Benjamin C. Ray

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WMQ online. About 337 words from this article are provided below; about 9494 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase this article in PDF form for $10.00.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the William and Mary Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the William and Mary Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Benjamin C. Ray | The Geography of Witchcraft Accusations in 1692 Salem Village | The William and Mary Quarterly, 65.3 | The History Cooperative

The Geography of Witchcraft Accusations in 1692 Salem Village

The alleged witches and those who accused them resided on opposite sides of the Village.¹

PAUL Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's influential study, Salem Possessed, appeared a little more than one hundred years after the publication of Charles W. Upham's classic two-volume work, Salem Witchcraft. Like Upham's work Salem Possessed dealt almost exclusively with Salem Village, and like Upham, Boyer and Nissenbaum made significant use of a 1692 map of the village. Upham's map showed the locations of virtually all the households in Salem Village, and Boyer and Nissenbaum used this same map to plot the household locations of the accusers and the accused (Figure I). As a geographically based socioeconomic study keyed to this map, Salem Possessed succeeded so well in explaining the witchcraft episode in Salem Village that it was not significantly challenged by another scholarly account until the appearance of Mary Beth Norton's innovative and more comprehensive work, In the Devil's Snare.²

Figure I

"Map of Salem Village, 1692," frontispiece from Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft: With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects (Boston, 1867). Courtesy, Danvers Alarm List Company.

One can attribute the long-term success of Salem Possessed, now in its twentieth printing, not only to its socioeconomic approach but also to its simple yet compelling use of a map of the accusations in Salem Village. Drawing on Upham's accurate and detailed map of village residences, Boyer and Nissenbaum created a Salem Village map that used letters to mark locations of individual accusers (As), accused witches (Ws), and defenders (Ds) (Figure II). The map appeared near the beginning of the book and presented a surprising picture of a village geographically divided between accusers and accused. Boyer and Nissenbaum wondered, "What are we to make of this pattern?"³ The rest of the book furnished the answer.

. . .

There are about 9494 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.