s notable that the accusers and accused were from different sides of town, in general, and the split was also along rich/poor, government supporter/against, etc. There was no end of petty lawsuits between the two sides. But I doubt if anythimng as blatant as one side pretending witchcraft against the other is present. (That’s the positiojn of the Revend Samuel Wenrworth Upham, whose book on the top was for yeasrs the standard history – and is still in print from Dover)
Hansen compared the descriptions of the afflicted girls with those of Charcot’s 19th century hysterics, and concluded thaat the girls were hysterical (in the clinical sense). More recently people suggested hallucinatory ergotism, due to fungus growths on the grain. I don’t know what precipitated the crisis, but it was undoubtedly kept going by an extremely unwise legal decision to accept the validity of “spectral evidence” – something the town of Salem itself realized, but only after it had executed 19 people.
Read accounts of the trials and tell me what you think (Hansen, among others, recounts them). A number of them are by people who have no obvioua reason to lie (that is, not by the girls, the accusers, or the accused). If you accept that people are recountinbg what they believe they saw you can understand the (non clinical) hysteria that gripped the village. But I do not believe it was all a put-on in the name of a power grab.
There is a good reason that we call modern-day moral panics – about communists, juvenile delinquents, hipies, Satanists, and pedophiles (a roughly chronological listing) – “witch hunts”.
But the girls didn’t actually blame Satan. They blamed other people, in order to deflect the blame from themselves. Humans are very much alike in their reactions, now or four hundred years ago.
The punishments the girls were facing were no doubt much more dire than grounding for a month. Witchcraft could lead to a death sentence, and fortune telling was considered, especially among Puritan types, flirting with the diabolic.
Once the blame game got started, it became impossible to stop, and these girls must’ve been actresses of Oscar calibre. Of course, if I could get out of being pressed by heavy stones by twisting up like a human pretzel and screaming my head off, I’d probably twist and shout too. (Shake it up baby!)
It’s been linked to the Salem witch hysteria, too. Jay Ingram has a chapter about ergotism and the Salem witch trials in his book “The Barmaid’s Brain” – a great book, if you ever get a chance to read it.