For my final Voyant visualization project, I chose to consider the six depositions, by men, testifying to Bridget Bishop’s guilt as a witch when the Salem Witch Trials were occurring. Specifically, they are titled “The Deposition of John Bly” “The Deposition of John Louder” “The Deposition of Richard Coman” “The Deposition of Samuell Gray” “The Deposition of Samuell Shattock” and “The Deposition of William Stacy.” I have been interested in these particular texts in relationship to a larger project I am working on regarding language and the representation of women in early American legal documents. One of the first words I noticed re-appearing several times is the word “bed.” At first this seemed odd, but another look at the list of word frequencies also showed the re-occurrence of the word “night.” Perhaps, than, “bed” is not so odd a word if many of the men are describing their “attacks” as occurring at nighttime.
I decided it would be interesting to see if there was any relationships between the amount of times “night” is used compared to the words “day” and “awake.” The entire corpus shows that the word “bed” is used 13 times, “night” is used eight times, “day” is used seven times, and “awake” is used six times. Although “night”, “day” and “awake” are used relatively close in the number of times used, the Word Trends graph demonstrates how “night” and “bed” seem to be used together at the same times in most of the depositions.
Here is what the Word Trends graph looks like:
So, why does this matter? We have to think about how these words look in relation to historical context. Emerson Baker, author of the book A Storm of Witchcraft considers that men like Richard Coman may have been experiencing sleep paralysis when describing women like Bishop attacking him in his sleep (108). This is an interesting theory that has much merit, but the sexual imagery that is clear in many of the testimonies supports the fact that Bridget Bishop was one of the victims who was often looked upon by others as a sinful because many considered her over sexualized. Maryilnne K. Roach, the author of The Six Women of Salem notes that she would dress outlandish compared to her neighbors, causing a lot of unwanted attention. I propose that it is possible the word “bed” and “night” are frequently used by the men in Bishop’s depositions because part of the reasons for their accusations are coming from a place of sexual deviation. They feel guilty for their physical attraction toward her, and this may be one of the reasons several of the men claim her “spectre” attacked them in the middle of the night. Baker reminds us that Coman says in one of his testimonies that Bishop “so oppressed him that he could not speak not stir no not so much as to awake his wife although he endeavored much so to do it” (108). Sounds like a guilty conscience to me! Does the re-occurrence of the word “night” and “bed” prove this? Probably not. However, it does make an interesting find when considering how men are viewing and talking about women in legal testimonies during the U.S. colonial period.
*Please note that this research is very much in the developing stages*