Terror Reigned As Accusations Flew During the Salem Witch Trials of 1692
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BOSSFall'11B:Layout 1 10/24/11 1:51 PM Page 26 MILESTONES IN HISTORY witch hunt TERROR REIGNED AS ACCUSATIONS FLEW DURING _ THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS OF 1692 BY EUGENE FINERMAN BOSSFall'11B:Layout 1 10/24/11 1:51 PM Page 27 MERICANS USUALLY arts, used magic to afflict the godly. speak of the Pilgrim fathers These were not merely the supersti - as independent-minded, tious babblings of the ignorant, but the Ahardworking and pious people who firm convictions of the educated as well. helped settle the land. We like to believe The Rev. Cotton Mather, a Harvard that we are imbued with their virtues. graduate and one of New England's But the Pilgrims left another legacy as most promising young leaders, had made well, and it’s a shameful one—for the a study of demonic possession of the Puritan heritage also includes the Salem mentally ill. His “Memorable Providences, Witch Trials. Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions” In 1692, the province of Massachusetts was regarded as a medical textbook. Bay, as the state was then known, had a Indeed, the book would soon be used population of 56,000 English colonists. as evidence in Salem, Mass. In early 1692, Strict, puritanical Protestants, they had 11-year-old Elizabeth Parris, the daughter come to the New World to build a society of the town’s minister, and her 11-year-old that reflected their values. The Puritans cousin Abigail Williams began running believed in hard work, and regarded a about in a violent frenzy and speaking good crop or a profitable year as a mark of God’s approval. They also encouraged literacy, particularly for reading the Bible. In 1636, just eight years after the first Puritans had arrived there, the colony established a college that was named for its benefactor John Harvard. But their creed also imbued them with a morbid, fearful view of the world. It was the Devil’s dominion, and Satan was after them. They did not accept the idea of luck or accident: the poor crop, the dead calf or the fall from a ladder were likely the work of the Fiend. And just as God had his beloved congregation, so too did Satan: witches. These minions of hell, Some 200 years after the Salem Witch Trials, antique having sold their souls to know the black collectibles from the era remain popular. _____________________ witch hunt: an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion or the like, usually based on slight, doubtful or irrelevant evidence. —WEBSTER’S UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY WWW . DIXONVALVE . COM FALL / WINTER 2011 ᔢ BOSS 27 BOSSFall'11B:Layout 1 10/24/11 1:51 PM Page 28 _____________________ gibberish. Modern-day experts have and the teenager and her immediate getting worse, but there were no offered several theories as to cause of circle of friends all claimed to be trials. The local magistrates did not such behavior: food poisoning, atten - tortured by witches. Historians have have the authority. A special court tion-deficit disorder or children being noted that Ann and her clique was required to try witches, one children. Seventeenth-century medi - accused people who had feuds with established by the royal governor, cine had a more occult diagnosis. The the Putnams. The Rev. George and Massachusetts was awaiting his local magistrates were alerted and, Burroughs was dragged from Maine arrival from London. On May 14, with the coercing help of the Rev. to face the charge of witchcraft; by 1692, Sir William Phips landed in Parris, the two children were coaxed coincidence, he also had an unpaid Boston and in the middle of a crisis. into naming three witches who had debt to Ann’s family. Land disputes He was born in New England and cursed them. with the Putnams also were settled by certainly was used to the Puritan Tituba was the slave of the Parris a charge of witchcraft. personality, but he did not expect to family, Sarah Good was a beggar and Other young women in neigh- judge 200 cases of witchcraft. Phips Sarah Osborne had been suspected of boring towns came forth with accusa - was not even a lawyer, but a ship - immorality and quarreled with the tions of witchcraft. In Ipswich, builder who had grown rich in the reverend. The three women were servant Mary Warren accused her salvage business. But acting quickly, arrested. When accused of witchcraft, bad-tempered employers of witch - Phips established the special court Good and Osborne maintained their craft; they were arrested. More and on May 27. William Stoughton, an innocence but Tituba confessed. The more people were accused. Within ordained minister, was named the slave from Barbados was already two months, 400 people had been chief justice. The trials began in early incriminated by her exotic back - investigated, and 200 were