The [Type text] Elise Forte

The Many Faces of the Salem Trials of 1692

By: Elise Forte

Dr. Sheila O’Hare

LI861 Current Issues in Information Transfer

Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 2

Introduction

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 are cause for great speculation and mystery. It appears to have occurred suddenly, causing mass hysteria not just locally but regionally as well. After the executions of 20 individuals, the accusations and convictions ended and life, for all intents and purposes, continued on. The Salem Witch Trials are of historical significance for nothing like it has happened in early American history, in that extreme, before. “It lasted longer, jailed more suspects, condemned and executed more people, ranged over more territory, and afterwards was quickly repudiated by the government as a colossal mistake” (Ray, 2010). The 16th and 17th centuries acknowledged the existence of witches and witchcraft, but few executions ever happened, and nothing to the extreme of Salem. Europe was an ocean away and the trials and tribulations experienced on the continent had no meaning for those who lived in pre-Colonial America. The closest event that has happened that is similar to the panic and fear similar to the Salem Witch Trials is the era of McCarthy and Communism. Many scholars have taken an in- depth look at the who, why, and how of the incidents that transpired in 1692. The Salem Witch Trials were so intense for a short duration of time that the incidents has even entered the world of pop culture with Arthur Miller’s award-winning play The Crucible, and inspiring movies such as the 1958 film Bell, Book, and Candle and 1992’s Hocus Pocus.

The following paper will look at a few more modern theories that have tried to decipher and make sense of the Salem Witch Trials. The different fields of study that have been used to decipher the mystery include economics, geography, sociology, and psychology. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, , and Jamies West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle are included to explain not just what happened in Salem, Massachusetts 300 years ago, but why. First the paper will begin with a synopsis of the events of 1692 followed by a brief commentary of how the Salem Witch Trials have been studied in the past. The paper will then conclude with how the Salem Trials are currently being viewed and studied.

In 1692 the Reverend Parris came to Salem Village to be pastor of the new church established by the local village people. These people were far removed from the more populated, bigger, and more established Salem Town. Many were complaining that it was too far to travel for church every Sunday, and Salem Village was becoming big enough to support their own pastor and congregation. After three former, and unsuccessful, pastors, Reverend Samuel Parris accepted the position.

In the winter of 1691-1692, several local girls and young women had met to divine what kind of husbands they would each marry. In the middle of the proceedings one of the girls claims to have seen a figure in the shape like a coffin. Parris’s daughter and niece, 8/9 year old Betty Parris and 11 year old Abigail Williams, came down with a mysterious illness. The two girls were saying that they were being “bitten and pinched by invisible agents…” (Davidson, Lytle, 2010). Soon after, other local girls and young women were claiming that they, too, were Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 3

suffering from the same afflictions. After bringing in several other doctors and ministers, Reverend Parris was convinced that the girls suffered from witchcraft. It would soon turn out that the “invisible agents” torturing the young women were all too visible.

A local woman, Mary Sibley, with the best of intentions, decided to have Parris’ two slaves, John and Tituba Indian, bake a witch cake to determine whether the girls were really being bewitched. A cake was fed to a dog, containing the girl’s urine and rye meal, and if the dog suffered the same afflictions as the girls, dark magic was indeed at work. (It was thought that when a witch was tormenting someone, part of her essence was passed to the abused and stayed with them, hence the urine from the afflicted girls. Also, some interpretations say that a witch cake will bring out a name of the witch doing the tormenting). The witch cake did not work, as the girls symptoms got worse. The girls were claiming that spectral images of certain individuals were tormenting them and, pressured by the adults, the girls named three local women. These local women just happened to be local outcasts, not well liked by the majority of the villagers. In February formal charges were drawn up and arrests were made.

Parris’ slave Tituba was charged and admitted to being a witch. Here is where the Salem episode takes a dramatic turn. Not only did Tituba confess to being a witch, she claimed that five other individuals, one of them a man, were in league with the devil. Tituba’s confession laid the groundwork for not only how the trial was to proceed in upcoming months, but the drama that was to unfold from both accusers and accused. One of the things that previously did not happen in witchcraft trials was that the accused were questioned separate from the accusers.

After several more afflictions and other individuals were named, a court was established in June to deal exclusively with the accusations and trials. This court was the Court of Oyer and Terminer, which features prominently in several of the articles. The pressure was great to confess, for your life would be spared and you would be forgiven. However, those that confessed were expected to name others who had dealings with the devil and present details of their crimes. The list of those being accused of witchcraft grew and by September of 1692 eight more people were hanged.

