Countering
The passage I chose was from Benjamin Ray’s article, “The Geography of Witchcraft Accusations in 1692 Salem Village”. The author is critiquing a highly regarded book, Salem Possessed, where Boyer and Nissenbaum sought to prove that the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 was based on socioeconomic issues.
“Though it may appear that the Salem Possessed map carries the burden of the argument about the socioeconomic and geographic foundation of the witchcraft accusations, the map does not supply all the evidence. A note to the map in Salem Possessed explains that for different reasons a total of thirteen accusers were omitted, thus indicating that the map is incomplete and does not represent all the accusers. The map is more properly understood as an illustration of the socioeconomic argument; it is not its proof. Indeed the authors introduce the map to the reader as a kind of geographic clue to the rest of the book’s findings. Nevertheless Boyer and Nissenbaum’s use of the map confuses these two purposes, clue and proof. On the one hand, the quantitative comparison of the numbers of As, Ws, and Ds that appear on the eastern and western sides of the map suggests that it presents objective evidence of a geographically divided village and that it reveals a straightforward numerical pattern. On the other hand, the explanatory note states that the map deliberately omits a number of well-known accusers, some because of their youth and others because of their support for some of the accused. These omissions indicate that the map involves an important interpretive component, in this case concerning the accusers’ ages and motivations. The note also implies that the map is complete except for the specified omissions, which is not the case. Thus the map’s relationship to the information contained in the court records is unclear: it is interpretive and incomplete yet seeming offered as objective and exhaustive.”
As you can see, Ray is employing the method of uncovering values, where he is reviewing concepts from the study that were inaccurate, omitted, or overlooked by other historians. From my perspective, Ray’s tone is fiercely critical, as is most of the article. Ray offers facts to disprove the book’s main theme, then builds his argument to offer that religious factionalism was the apparent factor of the witchcraft accusations.
As I was searching through my sources for this journal article, I happened upon an article by Fels: Switching Sides : How a Generation of Historians Lost Sympathy for the Victims of the Salem Witch Hunt. Basically the writer is examining the top four Salem witch trial interpretations by multiple historians, and then analyzes their biases and theory omissions. The article made me rethink some of my sources-will I counter them or use them for support? I also realize that since the Salem witch trial topic revolves around multiple factors, it would be impossible to counter each argument due to time limitations. I do plan to use countering in some of my work, specifically uncovering values, arguing against the other side, while most importantly, extending the conversation.
Sources:
Fels T., Switching Sides : How a Generation of Historians Lost Sympathy for the Victims of the Salem Witch Hunt. Johns Hopkins University Press; 2018.
Ray, Benjamin C., “The Geography of Witchcraft Accusations in 1692 Salem Village”, The William and Mary Quarterly , Jul., 2008, Third Series, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Jul., 2008), pp. 449-478. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25096807
