'Twas but a village then; the good man ploughed, His ample acres under sun or cloud; The good wife at her doorstop sat and spun And gossiped with her neighbor in the sun. The only men of dignity and state Were then the Minister and the Magistrate, Who ruled their little realm with iron rod, Less in the love, than in the fear of God. And who believed devoutly in the Powers Of Darkness, working in this world of ours, In spells of Witchcraft, incantations dread, and shrouded apparitions of the dead. And ye who listen to the Tale of Woe, Be not too swift in casting the first stone, Nor think New England bears the guilt alone This sudden burst of wickedness and crime Was but the common madness of the time When in all land, that lie within the sound Of Sabbath bells, a Witch was burned or drowned.
The poem shown above served to forever immortalize in history the events which have come to be called “The Salem Witchcraft Scare.” What happened in this sleepy, little village on the East coast of the United States in 1692? Why in the world would civilized, up-standing, God-fearing citizens suddenly go berserk and instigate a reign of terror that culminated in the hanging deaths of nineteen of their friends and neighbors? How can we explain such bizarre events? This paper will attempt to answer these questions, and hopefully, shed some light on one of the darkest moments in America's history.
During the research for this paper, a great deal of difficulty was encountered in identifying with any of the scholarly explanations presented in the work entitled, Retrieving the American Past. Each particular author seemed to believe that they, and they alone, had “discovered” the cause of the witchcraft scare.
In the first excerpt, co-authors, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, discussed the economic and political issues that contributed to the phenomenon, but entirely avoided the great amount of religious undertows, which prevailed during that period of history. Carol Karlsen, in the second selection, concentrated mainly on the gender issues of that time, and completely evaded the issue surrounding either the economic, political or, again, religious points involved. The character traits suggested by author, John Demos, were very informative, but as with the other authors, he did not provide a very convincing argument for his contention that these various traits were the causes of the problem.
Finally, Christine Hayrman suggested that the main problem dealt with religious differences between the various groups of people. However, since only a small number of Quakers were ever accused, this argument must be eliminated as the sole cause of the Salem Witchcraft Scare. None of the authors of the above-cited work mentioned the psychological backgrounds of the people of Salem, particularly the three girls embroiled in the midst of the hormone-raging stage of puberty, who began the entire fiasco.
Extensive research by this author into the events of that time period have uncovered that the events were evidently not caused by any one particular issue, but instead, were produced by a combination of economical, political, social, religious, and psychological conditions which surrounded that era of American history.
Prior to the events which occurred in 1692, Salem Village, with a population of nearly 600, was bitterly divided into two hostile camps. At its original founding, the town of Salem Village was part of the town of Salem. The village was granted limited legal status as “Salem Village” in 1672, but in many ways, it remained an undiminished part of its extremely affluent neighbor. Many of the residents of the village were content for this situation to remain as it was. However, another group, led by the forceful and wealthy Putnam family desired that the village become a separate entity. Since the central focus of any town at that time was the local house of worship, they endeavored to achieve their objective by the establishment of a separate church.
They succeeded in accomplishing this in 1689 under the ministry of Samuel Parris. The villagers, most of them quite wealthy, who had opposed the church's establishment, refused to unite with it. They proceeded to worship elsewhere and refused to support the association by withholding their local taxes and individual allotments of firewood for the minister's household.
Finally, in 1691, the opposing camp managed to oust the existing village committee, made up of Parris' friends, and elect a new committee consisting of his known enemies and rivals. This new committee steadfastly refused to support the new church and its minister.
The tensions, which pervaded the Parris household over the fear of losing financial security, as well as religious control, must have had quite an effect upon the impressionable children of that home. In fact, of the major instigators of the scare one was the daughter of Parris, a second was his niece, and a third was the daughter of his most loyal supporter. The allegations of these fancifully deluded children (who were at that time in their lives when hormones are raging out of control) opened up an entire Pandora's box of possibilities for Parris and his supporters to rid themselves of the opposing factions of the village. It is believed by many that Parris and his group knew full well what they were doing in the beginning, but that the situation managed, through ignorance and a sort of snowball effect, to escalate far beyond what Parris and the Putnams originally intended.
