Boyer and Nissenbaum begin with an overview of the Trials, charting a course from the first accusations to the hangings of nineteen people and the need for the civil government to step in and bring the hysteria to a close. They note that this major social crisis happened at a time when the political situation for Massachusetts as a whole was tempestuous.
In February of 1692, three women were blamed for causing fits through witchcraft, every one of them easy scapegoats for the Puritans: Sarah Good, a destitute beggar; Sarah Osborne, a widow who once in a while went to church and affronted Puritan sensibilities by remarrying; and Tituba, a West Indian slave with a very different ethnic background and social standing than the remainder of the community.
The anti-witch hysteria developed from that point, as increasingly more community members were blamed and brought before neighborhood magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin throughout the following few months. By May, sixty-two individuals were in prison and one, Sarah Osborne, had died while detained. In June, formal prosecutions of the denounced started by Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton and Crown's Attorney Thomas Newton. The first suspect, Bridget Bishop, was charged in a Grand Jury for having a “corrupt” way of life; this was sufficient for the magistrates to see her as guilty, and on June 10, Bishop was the first individual executed in the Salem Witch Trials. Eighteen others would be hanged, including five men, while another was squashed to death. The last trial was held in May of 1693.
In the first chapter, Boyer and Nissenbaum acknowledge how largely the Trials loom in the minds of Americans, and how the outcome seems almost foreordained. Yet, they explain, things did not have to turn out that way; for example, in another town, religious authorities decided a similarly afflicted girl was experiencing divine visitation, not demonic. Northampton actually had a mini religious revival rather than a descent into a maelstrom like Salem.
The historians return to the origins of Salem Town and Salem Village. Salem Town was a bustling mercantile community while Salem Village had an agricultural economy, and began to feel inferior to the Town. Its calls for independence and an official church of its own were ignored for a long time, and when the Village finally did procure a church and a minister, they were beset by problem after problem. Each minister proved himself to be unappealing to a portion of the Village, and the fourth one, Samuel Parris, ended up becoming enmeshed in the Trials.
In addition to the divide that existed between the two separate municipalities, a culture conflict existed inside Salem Village itself, as certain families worked toward a closer association with the business-oriented Salem Town while others wished to be left alone in their secluded agricultural economy.
The authors analyze two families who represented this growing divide: the Porters and the Putnams. The scions of the families, sixty-five-year-old John Putnam and forty-six-year-old John Porter, were both effective and esteemed farmers. But being driven by a more youthful, progressive patriarch, the Porters lived closer to Salem Town and wanted a stronger partnership with that mercantile community. The Putnams were stubbornly resistant to such a plan, embracing an isolationist stance. Throughout the subsequent sections, the authors inspect the historical record to discover what allegations were made and by whom; this is done to establish the claim that these warring families, their respective supporters, and the worlds they represented are basic to understanding the Salem Witch Trials.
The authors contend that the Salem Witch Trials were in large part the result of economic tensions, as the agrarian Salem Village attempted to oppose the social changes represented by Salem Town.
