Escaping Salem

Throughout the text, different modes of knowledge are presented. One way this is present is through the differentiation between one’s role and one’s education, a concept that might feel quite strange in the modern era, in which education is meant to directly correlate to vocation, role, and authority. However, in Escaping Salem, we see first that Sarah Bates, who was not a physician, was nevertheless called upon to perform the duties of a doctor; later, we see that the magistrates were called upon to oversee trials, despite being untrained in legal philosophy and it being uncertain if they could even understand legal texts.

Additionally, a major theme of the text is what constitutes evidence and what does not. The magistrates differentiate between what’s strong enough for an indictment and what’s strong enough for a conviction, and it is suggested that the latter is much more rigorous. Indeed, much of what passes for evidence has either been discarded as quackery (e.g., ducking) or has been deemed insufficient for a conviction (e.g., misfortune following a quarrel). This calls into question our own understanding of objective knowledge, a question that is a theme of the modern era, as well—what constitutes strong evidence? How do we know what, or whom, to trust?