During the summer pressure had been building to stop the trials. The accusations had grown beyond Salem Village and things were getting out of hand. Several ministers had been cautioning magistrates to put things to an end and in October Increase Mather, a respected preacher in the colony, published a sermon condemning spectral evidence, and it was signed by fourteen other pastors. The sermon was enough evidence to convince the governor that things had gone too far, and he forbade any more arrests and dismissed the court that was established the previous summer. The following January a new court met and released the remaining 100 people who were arrested and in jail.

Ten months and 20 executions later, the accusations ended and life resumed. The sudden end to what some have called an epidemic continues to baffle historians. Few witchcraft crises in the late 17th century ever reached the courts, and the ones that did were Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 4

dealt with quickly. What made Salem so different? Several historians have taken different avenues to interpret not only what happened in Salem, but why.

Tituba and Ethnohistory

Several papers have been written trying to explain what happened over 300 years ago. Most of them focus on religious, economic, and geographic theories for why the Salem Witch Trials happened, when they did, and where they occurred. Even some studies have taken a gender specific approach discussing the afflicted girls and the older women who were accused. Even fewer mention the slave woman Tituba, but it is Tituba’s story and confession that sets the tone for the upcoming witch-hunt.

In her paper Tituba’s Confession: The Multicultural Dimensions of the 1692 Salem Witch-Hunt Elaine G. Breslaw tries to shed some light on the looked over importance of Tituba. Her article is a great benefit to researchers or curious students who want to find out more about the Salem Witch Trials. The article takes an ethnic, post-modern approach by making Tituba and her confession the sole thesis of her paper. Tituba’s Confession lays the groundwork for the drama that would soon unfold in the village of Salem.

Breslaw acknowledges that not a lot is known about Tituba, but “part of her credibility to her Salem audience was enhanced by her identification as an American Indian whose culture had long been associated with demonic power” (Breslaw, 1997). Despite the lack of information of Tituba’s background, Breslaw makes a compelling case that Tituba “*blended+ elements from English, African, and American Indian notions of the occult” (Breslaw, 1997). She postulates that Tituba’s confession “was not merely the frightened response of a slave woman but a sophisticated manipulation of her interrogators’ deepest fears” (Breslaw, 1997). In other words, Tituba took her knowledge of what she knew of the Puritans concept of evil, and told the magistrates what they wanted to hear, in the way they wanted to hear it.

Breslaw’s sources for her article were the court records that have survived as well as Tituba’s confession found in the Salem Witch Papers, currently apart of the Essex archives.

Religion

Benjamin C. Ray takes a theological approach to explain how and why the Salem Witch Trials happened. Ray is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia and is an editor of the Record of the Salem Witch-Hunt, which is a new transcription of the Salem witch trial court records. The original court records and maps were his primary sources to defend and highlight his argument. He did look at contemporary sermons and publications of Puritanism of the time period, such as Cotton Mather. Ray’s methodology is neither qualitative or quantitative but rather a close examination of the primary records.

Ray’s essay builds on an earlier work by Richard Latner that postulates religious discord is what casued the drama and dissension in Salem. Ray’s lengthy essay Satan’s War Against the Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 5

Covenant in Salem Village, 1692 postulates that “a chronological and geographical analysis” of the church and non-church members is very significant, and that “Parris’s preaching…his conservative views on church membership, connections to influential members of the community, and the opposition to his ministry are important factors to examine” (Ray, 2007). In addition, Ray writes that “one’s status within or without the village congregation became the distinguishing characteristic of the accusers and the accused within the village community (Ray, 2007). Ray’s approach is very religious/theologically based and he uses the maps and court records to defend his thesis.

Mr. Ray has written another article that contrasts new scholarly findings with outdated interpretations in history textbooks. “The Salem Witch Mania”: Recent Scholarship and American History Textbooks proposes that religion played a central role in the Salem crisis, not social or political aspects. Similar to Mary Beth Norton and Elaine Breslaw, he tosses aside the notion that Tituba was performing magic and frightening the girls.

His sources are ones that he previously referenced and he introduces new ones such Mary Beth Norton, Marion Starkey, and Richard Francis. His approach, like the above article, is religious/theological. His methods, however, are just referencing other sources to support his own argument that religion was the main factor for the discord in Salem.

Political, Economic, and Religious

Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum wrote Salem Possessed back in the 1960’s after an experimental semester in teaching history to students using only primary sources. They are both professors of History and the method they use is classic historical research. Nissenbaum is professor at both the University of Vermont as well as the University of Massachusetts so the primary sources that consist of court records, maps, and confessions, were readily accessible. In 1970 they visited the church and used the original church records, copied by Salem’s own Reverend Parris that include petitions in favor and against the Reverend.

