![Witchcraft at Salem Village](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Witchcraft_at_Salem_Village.jpg)
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
in
colonial Massachusetts
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 ...
between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, 19 of whom were executed by
hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...
(14 women and five men). One other man,
Giles Corey
Giles Corey ( August 1611 – September 19, 1692) was an English-born American farmer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or ...
, was
pressed to death after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in jail.
Arrests were made in numerous towns beyond
Salem and Salem Village (known today as
Danvers), notably
Andover
Andover may refer to:
Places Australia
* Andover, Tasmania
Canada
* Andover Parish, New Brunswick
* Perth-Andover, New Brunswick
United Kingdom
* Andover, Hampshire, England
** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station
United States
* Ando ...
and
Topsfield. The grand juries and trials for this
capital crime
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
were conducted by a Court of
Oyer and Terminer
In English law, oyer and terminer (; a partial translation of the Anglo-French ''oyer et terminer'', which literally means "to hear and to determine") was one of the commissions by which a judge of assize sat. Apart from its Law French name, the ...
in 1692 and by a
Superior Court of Judicature
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the court of last resort, highest court in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the di ...
in 1693, both held in Salem Town, where the hangings also took place. It was the deadliest
witch hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America took place in the Early Modern perio ...
in the history of colonial North America. Only fourteen other women and two men had been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 17th century.
The episode is one of Colonial America's most notorious cases of
mass hysteria
Mass psychogenic illness (MPI), also called mass sociogenic illness, mass psychogenic disorder, epidemic hysteria, or mass hysteria, involves the spread of illness symptoms through a population where there is no infectious agent responsible for c ...
. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolation, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but a Colonial American example of the much broader phenomenon of
witch trials in the early modern period
Witch trials in the early modern period saw that between 1400 to 1782, around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. Some sources estimate that a total of 100,000 trials occurred at its maximum for a s ...
, which took place also in Europe. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in the
history of the United States
The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of Settlement of the Americas, the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. Native American cultures in the United States, Numerous indigenous cultures formed ...
. According to historian
George Lincoln Burr
George Lincoln Burr (January 30, 1857 – June 27, 1938) was a US historian, diplomat, author, and educator, best known as a Professor of History and Librarian at Cornell University, and as the closest collaborator of Andrew Dickson White, the ...
, "the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the
theocracy
Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deity, deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs.
Etymology
The word theocracy origina ...
shattered."
At the 300th anniversary events in 1992 to commemorate the victims of the trials, a park was dedicated in Salem and a memorial in Danvers. In 1957, an act passed by the Massachusetts legislature absolved six people, while another one, passed in 2001, absolved five other victims. As of 2004, there was still talk about exonerating all of the victims, though some think that happened in the 18th century as the Massachusetts colonial legislature was asked to reverse the
attainder
In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditar ...
s of "George Burroughs and others". In January 2016, the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
announced its Gallows Hill Project team had determined the execution site in Salem, where the 19 "witches" had been hanged. The city dedicated the ''Proctor's Ledge Memorial'' to the victims there in 2017.
[Caroline Newman, "X Marks the Spot"](_blank)
''UVA Today,'' 16 January 2016, accessed 28 April 2016
Background
While witch trials had begun to fade out across much of Europe by the mid-17th century, they continued on the fringes of Europe and in the American Colonies. The events in 1692–1693 in Salem became a brief outburst of a sort of hysteria in the New World, while the practice was already waning in most of Europe.
In 1668, in ''Against Modern Sadducism'',
Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvill (1636 – 4 November 1680) was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the approa ...
claimed that he could prove the existence of witches and ghosts of the supernatural realm. Glanvill wrote about the "denial of the bodily resurrection, and the
upernaturalspirits."
[Glanvill, Joseph. "Essay IV Against modern Sadducism in the matter of Witches and Apparitions", ''Essay on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion'', 2nd ed., London; printed by Jd for John Baker and H. Mortlock, 1676, pp. 1–4 (in the history 201 course-pack compiled by S. McSheffrey & T. McCormick), p. 26]
In his treatise, Glanvill claimed that ingenious men should believe in witches and apparitions; if they doubted the reality of spirits, they not only denied demons but also the almighty God. Glanvill wanted to prove that the supernatural could not be denied; those who did deny apparitions were considered
heretics
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
, for it also disproved their beliefs in angels.
Works by men such as Glanvill and
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting H ...
tried to prove that "demons were alive."
Accusations
The trials were started after people had been accused of witchcraft, primarily by teenage girls such as
Elizabeth Hubbard
Elizabeth Hubbard is an American actress perhaps best known for her role as Dr. Althea Davis on '' The Doctors'' (1964–69, 1970–77, 1981–82), and as powerful businesswoman Lucinda Walsh on ''As the World Turns'' (1984-2010). She also pla ...
, 17, as well as some who were younger.
Dorothy Good
Dorothy Good (historically referred to as Dorcas Good; ca. 1687/1688 – ?) was the daughter of William Good and Sarah Good (née Solart). Dorothy and her mother Sarah were accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem at the beginning of the Salem w ...
was four or five years old when she was accused of witchcraft.
