Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692

Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture

by Bernard Rosenthal

Salem Story engages the story of the Salem witch trials through an analysis of the surviving primary documentation and juxtaposes that against the way in which our culture has mythologized the events of 1692. Salem Story examines a variety of individual motives that converged to precipitate the witch hunt. The book also examines subsequent mythologies that emerged from the events of 1692. Of the many assumptions about the Salem Witch Trials, the most persistent one remains that they were precipitated by a circle of hysterical girls. Through an analysis of what actually happened, through reading the primary material, the emerging story shows a different picture, one where "hysteria" inappropriately describes the events and where accusing males as well as females participated in strategies of accusation and confession that followed a logical, rational pattern.

Genres: History, Witches, Nonfiction

302 pages, Hardcover

First published October 29, 1993

About the author

Bernard Rosenthal is Professor Emeritus at Binghamton University where he specialized in American culture, literature and history. He is an internationally known scholar, formerly a Fulbright scholar, and he has written numerous books and articles. In addition to his publications he has given many talks including at Cornell University, The Modern Language Association, The Melville Society and various others in America. Overseas, he has given talks in London, Edinburgh in Scotland. In Finland, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, he has spoken at Tampere University and Helsinki University. He has also spoken at conferences in Bamberg, Germany and Tallinn, Estonia, as well as elsewhere.

In America he was the key advisor to Lone Wolf Productions in its television show on the Salem Witch Trials, and was a participant on the program. He has also appeared on Minnesota Public Radio.

During the child abuse panic beginning in the 90’s he explored what connects and what doesn’t to the Salem Witch Trials, and he served on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Reason and Justice, a nonprofit organization for wrongfully accused and imprisoned people. It was in that capacity where he first learned of the wrongful conviction of Joseph Allen and Nancy Smith and then began his exploration of the case, deciding to write a book on it.

Reviews

[Katherine Addison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the historiography of Salem, specifically about the way that the mythology of Salem has gotten into the history and caused problems in terms of what we think we know a priori and thus never bother to track down and verify. Rosenthal is quite good at digging into the primary sources and the early secondary sources and pointing out where divergences happen and why. Particularly interesting is the case of Bridget Bishop, who was in fact not a tavern keeper and not noted for wearing a red Paragon bodice. Two of the afflicted girls, and many historians and researchers thereafter, got confused and conflated her with Sarah Bishop, who was both those things . . . but not accused of witchcraft. He also addresses, quite usefully, the question of why the Mathers, having been publicly skeptical about spectral evidence and the choices the judges were making, suddenly became very publicly gung-ho (particularly Cotton) when George Burroughs was condemned. Short answer: Burroughs was a Baptist, or had Baptist leanings, and as such was anathema to Increase and Cotton. I'm not sure I buy Rosenthal's argument 100%, for reasons I'll discuss in a moment, but it's a useful factor to know about.

My problem with Rosenthal is that he is so committed to demystifying Salem that he reduces it all to fraud, "hysteria" (which he doesn't define anymore than anyone ever does define it when talking about Salem), self-preservation, and greed. He proves that some of the afflicted persons (he rightly points out that many of them were not girls) must have been committing fraud--pins stuck into afflicted persons' hands are particularly damning. But he generalizes from that, notwithstanding some vague comments about hysteria, to assume that all of them must have been frauds, just as, although he says that some of the confessing witches believed in their own witchcraft, all the confessors he talks about specifically were confessing (he argues) because they had realized that if you confessed, you wouldn't be hanged. He also uses the evidence of Thomas Brattle, a particularly outspoken critic of the trials, to argue that, since one contemporary Puritan did not believe in witchcraft and thought everything about the Salem crisis was specious, all contemporary Puritans must have felt the same. He's arguing, quite passionately, against cultural relativism in the form of, "the poor dears, they didn't know any better," and while I agree with his principle, I think he's gone too far in the other direction and overstated the degree of empirical, material-based reasoning to be found among the general population of New England.

And he has the same problem other advocates of the fraud thesis have, namely that fraud provides an explanation for the physical manifestations, but it doesn't do anything to explain either the motivations of the afflicted persons nor the behavior of the judges--who, in Rosenthal's account, might as well be twirling their mustaches and laughing evil laughs.

In other words, he's very good at debunking some of the accreted misconceptions about Salem--and that's very valuable in and of itself--but he doesn't have a persuasive new history to offer.

[Taili Huang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book. Gives a clear, thorough account of the Salem Witch Trials, and clears up myths and misconceptions surrounding it.

Very well researched, well thought out, and well written. Would recommend to anyone interested in the trials or history in general.

[Haley Simmonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this read. It introduced several new theories I'd never considered and helped de-mustify several myths I had questions about. All in all, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in seriously engaging with this bit of American colonial history.

[Anne Sanow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is history that reads like a good story, with up-to-date historical info that debunks some common misperceptions.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. It's history so if you are into that you have to read it.