In the article Salem Possessed in Retrospect both men tell of the journey of their research and writing of what turned into a book, Salem Possessed. Both men attribute the crisis to pre- existing political, economic, and religious discord among the men of Salem Village. They argue that the Salem Witch Trials reached a scope that could no longer be contained in Salem Village and Salem Town proper, but expanded to Essex County. Legal documents, as valuable as they are, only offer a glimpse into what happened. Boyer and Nissenbaum look at tax records for who were paying higher taxes as well as land transfers. With this information, it is better understood why certain families were the accusers and others were the accused.

Salem Possessed is important research because Boyer and Nissenbaum took the crises out of the Village and expanded the boundaries. Previously, no one had studied the economics of Salem Town and Salem Village or the impact of the fervent theology of the times.

Economics Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 6

Franklin G. Mixon Jr. is a professor of economics and theorizes that “the ministers successfully employed Puritan religious doctrine regarding witchcraft to maintain, and perhaps strengthen, their church’s monopoly” (Mixon, 2000). His article Homo Economicus and the Salem Witch Trials begins with a brief overview of the events. He then proceeds into a possible medical explanation for the actions of the afflicted girls. The medical explanation, which will be looked at further down, postulates that contaminated grain was the culprit. He cites a study in biology that occurred in 1676 by a French biologist that established a link between ergotized bread and bread poisoning, ergotism. This study was then re-visited by Mappen in the early 1980’s and, according to Mappen, “the *wet+ climate and geographic conditions necessary for ergot to flourish were present in Salem during the late 1600’s”. Mixon goes on to argue that even though ergotism is a possible explanation for the physical symptoms of the accusers, it does not explain the behavior of the ministers, magistrates, and the church they represented. Therefore, “it the reactions of these ministers and the church they represented regarding the possible illness exhibited by the young girls that allows for an economic interpretation” (Mixon, 2000).

Primary sources that Mixon uses include sermons that were popular of the time, such as Deodat Lawson’s Pray, Pray, Pray sermon and Increase Mather’s sermons. Mixon argues that the ministers were viewed as holders of monopoly licenses to interpret Puritan theology. Mixon references Boyer and Nissenbaum and agrees that the “ministers exploited the young girls for personal and corporate gain” (Mixon, 2000). Mixon uses theology as the jumping-off point to help argue his economic perspective. In other words, the church provided a “stylized, static model” that fits perfectly with the congregation, or lack of one, in Salem Village. “The intended consequence was to augment individual wealth” (Mixon, 2000).

Homo Economicus is a good article to study the witch trials combining two different schools of thought; economics and religion. However, the article is short and Mixon could expand more his economic interpretation. He mentions his theological basis but does not delve in depth into the economics portion. The article does reference better, more in depth studies and is still a decent resource for scholars.

Chronological

Margo Burns and Bernard Rosenthal began one of the most in depth studies of the Salem Witch Trials utilizing all available records. Margo Burns is an independent scholar and Bernard Rosenthal is a professor emeritus at Binghamton University. The article Examination of the Records of the Salem Witch Trials discusses the records that were created during the trials. What makes the new organization and study worthwhile is that it emphasizes the chronological unfolding of the events and the legal procedures involved. They argue that in past studies of the trials, beginning when the original records were created in 1692, the records were organized by case, not date. This poses a great problem when studying the events because of the definition of case that was being used at the time. “The gold standard when counting cases has always been conviction and execution” (Burns, Rosenthal, 2008). This proves problematic because not Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 7

all of those accused were ever tried, and therefore nothing ever happened legally, which means there would be no record of that “case”.

The method they use is studying the original texts and comparing them to copies, thereby searching for similarities and differences, which allows for “chronological associations between documents, allowing for the dating of documents that otherwise have no dating clues in the content of the text” (Burns, Rosenthal, 2008).

The authors used the original records and meticulously studied each piece of evidence. This intense studying allowed them to catch variations in ink that was used, spelling errors, as well date and clarify other records that seemed important, but no one previously knew why they were important. The authors admit that the Salem Witch Trials will be re-invented by these discoveries, but rather “it gives valuable insight into the judicial meticulousness of the proceedings” (Burns, Rosenthal, 2008).

