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Salem witch trials

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1876 illustration of the courtroom; the central figure is usually identified as Mary Walcott

The Salem witch trials, which began in 1692 (also known as the Salem witch hunt and the Salem witchcraft episode), resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in both Salem Village and Salem Town, Massachusetts. It was the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan witch hysteria which led to the deaths of 20 people (mostly female but also male) and the imprisonment of scores more.

Background

Salem Village was just barely surviving in the time leading up to the trials. Although only a few miles from the coast, the settlement was very much an unorganized community, just hanging on by its fingernails, surrounded by the forests (thus frightening the villagers, for the forest could be hiding an army of angry native people, distrustful of these strangers who had taken their homeland, or even the Devil and his agents). Bitter disputes over land rose up among the inhabitants of the villages, many of whom were poor farmers who were just barely making enough to survive. As the Puritans had vowed to create a theocracy in this new land, religious fervor added another tension to the mix: the utterly humorless atmosphere deprived people of levity (as the only things allowed were working and praising the Lord). The religious system of the time was one of endless striving and very uncertain reward; constantly the Puritans searched for hints as to whether they would be chosen for Heaven or condemned for Hell, but God's pleasure and displeasure could not be read. The sexist beliefs that Puritans held for women further stressed the atmosphere: women should be totally subservient to their men (he in public, she at home; he talking, she listening; he preaching, she hearing, etc.), that by nature a woman was more likely to enlist in the Devil's service than a man was (since women were not allowed to be preachers then they were more likely to sign themselves over to the Devil), and that women were naturally lustful. And the small town atmosphere made secrets very difficult to keep and people's opinions (positive or negative) about their neighbors were generally accepted as fact. Then the fact that it was an age where the philosophy "children should be seen and not heard" reigned supreme, children suffered from their status at the bottom of the social ladder. Toys and games were seen as idle and playing was discouraged, and thus children suffered from not being able to enjoy life and have fun, although girls had particular cruelties heaped upon them; boys were able to go hunting, fishing, exploring the forest, and often became apprentices to carpenters and smiths, while girls were trained from a tender age to spin yarn, cook, sew, weave, and to generally be servants to their husbands and mothers to their children. All of these pressures proved to be an explosive combination.

Map of Salem Village, 1692

In the village of Salem in 1692, Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11, the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris, fell victim to what was recorded as fits "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect."[citation needed] The girls screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions. They complained of being pricked with pins or cut with knives, and when Reverend Parris would preach, the girls would cover their ears, as if dreading to hear the sermons. When the village doctor, William Griggs could not explain what was happening to them, he said that the girls were bewitched. The symptoms began to spread to others in the village.

The girls had, in secret, been entertained by their Carib-Indian slave, Tituba, during the winter of 1692. Tituba had started by telling them stories of her life in Barbados, often telling of magic. Tituba grew bolder as the winter wore on and began demonstrating tricks of witchcraft to the girls. These secret performances did not stay secret for long, as several other girls joined the tiny throng. Despite their young age, the girls knew that these practices were strictly forbidden by their community. Their delight in these spectacles was soon replaced by guilt and remorse.

The girls began to accuse their neighbors of being witches. The first accused were three women: Sarah Good, a beggar, Sarah Osborne, a bedridden old woman, and Tituba. (Boyer 3). Tituba, as a slave of a different ethnicity than the Puritans, was an obvious target for accusations. Sarah Good, a poverty-worn, easily-angered woman, often muttered under her breath as she walked away from failed attempts of obtaining food and/or shelter from neighbors, and people interpreted her muttering as curses. Sarah Osborne, an irritable old woman, was already marked for marrying her indentured servant. All of these women were outcasts of the village and were thus easy targets; neither Osborne nor Good attended church, which made them especially vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft.

These women were charged with witchcraft on March 1, 1692 and put in prison (Boyer 3). Other accusations followed: Dorcas Good, Rebecca Nurse, Abigail Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Martha Corey, Elizabeth Proctor and John Proctor. 4-year-old Dorcas Good, the daughter of Sarah Good, most likely confessed to witchcraft in order to be with her mother in prison. Martha Corey, ever an outspoken woman, was skeptical about the credence of the girls from the start and scoffed at the trials, unfortunately drawing attention to herself. The convictions of Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey greatly disturbed the community, as both women were pious and upstanding members of the community; if the upstanding people could be accused of witchcraft and seen as possible witches, that meant that anybody could be a witch.

As the number of accusations grew, the jail populations of Salem, Boston, and surrounding areas swelled, and a new problem surfaced: Without a legitimate form of government, there was no way to try these women (Boyer 6). None of them were tried until late May, when Governor Sir William Phips arrived and instituted a Court of Oyer and Terminer (to "hear and determine"). Phips appointed William Stoughton, who had theological training but no legal training, as the chief justice of this court (Boyer 7). By then, Sarah Osborne had died of natural causes in jail without a trial (Boyer 3), as had Sarah Good's newborn baby girl, and many others were ill [citation needed]. There were perhaps 80 people in jail awaiting trial [citation needed].

Trial

If the accused admitted to practicing witchcraft, they were freed. Those who protested their innocence were condemned to death. Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor and Abigail Faulkner were given respite "for the belly," because they were pregnant (Chronology). Though convicted, they would not be hanged until they had given birth (Chronology). A series of four executions beginning June 10, 1692 and ending October 19, 1692, saw nineteen people hanged, including a respected minister, a former constable who refused to arrest more accused witches, and at least three people of some wealth (Chronology). Six of the nineteen were men (The Dead); most of the rest were impoverished women beyond childbearing age [citation needed].

