Salem Witchcraft Dataset

Context:

Few events in American history are better known than the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Its popularity is doubtless attributable to a number of things: a persistent fascination with the occult; a perverse pleasure to expose the underbelly of an American culture that boasts of toleration, social harmony, and progress; and an appreciation for a compelling, dramatic narrative replete with heroes and villains. Skeptics, like the preeminent twentieth-century historian Perry Miller, question whether the Salem trials constituted anything more than an inconsequential episode in colonial history. But most historians consider Salem worthy of continuing investigation even if it was less than a major turning point in history. Indeed, Salem has been an unusually fertile field for historical research because it readily lends itself to new approaches, insights, and methodologies. To understand what happened in Salem, historians have profitably applied the perspectives of politics, anthropology, economic and social analysis, religion, social psychology, and demography. If the ultimate meaning of Salem is still elusive, these investigations have broadened and deepened our understanding of the 1692 witchcraft outbreak.

Content:

The Salem Witchcraft Website contains eight data sets. They provide only a small portion of the historical record about Salem. They do not contain transcripts of examinations or trials or contemporary narrative accounts, for example. Instead, they provide information, primarily of a quantitative nature, about three major aspects of the outbreak: its chronology, its geographic spread, and the social and economic divisions in Salem Village that shaped events. The data were derived primarily from four published sources: Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's three-volume transcription of the legal records of the witchcraft trials, The Salem Witchcraft Papers; the new and now authoritative Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, edited by Bernard Rosenthal, et. al.; Boyer and Nissenbaum's edited collection of documents, Salem-Village Witchcraft; and Salem Village's Book of Record, which contain tax records and other information relating to Salem Village. Photocopies of the original Salem Village record book and church records were examined at the Danvers Archival Center.