Historical, Judicial

Wendel D. Craker wrote an excellent article, Spectral Evidence, Non-Spectral Evidence, Acts of Witchcraft, and Confession at Salem in 1692, that goes in depth to all persons accused. “This profile provides evidence that the standard claims about the court of Oyer and Terminer’s use of evidence are the reverse of what actually happened, and highlights a number of patterns that have gone unremarked” (Craker, 1997). It is not known what are of expertise Craker comes from, but the article can be found in The Historical Journal by Cambridge University Press.

The method that Craker uses is meticulously studying all known court records and documents and first separating the emotional inferences from those of the facts of the trials, and/or cases. He begins his article of the definitions of the types of evidence that were allowed, the most prominent, but un-reliable, being that of spectral evidence. Spectral evidence refers to the common belief that he, or in this case she, was given permission by Satan to assume that person’s appearance in spectral form. For example, several, if not all, of the afflicted girls claimed that Tituba, Goody Nurse, and Goody Osbourne all appeared to them as spectres, trying to coerce them into joining Satan’s army. The spectres were also held responsible for pinching, biting, stabbing, and other physical tortures that the afflicted girls endured.

The second piece of evidence is that of non-spectral evidence, which “sprang from the malice and ill-will of neighbor against neighbor” (Craker, 1997). The types of instances that occurred with non-spectral evidence were sick cattle, magic spells, poor weather, sickness, and death.

The third, and most valuable, piece of evidence was that of confession. As many of the articles claim, once the accusations gained speed, several of the accused knew that if you just confessed and repented, your life would most likely be spared.

Craker’s argument “is to examine how these forms of evidence entered into the selection of individual’s for trial and execution” (Craker, 1997). 156 people were indicted before and during Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 8

the active life of Oyer and Terminer, but only 28 of those 156 were brought to trial and 20 of those were executed.

It is an in depth article and Craker provides tables to aid in his analysis and conclusion.

Real Estate Forfeitures

David C. Brown focuses on the legal issues of forfeitures of land of accused and/or convicted persons of witchcraft. He claims that historians have not critically looked at the legal forfeitures of the court of Oyer and Terminer. “The failure to explore the justifications for the Salem forfeitures has clouded our understanding of the witchcraft trials and contributed to the lingering impression that the procedures adopted in 1692 helped foster a miscarriage of justice” (Brown, 1993).

Brown is a Harvard Graduate of History and takes a historical approach. He begins the paper with a description of the laws common of the time both in England, the Mother country, and Massachusetts, which was a new colony and had no solid legal system. He goes on to discuss common law rules of forfeiture, and provides tables that contain every case in which the offender’s property was seized. His conclusion is that the forfeitures form a pattern that shed light and understanding on the trials. This research also proves significant to those individuals that survived, and the descendants of those executed, who later got a pardon and financial compensation several years after the trials.

Psychological, Historical

Mary Beth Norton provides an excellent non-fiction work on the Salem Witch Trials. In the Devil’s Snare provides an intense, broader look at the events that led up to the trials, as well as the trials themselves. Norton is a historian and uses resources used by Boyer and Nissenbaum. She expands on their findings by taking the crisis outside of the village. Norton argues that the rest of the frontier was suffering from violent Indian attacks and several of the inhabitants of Salem, including one of the primary accusers, Abigail Williams, were refugees of those Indian attacks. Norton does not cast aside that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, was a contributing factor to the Salem Witch Trials. She goes on to make the connection between Puritan ideology and the Indian attacks.

Resources Norton employed were the standard Salem Witch Papers, Boyer’s and Nissenbaum’s research in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Knowing that she would have to look outside of Salem, she looked at documents that pertained to Essex County and journals from those affected by the Indian attacks on the frontier. Norton includes a table of cases heard by the court of Oyer and Terminer, a list of those who had ties to the Northern Frontier, afflicted accusers in Salem and Andover, and finally a list of confessed witches who named accused others. Norton’s conclusion is that fear of the spiritual world and a real fear of the Indian attacks are a perfect combination for the events that made up the Salem Witch Crisis, and by extension spread throughout Essex County. Those in charge of protecting the colony, the Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 9

judges, jurors, clergy, and officials “defensive about their own failure to protect the frontier” latched on to the most likely cause; A vast conspiracy between the devil, the French, and the Indians.

