I've deviated from simplifying life to now complicating it. Why doesn't ever historian agree about simple facts like did Pocahontas save john smith's life or was there a world wide flood in our past? I digress...
History is an interpretative science and hermeneutics plays a key part in that interpretation. The surviving documents, letters, testimonies, and written accounts are the only voices left to lend us insight into what happened and what caused those events to transpire. Many historians can agree on the day-to-day chronology of a certain event but differ in the explanations and reasons for those occurrences. A good example of an event which motivations and causes are still being debated today are the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. This 17th century event, which shook the budding New World, has implications for today and therefore its understanding is important to modern life and how we view our society. Sociologist Isaac Reed, author of Why Salem Made Sense: Culture, Gender, and the Puritan Persecution of Witchcraft, makes the case for a gender-based explanation of the trials. His aim is to “…bring gender into not only the study of witchcraft but also its explanation” (Reed, 217). Right away, Reed acknowledges that this approach is not the “mainstream” causation of the witchcraft trials (Reed, 217). In fact, Historian Mary Beth Norton (whom Reed cites in his article) makes no allusions to a gender-related explanation in her article The Years of Magical Thinking: Explaining the Salem Witchcraft Crisis. Both authors pull their information from the same sources, transcripts, letters and eye-witness accounts, but they arrive at either a simpler or more complex conclusion.
Both authors start their discussions by mentioning a modern cultural artifact: Arthur Miller’s 1952 play entitled The Crucible. Since Mary Beth Norton is addressing her essay to those who have received their account of history from sources like the play, she continues use the play as an outline to correct misconceptions about the events of 1692. Reed, on the other hand, leaves this cultural reference behind and addresses his essay to fellow sociologists who more than likely agree to the same account of the trials in Salem (Reed, 230).
Norton’s explanations for the trials include “…a devastating war in northern New England, rampant gossip, and Pre-enlightenment magical thinking” (Norton, 3). Although she doesn’t specify her sources, she tells a narrative that adds frame to the events and then pulls her interpretation from that frame of events. She points out that, for hundreds of years, the English settlers believed to be living in a “world of wonders”, and that there was no distinction between the visible, physical realm of humans, and the invisible, spiritual world of demons and evil powers. The settlers, particularly the Puritan inhabitants of Salem, understood the Natives to be devil worshipers and tools of Satan (Norton, 3). Therefore the war with the natives was actually a war with the “un-seen” world and the witches that were thought to be in their midst was an extension of this war between the worlds. Norton points out that Tituba, A Native American, was the first to be accused of witchcraft. She also states that, “…that first large wave of accusations came in mid-April, immediately after one confessing witch revealed that the devil had recruited her into his ranks four years earlier while she was living on the Maine frontier”(Norton, 3). To Norton, this points to the people of Salem linking the two greatest difficulties of their time together and therefore imagining witches everywhere.
Isaac Reed, uses his article to bring gender as a cause over from the strictly ”Feminist” account of the Salem Witch Trials, to the “Mainstream” side of the cause of mass hysteria in 1692. Unlike Norton, Reed cites and quotes numerous books, papers, and firsthand accounts to bolster and support his claim that gender was the reason a whole town could hang 19 of their own people. Reed makes clear that, from his interpretation of the documents, “At stake was the nature and legitimacy of male authority” (Reed, 229) He states that even the accusation of “witch” was in itself, geared toward women (Reed, 226). Reed addresses the “oft-repeated observation that some of the witches were male” (qtd. In Whitney, 78). He states that “78 percent of accused witches were women, men accused of witchcraft tended to have family or sexual relations to the accused witches” (Reed, 216). Reed recognizes the theories that Norton points out in her article; he even mentions the same idea of a visible versus an invisible world (Reed, 220). But he believes that the driving force behind the trials was an effort by the male patriarchal leaders to realign their social order into what they deemed appropriate. Witchcraft was a tool that made sense to the Puritans because of the socially accepted view that women were more susceptible to the Devil than men (Reed, 225). Possibly to get a reaction from his readers, Reed again makes the observation, “Who knew murdering women could be so useful” (Reed, 217)
Neither author concludes his essay with an attempt to apply his or her conclusions to present day culture. Reed states specifically that he wishes to resist “the transport of 20th and 21st century subjectivities into 17th century Massachusetts” (Reed, 210). I believe he does this to keep interpretation pure to the context of the time, but by the end of the essay he has not brought anything from 17th century Salem back to the present. Reed’s purpose, as well as Norton, is to give the reader another, possibly more accurate, explanation of the events of the Salem Witch Hunts.
Norton points out that modern misconceptions about the events in history will more than likely stem from fictional accounts such as movies, plays and books. Even though these are “historical fiction” and based on real events, they should not be used as a sole source for information. But Reed also points out that we shouldn’t always take the actual historical documents “at their word” when they give their own explanations for why they did what they did. Reed writes, “We should not allow their interpretations of themselves to limit ours” (Reed, 218). Eric Foner in his textbook, Give me Liberty! An American History, he makes it clear that history is not static. “Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of interpretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is constantly changing” (Foner, xxvi). Foner goes on to add that this is “precisely because each generation asks different questions about the past, each generation formulates different answers” (Foner, xxvi). Later on, he weighs in on the topic of the Salem Witch Trials by pointing out that all the aforementioned theories hold historical weight and contain truth. It is therefore the questions our current generations asks that turns out an explanation specific to our time. Foner agrees with Reed that, “the witches alleged power challenged God’s will and the standing of men as heads of the family and rulers of society” (Foner, 105). He also supports Norton’s ideas about “magical beliefs” (Foner, 105) the threat from natives interpreted by the puritans as threat of “slavery and temptation” (Foner, 73).
In conclusion, we see that the most difficult aspect of historical interpretation is the fact that it requires diligence. Our culture and generation is so used to being “spoon-fed” the answers. Answers like who to vote for, what is good for the environment and what happened in history. Because of this “snap-acceptance”, we are in danger of missing those lessons from history that could pertain directly to our lives. Foner, Reed, and Norton all make the un-written point that the interpretation is up to the reader. We as a society cannot continue to get answers to our problems from pre-packaged, fictional history lesson such as The Crucible. It is a necessity that we research, explore and find out the truths for ourselves. Only then with the explanations work as answers to those questions we ask of history, in the first place.
Basically; The reasons why historians disagree are many and varied, but the following represent some of them:
- Questions of the selection and relevance of evidence
- The method and the techniques of history
- Ideology and political predisposition
- The purpose for which history is studied in the first place
- More recently, arguments about the validity of historical method