jailed. June. Only Puritan males were eligible ground; the folk tales of the Caribbean Most claimed their innocence. Some to be jurors. Since Salem had a popu - she had told the children now were 40 confessed, however, expecting lation of 600, the accused and the cited as evidence against her. Hoping clemency for their cooperation. Of jurors would have known each other. to save herself, Tituba testified, “The course, that cooperation required In trying a witch, there were a Devil came to me and bid me serve them to incriminate others. When number of precedents and tests. A him,” accusing Good and Osborne of Abigail Hobbs was arrested, she soon spinster was always suspicious. Any forcing her to sign the Devil’s book. accused her mother, Deliverance. physical blemish could be considered Presumably the Parris family now After her arrest, Deliverance accused a mark of Satan. A mole or a wart had been exorcised, but then other her husband, William. Breaking with was incriminating; a birthmark was young women proclaimed their the family tradition, William main - practically a death warrant. Any bedevilment. Ann Putnam was the tained his innocence and accused mishap that occurred to a neighbor daughter of one of Salem’s most no one else. might be weighed against the prominent and ambitious families, The jails were overcrowded and accused. However, the accused could 28 BOSS ᔢ FALL / WINTER 2011 BOSSFall'11B:Layout 1 10/24/11 1:52 PM Page 29 A drawing depicts the execu - tion of Ann Hibbins; the title page of the 1693 work “Wonders of the Invisible World,” by Cotton Mather; a lithograph by artist Joseph E. Baker, titled “The witch no. 1”; portrait of William Stoughton, chief justice of the witch trials and acting governor of Massachusetts, ca. 1700; stone cenotaph for Sarah Good at the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. ______________________ prove their innocence by reciting— executed by being crushed to death the three people found guilty, even without a mistake—the Lord’s Prayer. by stones. As many as 13 died in they were released from prison by Justice Stoughton would also consider prison. A 4-year-old child, impris - May 1693. an additional form of evidence: oned for witchcraft, went mad. But However, there was no punish - dreams and visions. When Elizabeth the real crime was the trials them - ment for the genuinely guilty … other Parris claimed that she saw Sarah selves: the absurd “evidence,” the than what their conscience dictated. Good flying on a broom, this court courtroom hysterics and Justice On Jan. 14, 1697, the legislature of accepted that as proof. Stoughton’s obvious bias. This court Massachusetts ordered a day of fast - The trials themselves became a tried 26 cases, and all the accused ing and repentance for the Salem stage for hysterics. English justice were found guilty. hysteria. The proclamation was required that the accuser face the accused, and the nine afflicted The trials themselves became a stage for hysterics. In the women sat in the court. In the pres - presence of the accused, the “bewitched” would react with ence of the accused, the “bewitched” would react with fits, shrieks and fits, shrieks and accounts of spectral attacks. accounts of spectral attacks. In court, The public, at least those safe written by Samuel Sewall, who had Ann Putnam would claim that she from Stoughton’s immediate jurisdic - been a judge at the trial. In 1706, Ann was being strangled by the evil powers tion, protested the scandal. Increase Putnam publicly repented. None of of the accused, the 71-year-old Mather, president of Harvard and the other “afflicted” did. As for Justice Rebecca Nurse. Of course, the attack father of Cotton Mather, wrote in a Stoughton, he actually rose in govern - was invisible, but the court accepted public letter, “It were better that ten ment and became chief justice of the it as evidence. However, the jury suspected witches should escape than colony. The town of Stoughton, Mass., initially did not, and acquitted Nurse. one innocent person be condemned.” is named for him, as is a dormitory at Justice Stoughton did not accept that Governor Phips agreed. Finally, in Harvard. He remained unrepentant. verdict, and told the jurors to find her October 1692, he dissolved the But we remember the Salem guilty. The intimidated panel com - special court, halted the executions Witch Trials—a haunting metaphor plied. English law, the Puritan dispo - and forbid further arrests. Those of bigotry, hypocrisy and hysteria. It sition and the Old Testament con - imprisoned without formal charge remains a warning, but one we don’t curred: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch were released. The remaining 56 cases always heed. There have been times to live.” Rebecca Nurse, certainly guilty of witchcraft were transferred to the in modern history when, through of a land dispute with the Putnams, Superior Court.