Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft

Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft is an academic work focusing on the Salem witch trials. First published by Harvard University Press in 1974, the book offers an alternative explanation for the phenomenon of witch hysteria and its special relevance to the town of Salem, Massachusetts. The book was well-received by critics for its unique approach to this familiar material. It falls into the nonfiction categories of popular culture, social sciences, and U.S. history of the colonial period.

Author Paul Boyer, now deceased, was the Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He wrote a number of other volumes covering various stages of American history. Co-author Stephen Nissenbaum is a cultural historian.

The book covers the 1640s to the early eighteenth century with particular emphasis on the period of the witch trials from autumn 1691 through summer 1692. All the events described take place in Salem Village, and the material is presented using third-person narration. Although the tone is scholarly and academic, the book is accessible to a general reading audience.

The authors state as their purpose a desire to understand the witch hysteria that erupted in Salem in the fall of 1691 and resulted in the execution of twenty people before dying out the following summer. They contend that the witchcraft crisis in Salem could not have occurred anywhere else in colonial America. To prove this theory, the authors explore the themes of Puritan religious ideology, the threat presented by a changing world outside the borders of the village, and the battle between traditional agriculturalists and the emerging merchant class.

The authors contend that Salem Village possessed characteristics that distinguished it from Salem Town, to which it was annexed. They launch their case for the uniqueness of the location by examining the demographics of the Village at the time of the witch trials and find an unusual pattern within it. All the accusers lived on the west side of the Village, while all the accused witches resided on the east side or beyond the borders of the Village.

The authors explain this anomaly by focusing on the different occupations practiced by westerners and easterners. The western Village was populated entirely by agriculturalists. The eastern half contained farmers who were increasingly involving themselves in commercial ventures with the merchant class in Salem Town. The financial interests of the two groups diverged radically. The western farmers were agitating for political independence from the Town because of its onerous tax burden and its power to keep the Village from expanding westward to acquire better farmland.

In a move that presaged independence, the Village hired its own minister so they would not have to attend the services provided in the distant Town. This new minister, Samuel Parris, identified strongly with the agrarians of the west Village and despised the merchants of the Town and their allies in the east Village. His fiery sermons alienated some and attracted others. Two groups soon coalesced around the figure of the new minister and became known as the pro-Parris and anti-Parris factions. What might have remained a simple rivalry soon attained a cosmic dimension of good versus evil thanks to the intrusion of Reverend Parris. The authors write, “What is unique about our story is the lethal convergence of a man and a community in whom, and in which, these conflicts were already independently raging” (178).

The staunchest of the Parris supporters was the Putnam family, and it was in the Putnam household that witch hysteria began. Shortly afterward, accusations began flying from west to east, temporarily disabling the political influence of the anti-Parris faction. Less than a year later, twenty accused witches had been executed, and hundreds of others were under arrest. In spite of the efforts of the western villagers to exorcise their local demons, they came to realize that their way of life would inevitably give way to commerce and that no agrarian paradise would ever be proof against the devil that leads the march of progress.

All page number citations are taken from the Kindle edition of this book.