In my last post (read it with this link) I described the events of what happened in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Today, I’ll move on to what caused the Salem Witch Trials. Trials such as those in Salem are not common in American history. Perhaps the closest example from later American history would be in the 1950s with Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. But historians like uncommon things—they make good topics for research and study.

The “Best-Fit” Theory of What Caused the Salem Witch Trials

There is, interestingly, only one explanation that accounts for everything that happened in Salem in 1692. That is that the witches were real. If one accepts this, everything else falls into place.

However, that is not an explanation for what caused the Salem Witch Trials that is popular with historians. For one thing, it’s impossible to produce evidence to either support or refute this idea, since it involves magic, the supernatural, and belief in spectral evidence. Furthermore, the trials in Salem have few parallels in the rest of American history. If witches were active in Salem in 1692, it stands to reason they would be active at other times and places in American history. I, at least, have not seen any convincing suggestions that this is the case.

So, if it probably wasn’t witches, what was it?

Theories of What Caused the Salem Witch Trials

The simplest theory is that everything was make-believe. The accusers were liars, and people saw what they wanted to see.

Some evidence exists for this theory. Some people did admit to lying after the fact. Trial testimony appears to show some people changing their accounts when cued by the court. The judge who ran the trials, Samuel Sewall, admitted to many errors. A generation later, in 1711, Massachusetts Colony restored the good names of most of the accused and compensated their heirs for the trials. Could everything have been one great mistake?

Perhaps not. The young women I mentioned in my last post really did show physical symptoms that something was tormenting them. And the people who admitted to fabricating accusations were a minority.

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Mass Psychological Breakdown?

For years, many people teamed this explanation with the first to account for Salem. The people of Massachusetts did have a number of threats in 1692. The English colonies of the Americas were in the middle of King William’s War. (In Europe, this was known as the War of the Grand Alliance. The purpose of the alliance was to contain French continental expansion.) Although Salem was not on the front line of the colonial theater of this war, it appears some refugees from the front lines had come to Salem.

Perhaps more directly concerning, Massachusetts Colony could no longer discriminate against people who were not Puritan in religion. This might sound like a good thing to us today. But recall that the colony had been created by people, the Puritans, who wanted to practice their religion exclusive of others. They regarded this change as a turn for the worst.

That wasn’t all. A smallpox epidemic had recently scoured the area. The town’s new minister, Samuel Parris, was a polarizing figure. Given that the people of Salem were predisposed to believe the Devil was an active figure in peoples’ lives, the idea of massive psychological stress on the community seems reasonably convincing. Surely, something malevolent must be behind all these developments.

More On the Role of Samuel Parris

Parris, recall, was the town minister. But he’d only become the minister a short time earlier. He’d been a businessman active in the Caribbean. That’s where he got his slave, Tituba, who was among the three women first accused of witchcraft. Parris had not finished his theological training before becoming a minister, yet it appears his approach to religious orthodoxy was puritanical even by Puritan standards.

Parris’s role in what caused the Salem Witch Trials is that he still had commercial ties to Salem Town, a commercial town a short distance from Salem village, which was a farming village. This seems to have divided Salem into pro- and anti-Parris factions. Interestingly, the Putnam family was identified with the interests of this farming village. (Recall young Ann Putnam was among the first three accusers.)

This split in town politics, for lack of a better term, seems important. Historians doing archival research detected that many of the accusers were members of the Putnam family. Many of the accused were those on the other side of the town divide produced by Parris.

So, perhaps village rivalries played a role. The decision to install Parris as town minister had divided Salem. Those unhappy with this decision used accusations of witchcraft as a way to get back at those with whom they disagreed. People trying to get back at opponents is common enough throughout history.

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Can Feminism Explain What Caused the Salem Witch Trials?

To later observers, it was obvious that sex played a role in Salem. Men dominated Puritan society. (Recall what happened to Anne Hutchinson. Read this post to learn more about her.) About 80% of those accused of witchcraft were women.

This might not seem all that surprising. After all, for most of American history (we might even say all of it) women have held an inferior status in some ways. But a couple details add weight to this explanation as relevant to what caused the Salem Witch Trials.

Massachusetts colony had had accusations of witchcraft before Salem, albeit they were individual and did not produce extensive trials. Men were accused at times. But the rulings in their cases sometimes seem sexist in nature.

For instance, in 1652 John Broadstreet was accused of familiarity with Satan. He pleaded guilty. He was whipped and fined—for lying. In 1674 Christopher Brown confessed to discourse with the Devil. The court rejected his testimony as untruthful.

One other fact is relevant here as well. In Puritan society, married women did not control their own property. Only one group of women could control their own property, in fact—unmarried/widowed women. And if you could construct a prototype witch, how would that witch look? Female, older, unmarried. (And ugly, I suppose.) It appears that unmarried or widowed women made up a substantial number of those accused of witchcraft in Salem.

St. Anthony’s Fire

Another explanation for what caused the Salem Witch Trials has some supporters. That is ergotism, an illness known to medieval Europeans as St. Anthony’s Fire. Ergot is a fungus that grows on rye and wheat under wet conditions. When consumed, it produces many of the symptoms we saw exhibited at Salem. Sufferers face muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, and are prone to hallucination and the feeling of something crawling on the skin. (LSD derives from ergot.)

Climate studies indicate 1692 would have been a good year for ergot in Massachusetts. So, similar to people who drop acid, perhaps some Puritans simply had a bad trip without knowing why.

Thanks for reading my look at what caused the Salem Witch Trials. I hope that you’ve learned some interesting things about Salem in 1692. I also hope I’ve provided a quality example of how historians use multiple explanations to provide the fullest picture possible about a rare historical event.

Other theories exist about what caused the Salem Witch Trials, but these are among the most common. If you’ve got your own, feel free to mention it in the comments.

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