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A Quest for Security: The Life of Samuel Parris, 1653-1720
A Quest for Security is the first book-length biography of Samuel Parris, the man who led the 1692 struggle against the scourge of witchcraft. While an examination of Samuel Parris's actions reveals his crucial part in the witchcraft crisis, this biography also serves as a reminder of the concern of early Americans to sustain economic independence for their families. Fully documented with endnotes and featuring a complete bibliography of primary and secondary works, this volume fills a noticeable gap in the literature on Salem witchcraft.
The first chapter looks at Samuel Parris's early years. Born in London in 1653, Parris moved with his family to Barbados in the 1660s where both his uncle and father had prospered as sugar planters. Next, the book examines his stay in Boston where he met with modest success as a merchant and started a family. The book then recounts the eight years Parris spent in Salem Village as that divided community's pastor. Beginning with his call to the clergy, the book examines his life as a Puritan pastor, and then covers the conflict in his congregation. In the first year of his ministry, a faction had developed that sought to oust Parris by refusing to pay him. Next the book covers Parris's actions in the spring of 1692 which changed a seemingly ordinary case of a handful of accusations into a full-scale witchhunt. Convinced that an organized witch cult threatened his congregation, Parris sought to root out all conspirators. His leadership in the effort led to an ever increasing escalation of accusations. When the episode finally ended, family members of some of the twenty executed witches conducted a campaign that ultimately resulted in Parris's removal from the pulpit. The final chapter looks at Parris's last years, in which he moved from one small Massachusetts community to another. Parris died in obscurity in 1720. But he achieved his most important goal--that of providing material security for his children.
The first chapter looks at Samuel Parris's early years. Born in London in 1653, Parris moved with his family to Barbados in the 1660s where both his uncle and father had prospered as sugar planters. Next, the book examines his stay in Boston where he met with modest success as a merchant and started a family. The book then recounts the eight years Parris spent in Salem Village as that divided community's pastor. Beginning with his call to the clergy, the book examines his life as a Puritan pastor, and then covers the conflict in his congregation. In the first year of his ministry, a faction had developed that sought to oust Parris by refusing to pay him. Next the book covers Parris's actions in the spring of 1692 which changed a seemingly ordinary case of a handful of accusations into a full-scale witchhunt. Convinced that an organized witch cult threatened his congregation, Parris sought to root out all conspirators. His leadership in the effort led to an ever increasing escalation of accusations. When the episode finally ended, family members of some of the twenty executed witches conducted a campaign that ultimately resulted in Parris's removal from the pulpit. The final chapter looks at Parris's last years, in which he moved from one small Massachusetts community to another. Parris died in obscurity in 1720. But he achieved his most important goal--that of providing material security for his children.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 1990
18 people want to read
About the author
Larry Gragg
7 booksLarry Gragg is Curators' Teaching Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History and Political Science at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. For the past two decades he has made an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas and wistfully echoes a familiar sentiment: "The reason I like Las Vegas is because it's almost all the things that I am not." He is the author of six other books, most recently John F. Kennedy: A Biography.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 1, 2016
This is exactly what it says it is: a biography of Samuel Parris. And Gragg doesn't try to make Parris seem either better or worse (or more interesting) than he actually was. The picture that comes through is quite clear: an ordinary man with a mediocre mind, not quite as smart as he thought he was, dumped into a situation that he had no hope of dealing with. Most of Gragg's primary evidence is Parris's sermon book, and he admits he's using that to make what conjectures he can about Parris's daily life and behavior, but he quotes the sermons extensively and persuasively to support his ideas. Like every other historian of Salem, he claims to have found the real reason the witchcraft trials happened as they did, but in Gragg's case, I'm actually persuaded. The decisions that Samuel Parris made were crucial: Parris decided not to treat the afflicted girls through isolation and prayer, which had been a successful method in a recent and widely publicized case (except for his own daughter Betty, whom he sent out of Salem Village, and Betty, it should be noticed, recovered without causing any further public drama); Parris seems to have been an instigator in the decision to ask the girls to make accusations and to act on their answers; Parris certainly was a champion of the admissibility of spectral evidence; and Parris was the one, when members of his church started being accused, who decided to condemn and excommunicate them, rather than question the testimony of the afflicted.
And Gragg doesn't make the mistake of saying it's all Parris. He's very aware of the other factors; although, like most historians who focus on the male adults in Salem, he pays little to no attention to the afflicted girls and women, he at least shows some awareness of the absent subjectivity. And he has a wonderful lengthy footnote animadverting about other historians' tendency to explain away witchcraft as a transparent vehicle for psychological/social/sexual/economic/other discontents.
The only bone I would pick with this book is that Gragg works much too hard to try to find a unifying theme in Parris' life (the "quest for security" of the title). It's the one place where he seems to me to make the mistake of trying to inflate his material beyond what it is, and it just isn't necessary. Other than that, this is a patient, well-documented, coolly non-partisan biography that does an excellent job of explaining how and why Samuel Parris was instrumental in making the Salem witchcraft crisis the large-scale tragedy that it was.
And Gragg doesn't make the mistake of saying it's all Parris. He's very aware of the other factors; although, like most historians who focus on the male adults in Salem, he pays little to no attention to the afflicted girls and women, he at least shows some awareness of the absent subjectivity. And he has a wonderful lengthy footnote animadverting about other historians' tendency to explain away witchcraft as a transparent vehicle for psychological/social/sexual/economic/other discontents.
The only bone I would pick with this book is that Gragg works much too hard to try to find a unifying theme in Parris' life (the "quest for security" of the title). It's the one place where he seems to me to make the mistake of trying to inflate his material beyond what it is, and it just isn't necessary. Other than that, this is a patient, well-documented, coolly non-partisan biography that does an excellent job of explaining how and why Samuel Parris was instrumental in making the Salem witchcraft crisis the large-scale tragedy that it was.
October 16, 2012
I read this book in 7th grade as part of my history project on the Salem witch trials. My memory is a bit sketchy, but the overall impression I recall was one of feeling both sorry for the man and dislike for him at the same time.
The sorrow comes from the fact that he had a bit of a hard life leading up to becoming the pastor of Salem Village, and then when he was there he was perpetually being underpaid and underappreciated by the very people who requested his services.
The dislike was from my feeling that he overplayed his "I'm underappreciated" card, and acted somewhat haughtily toward his people.
All in all, I think I need to re-read this, but recall that it was a very nice way to understand one big aspect of the trials, and remove much of the fictionalization that was in my brain from having been so exposed to The Crucible over the years.
The sorrow comes from the fact that he had a bit of a hard life leading up to becoming the pastor of Salem Village, and then when he was there he was perpetually being underpaid and underappreciated by the very people who requested his services.
The dislike was from my feeling that he overplayed his "I'm underappreciated" card, and acted somewhat haughtily toward his people.
All in all, I think I need to re-read this, but recall that it was a very nice way to understand one big aspect of the trials, and remove much of the fictionalization that was in my brain from having been so exposed to The Crucible over the years.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews