Few events have captured the imaginations of Americans as powerfully as the Salem Village witchcraft trials of 1692. Assessments of the entire Puritan period have achieved their sharpest focus through an analysis of the Salem trials, which have served as a litmus test for theories about the nature of life in early America. Some social historians find the reasons for the trauma in economic causes, with the jealous resentment of the disadvantaged leading them to strike out against their circumstances as well as against particular social enemies. One localized version of this argument focuses upon the feuding factions of Salem Village, whose long-term battle seems to have predetermined the would-be accused and accusers. Cultural anthropologists and psychohistorians have read the Salem records as discursive expressions of anxieties brought on by the rapid succession of political and economic events in the 1680s, which were exacerbated by a series of crises, including fires, floods, disease, and Indian attacks. Other accounts emphasize the role of the common people, who discovered demonism to be a weapon with which to threaten the established powers. Because a high percentage of those tried and punished were women, a number of whom owned property under challenge, some interpretations present evidence of the efforts of jeopardized male authorities to repress rising female independence and economic autonomy. In different ways, most interpreters share the assumption that the Salem incident marks a critical turning point in New England history when old religious values were in question and new secular ones were being formed. Accordingly, the witchcraft delusion is most often perceived as the site of a profound cultural transformation.