The first person hanged was Bridget Bishop, a 60-year-old woman who had already been accused of witchcraft before and who had a questionable reputation. Only one execution was not by hanging. Giles Corey, an 80-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem, refused to enter a plea. The law provided for the application of a form of torture called peine fort et dure, in which the victim was slowly crushed by piling stones on his body; after two days of peine fort et dure, Corey died without entering a plea (Boyer 8). Though his refusal to plead is often explained as a way of preventing his possessions from being confiscated by the state, this is not true; the possessions of convicted witches were often confiscated, and possessions of persons accused but not convicted were confiscated before a trial, as in the case of Corey's neighbor John Proctor and the wealthy English's of Salem Town. Some historians hypothesize that his personal character, a stubborn and lawsuit-prone old man who knew he was going to be convicted regardless, led to his recalcitrance (Boyer 8).

Closure

The witch trials ended in January of 1693, although people already jailed for witchcraft were not all released until May 1693 (Chronology). On October 3, 1692, Increase Mather published "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits." In it, Increase Mather stated "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned." This incident was so profound that it helped end the influence of the Puritan faith on the governing of New England.

A new system of government, and a new system for how court rulings worked was established in 1695, following the Witch Trials. All prior laws were elapsed, and new laws were put in effect. "Everything ruled under the old system was to be forgotten." But many descendants of the people that were wrongfully hanged still sought closure and disagreed with this new "law".

Numerous petitions were filed between 1692 and 1711 demanding monetary restitution to those wrongly accused. 17 Dec 1711 – 578. pounds 12 shillings was awarded to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those accused. Most of the accounts were settled within a year.

1954 – Still, not all the condemned had been exonerated. Descendants of those falsely accused demanded the General Court clear the names of their family members. In 1954 an act was passed pronouncing all guiltless

Possible Explanations of the "Possessed"

It is not widely believed any longer that the girls were actually possessed by the devil nor that their neighbors had anything to do with their symptoms. So what really did happen? Some experts believe the accusers were motivated by jealousy or spite and their behavior was an act. Others believe they were afflicted by hysteria, a form of mental illness.

"Ergot of Rye is a plant disease that is caused by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. … It is the ergot stage of the fungus that contains a storehouse of various compounds that have been useful as pharmaceutical drugs as well as mycotoxins that can be fatal when consumed. …This species was also the original source from which LSD was first isolated." (Ergot of Rye) (this statement is false; while some hallucinogenic compounds (e.g. LSA) can be isolated from the fungus and other natural specimens, LSD-25 is synthetic in nature). Convulsive ergotism causes nervous dysfunction, similar to many of the accused "witches" physical actions.

In her book A Fever in Salem, Laurie Winn Carlson gives a rebuttal to the Ergot theory. She believes that those afflicted in Salem, and those who seemed to have been bewitched over the centuries, suffered from encephalitis lethargica, a disease whose symptoms match some of what was reported in Salem and could have been spread by birds and other animals (Aronson).

Many of the girls could have had Huntingtons Chorea, carriers of which have been traced to be among the colonists that settled in that area [1].

Salem Today

"With one of the highest concentrations of historic sites, museums, cultural activities, fine dining and shopping in Massachusetts, Salem is America's Bewitching Seaport with a little history in every step" (Destination Salem). Today the Salem Witchcraft Trials have become the basis of a money-making tourist industry in Salem. Witch shops are seen all over the community. Museums promise glimpses of the supernatural. Gift shops sell everything from Witch City shirts to Buddhism in a can. Tourists are treated to informational exhibits and programs.

Connected to Boston by train and bus, Salem's 38,000 residents and its one-million visitors are able to easily enjoy the best of both Salem and Boston.

In recent times, "historians see both sides of Salem" (Aronson). Still to this day, there is not a solid explanation for what occurred in the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600's.

The Salem Witch Trials in American Literature

The Salem Witch Trials have provided the basis for two of America's great works of drama, Giles Corey in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's New England Tragedies and Arthur Miller's classic play The Crucible. Both plays deal with the problem of presumed guilt and both follow a single character from his accusation to his eventual condemnation. Longfellow's play, which follows the form of a Shakespearean tragedy, is a commentary on the attitudes prevalent in 19th-century New England. Miller's play is a commentary on the actions of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities and Senator Joe McCarthy.


References used

Further reading

  • Miller, Arthur. "The Crucible — a play which implicitly compares McCarthyism to a witch-hunt".
  • Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. New York: Random House, 2002.
  • Roach, Marilynne K. The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-To-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege. Cooper Square Press, 2002.
  • Sologuk, Sally. "Diseases Can Bewitch Durum Millers". Milling Journal. Second quarter 2005.
  • Spanos, N. P., J. Gottlieb. "Ergots and Salem village witchcraft: A critical appraisal". Science: 194. 1390-1394:1976.
  • Starkey, Marion L. The Devil in Massachusetts. Alfred A. Knopf: 1949.
  • Woolf, Alex. "Investigating History Mysteries". Heinemann Library: 2004.
  • "The 19th and 20th Centuries". Destination Salem. 12 Apr. 2006 .
  • Wilson, Jennifer M.. Witch. Authorhouse, Feb. 2005.

See also


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