• The Accused Witches Data Set contains information about those who were formally accused of witchcraft during the Salem episode. This means that there exists evidence of some form of direct legal involvement, such as a complaint made before civil officials, an arrest warrant, an examination, or court record. Accused witches were almost always detained in jail to await further action by a grand jury, which had the authority to indict and hold the accused for trial. Trials by a special Court of Oyer and Terminer began in June 1692. In October 1692, this court was discontinued due to mounting criticism of its methods. It was replaced by another court, the Superior Court of Judicature, which held trials from January to May 1693.
  • The "Accused Witch" column records the names of the 152 people mentioned in legal records as having been formally accused of witchcraft. Their names are alphabetically arranged. Spelling generally follows that of Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Witchcraft Papers but has been sometimes changed in accordance with the newer Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt and other sources.
  • "Residence" identifies the community in which the accused person was living when accused of witchcraft. In a few cases, the residence of an accused witch is problematic. For Elizabeth How, for example, some records cite Ipswich while others name Topsfield as her home. In such cases, the most likely residence has been used. In a few instances, the residence entry does not reflect the actual geographic relationship of the accused with the trials. George Burroughs was living in Wells, Maine, in 1692, but he had been a controversial minister in Salem Village in the early 1680s.
  • "Month of Accusation" numerically expresses the month of the year in which an alleged witch was accused: "1"=January 1692; "6"=June 1692; and "13"=January 1693. A negative 1 (-1) indicates that the actual month of accusation is not known with sufficient certainty to be included. Some of these "unknowns" can be approximated from available records, and users may choose to substitute their estimate. Users should also recognize an artificial quality to this data: those accused in one month, May (5), for example, may have been charged only a day or two before someone in June (6).
  • "Month of Execution" numerically expresses the month in which an alleged witch was executed as a result of the legal process. The data do not include entries for those who died as a result of their incarceration. In one case, Giles Corey, the month of execution does record the month in which he was pressed to death for refusing to plead to the charges against him.
• The Towns Data Set provides a convenient way to construct histograms of the communities whose residents were charged with witchcraft in 1692. It contains 25 columns:
  • Twenty-four columns record each town for which at least one formal accusation occurred (Salem Village and Salem Town are listed separately). Each cell lists the month of an accusation, numerically expressed: 1=January 1692, 2=February 1692, and so forth. The negative number, -1, indicates that the month of accusation is unknown.
  • A "Bin" column contains the range of months of witchcraft accusations, from 1 (January 1692) to 12 (December 1692), with -1 for unknown months of accusation.
• Both the Pro-Parris and Anti-Parris data sets contain the same four columns:
  • "Name" identifies each signer of the pro-Parris petition.
  • "Identification" indicates the category in the petition under which the signer was placed.
  • "Sex" indicates whether the signer was male or female.
  • "Sort" locates each signer in the data set so that it can be returned to its original order.
• To compare the social make-up of Salem Village's pro- and anti-Parris factions to the village's general population, download the Salem Village Data Set. The data set contains four columns:
  • "Name" lists every person in Salem Village who appeared on any village tax assessments for 1690, 1695, and 1697. The 137 names are a good, though imperfect, indicator of the village's adult male population in the period of the witch hunt. Only a few women, all widows, appear. Young men not yet independent or paying taxes do not appear.
  • "Petition" notes whether the taxpayer signed either the pro- or anti-Parris petition in 1695. "NoS" (no signature) means that the person did not sign either petition.
  • "Church to 1696" indicates whether a person was a church member though 1696. No distinction is made as to whether a person was a member of the Salem Village church or another church. The list is compiled from the pro- and anti-Parris petitions as well as from the records of the Salem Village church as recorded by Samuel Parris. Additional information came from the published records of the First Church in Salem Town.
  • "Sort" permits data to be easily restored to their original order after a statistical manipulation.
• The Committee Yearly Data Set contains information about Salem Village's committees from 1685 to 1698, a period that covers the last years Deodat Lawson's ministry and the entire tenure of Samuel Parris. The data set contains three columns of information for each committee:
  • "Committee" lists the names of committeemen for a particular year (in 1688, only four men were elected).
  • "Petition" indicates whether the committeeman signed either the pro- or anti-Parris petition in 1695. "NoS" (no signature) means that this committeeman did not sign either petition. Signing a petition strongly suggests but does not conclusively establish a petitioner's earlier position regarding Parris or the witchcraft outbreak.
  • "Social" indicates whether the committeeman was a church member or a householder. Three committeemen (William Sibley, James Smith, and Jacob Fuller) have been listed as householders in the absence of information linking them to a church.)
• The Committee List Data Set provides information about all Salem Village committee members who held office from 1685 to 1698. The data set contains 18 columns:
  • "Committee Members" records the names of the thirty-one villagers who held committee office from 1685-1698. They are listed in the order in which they first appeared in the village's Book of Record.
  • "Petition" notes whether the committeeman signed either the pro- or anti-Parris petition in 1695. "NoS" (no signature) means that this committeeman did not sign either petition.
  • "Social" indicates whether the committeeman was a church member or a householder. (Three committeemen, William Sibley, James Smith, and Jacob Fuller, have been listed as householders in the absence of information linking them to a church; the three did not sign either petition.)
  • Columns 4-17 indicate committee membership for each year.
  • "Sort" permits data to be easily restored to their original order.
• The Tax Comparison Data Set was compiled by listing all Salem Village taxpayers who were assessed rates in the period between 1681 and 1700. The rates are recorded in Salem Village's Book of Record (see Bibliography).
  • "Name" lists in alphabetical order all assessments on Salem Village's tax lists for 1681, 1690, 1694, 1695, 1697, and 1700.
  • "Tax" records the taxpayer's assessment in shillings. Since the village's revenue needs changed, the total assessment (and individual allocations) changed accordingly.
  • "Petition" indicates whether the taxpayer signed either the pro- or anti-Parris petition in 1695. "NoS" (no signature) means that this taxpayer did not sign either petition.
  • "Sort" permits data to be easily restored to their original order after a statistical manipulation.

Acknowledgements:

Users who copy, share, adapt, and re-publish any of the content in Salem Witchcraft Dataset should credit Professor Richard Latner of Tulane University for making this material available. More information and guided exercises can be found on this website.

Inspiration:

• What was the relationship between economic success and support for Parris?
• Can you split the list of accused witches and predict who would be accused based on other acquisitions?