Study On The Salem Witchcraft Crisis History Essay

Study On The Salem witchcraft Crisis History EssayThe Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 represents a low point in the history of colonial in the raw England. There have a variety of interpretations crafted in an effort to explain the rise of this consummation of crisis. Some interpretations blame ergot poisoning or an outbreak of encephalitis as the primary causes of the SajgmJWitchcraft Crisis.1 Other historians have argued that it was the social and political discordance among the men of Salem that engineered the rise of the Salem witchcraft calamity.2 Mary Beth Norton, in her bat In The Devils Snare, offers a significant departure from the current historiography of the Salem witch craft crisis. Norton argues that the Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 can altogether be understood by examining the military conflict between the English settlers and the New England Native Americans which occurred for the break up part of two decades. The author is quick to note that the military co nflicts did not cause the crisis that befell Salem rather, these conflicts created the dower that enabled the events in Salem to develop as quickly and as completely as they did.4In evolution her thesis, Norton presents her interpretation in a chronological fashion focusing primarily on the events swirling out of pieceoeuvre in Essex County, Massachusetts in the early 1690s.5 Not only does Norton make the consociate between the turn up military conflicts of the settlers and the natives with the ongoing witchcraft crisis, she also discusses a myriad of other topics. Norton through the course of her work examines the change of the Salem Witchcraft Crisis over time, the unique elements inherent to the Salem Witchcraft Crisis, and she also provides an historical look at the runner and second Indian wars.6 In order for Norton to engage in an nimble discourse of these aforementioned topics she uses a generous amount of journal articles, secondary source materials, and primary sou rces. She draws upon such secondary source works as Salem-Village Witchcraft, and A Quest For Security The Life of Samuel Paris The1 Mary Beth Norton, In The Devils Snare (New York Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p.4.2 Norton, Devils Snare, p.4.J Norton, Devils Snare, pp.5,12.4 Norton, Devils Snare, p.298.5 Norton, Devils Snare, p.7.6 Norton, Devils Snare, pp.6,8,11.Sermon notebook of Samuel Paris, 1689-1694, and Cotton Mathers Wonders Of The Invisible World are among the primary source materials that are used by Norton. By understanding Nortons thesis, viewing the various topics addressed in this work, and the sources used to construct this interpretation one essential consider the main points Norton brings up in support of her thesis.The lives of two New England women, and a household hard worker were irrevocably altered on February 25, 1692. Upon that very day Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and a buckle down named Tituba were accused of being lay eyes on to Satan, and in his employ as witches. Of the trine women that were accused of witchcraft, Norton argues, it is the charges against Tituba that are the most significant.7 The racial identity of Tituba, Norton notes, compete a decisive role in her joining both Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne among the first of the accused. Historians have debated as to whether Tituba was an African or even a half-African slave, but Norton explains that in the surviving records related to this event villagers ordinarily referred to Tituba as Tituba Indian or theoIndian woman. This racial connection between Tituba, as an Indian, displace her within a similar vein of hatred that was solely reserved for the New England Native Americans by the settlers of Essex County, and ultimately elsewhere in the New England colonies.9 Norton notes the significant timing of this accusation of witchcraft against an Indian slaveLess than a month after the devastating raid on York and following more than three years of unrelenting frontier warfare. . .the first person identified as a witch in the crisis of 1692 was someone known to all primarily as an Indian. . . .The accusers thus named a woman with whom they were intimately acquainted, and who could be pull inn as representing the people who were then tormenting New England as a whole.10The accusation of Tituba was to send in doing a calamity, Norton argues, that was to be inextricably linked with the violence between the English settlers and the New England Native Americans.117 Norton, Devils Snare, p.21.8 Norton, Devils Snare, p.21.9 Norton, Devils Snare, p.21.10 Norton, Devils Snare, p.21.11 Norton, Devils Snare, p.21.The accusation brought against the Indian slave Tituba unleashed a torrent of witchcraft accusations throughout Essex County. Another woman, Martha Corey, was accused on establish 18,1692. Corey, through the course of her examination on March 21, was to further link the witchcraft crisis in Essex County to the ongoing violence with the Native Americans. M artha Coreys examination added the figure of the religious black man.12 The spectral black man was witnessed by one Coreys accusers, Abigail Williams, who stated, There is a black man whispering in Martha Coreys ear.1 Norton explains that the term black man was generally employed interchangeably with Indian during this period in New England, as a means of addressing the native people of New England.14 It is Cotton Mather in his work Wonders of the Invisible World who makes the connection absolutely explicit, The Black Man. . .they the confessing witches and accusers generally say he resembles an Indian.15 It is nonchalantly remarked by Norton that such an association between Indians this black man and Satan would not have been affect to the residents of Essex CountyEnglish settlers. . .had long regarded North Americas indigenous residents as devil worshippers. . . .Puritan New Englanders. . .were particularly inclined to see themselves as antagonists of the devilish Indians.1Marth a Coreys fraternization with a spectral black man implied a direct hamper between Satan and the Native Americans of New England.17 The frequent references by confessors and those afflicted by witchcraft proven to establish an illicit connection between the witchcraft crisis of Salem and the ongoing military conflicts with Native Americans.The link between the witchcraft crisis and the military conflicts between the18Native Americans was made absolutely blank by the confession of Abigail Hobbs. On April 19, 1692 Abigail Hobbs confessed. Through the course of her examination, Hobbs12 Norton, Devils Snare, p.58. lj Norton, Devils Snare, p.58.14 Norton, Devils Snare, p.58.15 Norton, Devils Snare, pp.58-59.16 Norton, Devils Snare, p.59.17 Norton, Devils Snare, p.59.18 Norton, Devils Snare, p.81.admitted to having met the devil on the Maine frontier in 1688.iy During her time in Maine Hobbs stated that she encountered the devil in the woods near her home in Falmouth, Maine, which was o ne of the main areas attacked by the Native Americans in both the first and second Indian wars.20 To any who were present at this examination on April 19 the connection was clear Satan and their Native American nemesis were aligned in a covenant to utterly demolish the goodly Christians of New England.Abigail Hobbs confession of having secured a pact with Satan in the woods ofFalmouth. Maine left the residents of Essex County emotionally and spiritually shaken.Norton notes two specific events that demonstrate how deeply ingrained this connection between Satan and the New England Native Americans was in the collective psyche ofthe colonistIn mid July of 1692 the port town of Gloucester many an(prenominal) residents were convinced that their beloved town would soon be descended upon by the natives and their detested French allies. The Babson family was among the first to sample ominous sounds around their home almost every night in mid July. Ebenezer Babson and his family reported forever and a day heard, at night, men fleeing into the shadows discussing a plot to invade Gloucester. Norton explains that Ebenezer at one point thought, that he aphorism two Frenchmen. . .and at other times, he and others believed they spotted Indians.23 After these encounters for a period of two weeks the reserves of Gloucester had occasional encounters with spectral assailants who seemed to melt into the shadowy confines of the Gloucester wood. On July 18, with the injection of some sixty militia men from Ipswich and after another week of sightings, caused the people to conclude that their shadowy tormentors were only figments of their imagination.24 This incident of a large scale case mass hysteria clearly shows the extent of the fear caused by the new connection between the witchcraft crisis and the conflict with the Native Americans in New England.19 Norton, Devils Snare, p.81.20 Norton, Devils Snare, p.81.21 Norton, Devils Snare, p.297.22 Norton, Devils Snare, p.232-233. 23 Norton, Devils Snare, p.232.24 Norton, Devils Snare, p.232.