UBC: In the Devil's Snare
Oct. 27th, 2008 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyNorton, Mary Beth. In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Norton's conclusion should have been put at the start, for in it she explains her thesis clearly and concisely--that the witchcraft crisis of 1692 was in large part a reaction to King Philip's War and King William's War--and makes explicit the logic by which her argument works. Both these things would have benefited me greatly if I'd had them up front. She also, in the conclusion, addresses the question of the afflicted girls--sensibly and with attention to nuance. If she'd put that at the front, I wouldn't have made Saturday's post.
In the Devil's Snare is a tremendously ambitious book, as Norton is trying to lay out connections between the experiences of settlers in Maine, the accusations of the afflicted in Salem, and the actions and decisions of the colony leaders in Boston (also in Maine and in Salem). This is a horrifically tangled web; I spent most of the book wishing desperately for a score card. And she has some of the same problem that Boyer and Nissenbaum do. Where they treat the witchcraft accusations as transparent vehicles for socioeconomic disputes, Norton treats them as transparent vehicles for anxieties about the Wabanakis (particularly in regards to John Alden, where--going by Norton's explanation--he was accused of witchcraft because he was known to trade, without any supernatural overtones, with the French and the Indians). And I don't think it's quite that simple.
On the other hand, the parallel Norton argues that the people of Massachusetts saw between the Wabanaki attacks and the Devil's attacks, between the colony's military failures and the afflicted girls suffering, does make very cogent sense of a troubling question: why the magistrates were willing to believe--and more than believe, to invest totally in the truth of--the witchcraft accusations, when in all other witchcraft trials, magistrates were notable for their caution and skepticism:
And as she makes very clear, without the hand of Providence to hide behind, their responsibility was very heavy, comprised of both greed and incompetence. (It's not exactly comforting to be given proof that human governments have pretty much always been greedy and incompetent, but on the other hand, it does put the current political sturm und drang in helpful perspective.)
I was never quite convinced of the transparent one-to-one correspondence Norton wants me to believe the New Englanders saw between the Wabanakis (and Indians in general) and the Devil, but that may be my own subject-position getting in the way, rather than a fault in her argument. I don't want to believe they could have believed that, but that doesn't mean they didn't.
Axtell, James. The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York, 1981).
Godbeer, Richard. The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (New York, 1992).
Gragg, Larry. The Salem Witch Crisis (New York, 1992).
Hall, David D., ed. Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1999).
Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem (New York, 1969).
Hoffer, Peter. The Devil's Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Baltimore, 1996).
---. The Salem Witchcraft Trials (Lawrence, Kansas, 1997).
Kerr, Howard, and Charles L. Crow, eds. The Occult in America: New Historical Perspectives (Urbana, Ill., 1983).
Le Beau, Bryan. The Story of the Salem Witch Trials (Upper Saddle River, N.J., 1998).
Robinson, Enders A. The Devil Discovered: Salem Witchcraft 1692 (New York, 1991).
Rosenthal, Bernard. Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge, U.K., 1993).
Starkey, Marion L. The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (New York, 1949).
Vaughan, Alden T., and Edward W. Clark, eds. Puritans among the Indians: Accounts of Captivity and Redemption, 1676-1724 (Cambridge, Mass., 1981).
Worobec, Christine. Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, Ill., 2001).
Norton's conclusion should have been put at the start, for in it she explains her thesis clearly and concisely--that the witchcraft crisis of 1692 was in large part a reaction to King Philip's War and King William's War--and makes explicit the logic by which her argument works. Both these things would have benefited me greatly if I'd had them up front. She also, in the conclusion, addresses the question of the afflicted girls--sensibly and with attention to nuance. If she'd put that at the front, I wouldn't have made Saturday's post.
In the Devil's Snare is a tremendously ambitious book, as Norton is trying to lay out connections between the experiences of settlers in Maine, the accusations of the afflicted in Salem, and the actions and decisions of the colony leaders in Boston (also in Maine and in Salem). This is a horrifically tangled web; I spent most of the book wishing desperately for a score card. And she has some of the same problem that Boyer and Nissenbaum do. Where they treat the witchcraft accusations as transparent vehicles for socioeconomic disputes, Norton treats them as transparent vehicles for anxieties about the Wabanakis (particularly in regards to John Alden, where--going by Norton's explanation--he was accused of witchcraft because he was known to trade, without any supernatural overtones, with the French and the Indians). And I don't think it's quite that simple.
On the other hand, the parallel Norton argues that the people of Massachusetts saw between the Wabanaki attacks and the Devil's attacks, between the colony's military failures and the afflicted girls suffering, does make very cogent sense of a troubling question: why the magistrates were willing to believe--and more than believe, to invest totally in the truth of--the witchcraft accusations, when in all other witchcraft trials, magistrates were notable for their caution and skepticism:
If the devil was operating in their world with impunity--if God for his own inscrutable reasons had "lengthened the chain" that usually limited Satan's active malevolence against mankind, to adopt Lawson's memorable phrase--then the Massachusetts leaders' lack of success in combating the Indians could be explained without reference to their own failings. If God had providentially caused the wartime disasters and he had also unleashed the devil on Massachusetts, then they bore no responsibility for the current state of affairs.
(Norton 299-300)
And as she makes very clear, without the hand of Providence to hide behind, their responsibility was very heavy, comprised of both greed and incompetence. (It's not exactly comforting to be given proof that human governments have pretty much always been greedy and incompetent, but on the other hand, it does put the current political sturm und drang in helpful perspective.)
I was never quite convinced of the transparent one-to-one correspondence Norton wants me to believe the New Englanders saw between the Wabanakis (and Indians in general) and the Devil, but that may be my own subject-position getting in the way, rather than a fault in her argument. I don't want to believe they could have believed that, but that doesn't mean they didn't.
Axtell, James. The European and the Indian: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America (New York, 1981).
Godbeer, Richard. The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (New York, 1992).
Gragg, Larry. The Salem Witch Crisis (New York, 1992).
Hall, David D., ed. Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century New England, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1999).
Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem (New York, 1969).
Hoffer, Peter. The Devil's Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials (Baltimore, 1996).
---. The Salem Witchcraft Trials (Lawrence, Kansas, 1997).
Kerr, Howard, and Charles L. Crow, eds. The Occult in America: New Historical Perspectives (Urbana, Ill., 1983).
Le Beau, Bryan. The Story of the Salem Witch Trials (Upper Saddle River, N.J., 1998).
Robinson, Enders A. The Devil Discovered: Salem Witchcraft 1692 (New York, 1991).
Rosenthal, Bernard. Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge, U.K., 1993).
Starkey, Marion L. The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (New York, 1949).
Vaughan, Alden T., and Edward W. Clark, eds. Puritans among the Indians: Accounts of Captivity and Redemption, 1676-1724 (Cambridge, Mass., 1981).
Worobec, Christine. Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, Ill., 2001).
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Date: 2008-10-27 07:21 pm (UTC)A book I have on my Amazon wish list (and want desperately) is History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series) (Hardcover) by C. S. Watkins (Author). The time period is earlier, but it address the same issue you mentioned with the colony officials thinking the devil had been set on New England.
Since I don't have a spare $95 for this book at the moment, I used the search inside function on Amazon to decide if I wanted it. What I read echoes what you saw Norton saying about the devil taking an active hand in the colony's troubles and that direct one on one correspondence. Devils and demons and witches were really real to them and they had no problem believing in their influence on the world.
Not that you need another research book, *g* but these posts reminded me and I thought I'd point you toward it. Just in case.