The Seeds of Salem's Witch-Hunts

The Seeds of Salem's Witch-Hunts From THE CRUCIBLE, part of the series LATITUDES: Resources to Integrate Language Arts and Social Studies. © Perfection Learning, Publisher. Like most people in Europe, the Puritans believed in witches. Witchcraft was punishable by death in both Europe and New England. But fewer "witches" died in America, as explained in The Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony. The most outstanding examples of [Puritan intolerance] were the witchcraft trials of 1692 in Salem and in other regions of Massachusetts. Some nineteen so-called witches were hanged or crushed to death1 at Salem. Witch-hunting had spread like a contagious disease from Europe where it had become increasingly more common since the mid-fifteenth century. The practice of witchcraft itself had long been considered a crime in England and in most of the rest of Europe. [King] James I, who was a most superstitious man, wrote a book called Daemonologie, which dealt with the subject and advocated the death penalty for witches. In 1604 such a law was passed in England and was in effect when the Puritans first came to Massachusetts. A witch was defined as one who was allied with the Devil and therefore evil. In those dark times, many persons afflicted with illnesses such as epilepsy were denounced as witches - for the seizures they suffered were considered signs that the Devil had possessed the individual, who then had to be destroyed. During the 1640s, a man named Matthew Hopkins declared that he had secret ways of uncovering witches and was appointed Witch Finder General. He went from place to place in England exposing "witches." The innocent persons - men, women, and children - executed on his testimony are estimated to have been numbered in the hundreds. In Massachusetts, Cotton Mather was a leading witch-hunter and often testified as an expert at witch trials. The Pilgrims never became involved in the tormenting of witches the way the Puritans did. At the height of the persecution only one person was charged with witchcraft by the Pilgrims in the town of Scituate. Mary Ingham was tried and acquitted of the charge of causing one Mehitable Woodworth "to fall into violent fitts... causing great paine unto severall parts of her body att severall times, soe as shee, the said Mehitable Woodworth, hath been almost bereaved of her sencis... " But the witch fever [in Massachusetts] soon burned itself out. The hysteria came to an end in the Old South Meeting House in Boston when Judge Samuel Sewall read out his confession of shame for the part he had played in the trials. Sewall's action was only a small step forward, out of the dark, superstitious century in which he lived. Yet what had happened in the little town of Salem was happening in many different countries - and witches would continue to be hunted in Europe for many years to come. 1Giles Corey - crushed because he refused to speak and so be put on trial Many Puritan laws were based on English legal custom. So an English witchcraft trial influenced Salem's Judge, as explained in Riding the Nightmare: Women & Witchcraft. The Chelmsford trial in Essex Country [England, 1566] introduced into English consciousness three solid precedents for seventeenth century witch-hunts in old and New England: (1) discovery of witch's marks on the body of the accused, from which the Devil could suck his quota of blood; (2) a familiar (personal, always- available demon) in the form of a cat; (3) evidence based almost wholly on the testimony of a child.... In the year 1664, Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of England, cleared away the final hurdle necessary for the later Salem witchcraft trials. He set the strongest possible precedent for admitting testimony based on spectral evidence. Accepted without even a raised eyebrow were stories of seeing the body of the accused sitting, standing, or sleeping in bed, while at the same time viewing her specter flying off to a sabbath, or swinging from a beam in the ceiling, or walking in the fields and streets to destroy property or commit murder. Added would be descriptions of the Devil appearing in the shape of various familiars: spiders, flies, ants, dogs, cats, or rats. Tests for Witchcraft Confession was the strongest evidence against a suspected witch. Searchers looked for objects used by witches, such as potions or books of magic. Suspects were examined for the Devil's Mark, an abnormal growth that had no sensation. The Devil was supposed to place his mark on anyone who signed a pact with him. Laying-on-of-hands, or curing someone by touch, was another widely accepted sign of witchcraft. A suspected witch would be asked to touch someone who was ill. If the person got better, the illness was said to be caused by a spell because touching the victim returned the spell to the witch. The water ordeal was not accepted by colonial courts. Mobs sometimes bound suspected witches and threw them into the water. The guilty were believed to float (because they rejected the waters of Christian baptism); the innocent sank. Inability to say the Lord's Prayer was suspicious because witches were supposed to say the prayer backward at their Sabbaths. Inability to cry was a sign of witchcraft to many. They believed that witches chose evil and rejected Christian charity. However, Cotton Mather and other educated people considered this test only a superstition. .

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