Pop-Culture, Political

Included in this selection is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. It is being included because it is the first item that most people are introduced to when it comes to the Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible begins with Parris’s daughter Betty, already inert. It comes out that the girls, accompanied by Tituba, were dabbling in magic and fortune-telling. Abigail, former lover of John Proctor, instead requests that John Proctor’s wife dies and she would be back together with John. Act One ends with Betty coming out of her reverie and the girls accusing various older women in the village. Act Two introduces the audience/reader to the private lives of John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth. The questioning of the accused women is still in the elementary stages, but Elizabeth tells John that he needs to tell the court about Abigail, and that the girls are faking their torments. Abigail, in the meantime tries to seduce John but he refuses and stays loyal to his wife. Being scorned by her former lover, Abigail soon takes her revenge on John. The play reaches its climax when Mary Warren, servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor, testifies that the girls were indeed faking their fits. When the girls start to accuse Mary of attacking them spectrally, she goes back to being an accuser and turns the blame onto John, saying that he has made a pact with the devil. The play ends with John confessing, tearing up his confession upon finding out that it was to be nailed on the door of the church, and he would rather die as an innocent man with his name, than live as a liar. Abigail stole her Uncle’s money and run away. Elizabeth Proctor lives only due to the fact that she was pregnant.

The play takes several poetic licenses, i.e. Abigail and John Proctor’s affair, the number of accusers was reduced, and the number of judges present was likewise reduced and represented by the characters Hawthorne and Danforth. However, all the characters did end up with the same fates as their real-life counter-parts.

Miller uses letters, trial records, and “certain broadsides written at the time”. Since little was, and still continues to be known about the people of Salem Village, Miller acknowledges that the behaviors of the characters are of his own creation. Since the play is an allegory of the McCarthy communist hunt, Miller uses the fear and hysteria pervading the United States at the time to influence his writing.

In 1953 Miller wrote the play as a political allegory in response to the hysteria and fear of the McCarthy era. “Political opposition…is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normal applied customs of behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence” (Miller, 1953).

Admittedly, The Crucible is not an academic work but it does capture the fear and the drama that occurred when it initially happened. Miller portrays Reverend Parris as a man who is afraid of losing his pride in front of the congregation and village. Miller touches on the neighbor feuds Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 10

as portrayed by Giles Corey. (Corey was the 20th individual to be executed but it was for refusing to relinquish his land, as opposed to making a pact with the devil). It displays what happens when there is mass hysteria, young women who are in a society that asks for them to be seen and not heard, and when government and religion meet. It opens the door for further research and

Conclusion

The above articles are only the tip of the iceberg where the Salem Witch Trials are concerned. Many websites are devoted to the trials, both from a historical standpoint and pop culture. The various studies that have been in regards to the trials are to repudiate previous misconceptions and scholarly works. A few of those misconceptions are that the girls were lying and faking their ordeals and the trials were a disaster in mixing church with government.

The most recent research is Mary Beth Norton’s In the Devil’s Snare that takes the events beyond the borders of Salem Village. In the 21st century every discipline, for better or worse, has been used to explain the events in 1692. A few disciplines that have been used are feminist theory, economics, psychology, and sociology. As most researchers have acknowledged, the Salem Witch Trials will always be un-explained fully, for not every record survives today. Norton mentions that many of the judges and magistrates destroyed incriminating and/or embarrassing records to themselves, or their descendants destroyed those records.

The Salem Witch Trials will always stand out as a pivotal moment in American history. The studies will continue and researchers will always try to answer the who, what, why, and how.

References

Boyer, P., Nissenbaum, S. (2008). Salem possessed in retrospect. The William and Mary Quarterly, 45 (3), 513-534.

Burns, M., Rosenthal, B. (2008). Examination of the records of the Salem witch trials. The William and Mary Quarterly, 65 (3), 401-422.

Breslaw, E. G. (1997). Tituba’s confession: the multicultural dimensions of the 1692 Salem witch- hunt. Ethnohistory, 44 (3), 535-556.

Brown, D. C. (1993). The forfeitures at Salem, 1692. The William and Mary Quarterly, 50 (1), 85- 111.

Craker, W. D. (1997). Spectral evidence, non-spectral acts of witchcraft, and confession at Salem in 1692. The Historical Journal, 40 (2), 331-358.

Miller, A. (1953). The crucible. Salem Witch Trials [Type text] Forte 11

Mixon, F. G. (2000). Homo economicus and the salem witch trials. Journal of Economic Education, 179-184.

Norton, M. B. (2002). In the devil’s snare: New York: Vintage.

Ray, B. C. (2007). Satan’s war against the covenant in salem village, 1692. The New England Quarterly, 80 (1), 69-95.

Ray, B. C. (2010). The salem witch mania: recent scholarship and American history textbooks. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 78 (1), 40-64.