Parts IV and V move the story into Salem Village itself, a small farming community tethered to prosperous, merchant-driven Salem Town and increasingly at war with it. Geographic isolation, a stream of traumatized refugees from brutal frontier violence, and constant fear of nearby raids all sharpened the village’s anxiety. Inside the village, long-simmering factionalism hardened into a battle for power, status, and identity, with the Putnam family leading an independence faction and the Porter family defending continued union and commercial ties to the town. Land scarcity and inheritance disputes made Salem unusually litigious, turning neighbor against neighbor. That tension focused on the church, the closest thing to a governing institution, as the village cycled through ministers and fought over control. When Samuel Parris arrived, his unusually ...