Recorded witchcraft executions in New England
The earliest recorded witchcraft execution was that of
Alse Young
Alse Young (1615 – 26 May 1647) of Windsor, Connecticut — sometimes Achsah Young or Alice Young — was the first recorded instance of execution for witchcraft in the thirteen American colonies. She had one child, Alice Beamon (Young), b ...
in 1647 in
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
, the start of the
Connecticut Witch Trials The Connecticut Witch Trials, also sometimes referred to as the Hartford witch trials, occurred from 1647 to 1663. They were the first large-scale witch trials in the American colonies, predating the Salem Witch Trials by nearly thirty years. John M ...
which lasted until 1663. Historian Clarence F. Jewett included a list of other people executed in New England in his 1881 book.
Political context
New England had been settled by religious dissenters seeking to build a Bible-based society according to their own chosen discipline. The original 1629
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...
of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
was vacated in 1684, after which
King James II
James VII and II (14 October 1633 16 September 1701) was King of England and King of Ireland as James II, and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II, on 6 February 1685. He was deposed in the Glorious Re ...
installed Sir
Edmund Andros
Sir Edmund Andros (6 December 1637 – 24 February 1714) was an English colonial administrator in British America. He was the governor of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. At other times, Andros served ...
as the governor of the
Dominion of New England
The Dominion of New England in America (1686–1689) was an administrative union of English colonies covering New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies (except for Delaware Colony and the Province of Pennsylvania). Its political structure represe ...
. Andros was
ousted in 1689 after the "
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
" in England replaced the Catholic James II with the Protestant co-rulers
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
and
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...
.
Simon Bradstreet
Simon Bradstreet (baptized March 18, 1603/4In the Julian calendar, then in use in England, the year began on March 25. To avoid confusion with dates in the Gregorian calendar, then in use in other parts of Europe, dates between January and Ma ...
and
Thomas Danforth
Thomas Danforth (baptized November 20, 1623 – November 5, 1699) was a politician, magistrate, and landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A conservative Puritan, he served for many years as one of the colony's councilors and magistrates, ...
, the colony's last leaders under the old charter, resumed their posts as governor and deputy governor, but lacked constitutional authority to rule because the old charter had been vacated. At the same time, tensions erupted between English colonists settling in "the Eastward" (the present-day coast of
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...
) and French-supported
Wabanaki Indians of that territory in what came to be known as
King William's War
King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...
. This was 13 years after the devastating
King Philip's War
King Philip's War (sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom's War, Metacomet's War, Pometacomet's Rebellion, or Metacom's Rebellion) was an armed conflict in 1675–1676 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England coloni ...
with the
Wampanoag
The Wampanoag , also rendered Wôpanâak, are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands based in southeastern Massachusetts and historically parts of eastern Rhode Island,Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 17 ...
and other indigenous tribes in southern and western New England. In October 1690, Sir
William Phips
Sir William Phips (or Phipps; February 2, 1651 – February 18, 1695) was born in Maine in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was of humble origin, uneducated, and fatherless from a young age but rapidly advanced from shepherd boy, to shipwright, s ...
led an unsuccessful
attack on French-held Quebec. Between 1689 and 1692, Native Americans continued to attack many English settlements along the Maine coast, leading to the abandonment of some of the settlements and resulting in a flood of refugees into areas like
Essex County.
A new charter for the enlarged
Province of Massachusetts Bay
The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the Thirteen Colonies, thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III of England, William III and Mary II ...
was given final approval in England on October 16, 1691.
Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
had been working on obtaining the charter for four years, with William Phips often joining him in London and helping him gain entry to Whitehall. Increase Mather had published a book on witchcraft in 1684 and his son
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting H ...
published one in 1689. Increase Mather brought out a London edition of his son's book in 1690. Increase Mather claimed to have picked all the men to be included in the new government. News of Mather's charter and the appointment of Phips as the new governor had reached Boston by late January, and a copy of the new charter reached Boston on February 8, 1692. Phips arrived in Boston on May 14 and was sworn in as governor two days later, along with Lieutenant Governor
William Stoughton. One of the first orders of business for the new governor and council on May 27, 1692, was the formal nomination of county
justices of the peace
A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...
,
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
s, and the commission of a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer to handle the large numbers of people who were "thronging" the jails.
Local context
![Salem Village - map of - Project Gutenberg eText 17845](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Salem_Village_-_map_of_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_17845.jpg)
Salem Village (present-day
Danvers, Massachusetts
Danvers is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the Danvers River near the northeastern coast of Massachusetts. The suburb is a fairly short ride from Boston and is also in close proximity to the renowned beaches of Glo ...
) was known for its fractious population, who had many many disputes internally and with Salem Town (present-day
Salem). Arguments about property lines, grazing rights, and church privileges were rife, and neighbors considered the population as "quarrelsome." In 1672, the villagers had voted to hire a minister of their own, apart from Salem Town. The first two ministers, James Bayley (1673–1679) and
George Burroughs
George Burroughs ( 1650August 19, 1692) was an American religious leader who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is best known for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, some ...
(1680–1683), stayed only a few years each, departing after the congregation failed to pay their full rate. (Burroughs was subsequently arrested at the height of the witchcraft hysteria and was hanged as a witch in August 1692.)
Despite the ministers' rights being upheld by the General Court and the parish being admonished, each of the two ministers still chose to leave. The third minister,
Deodat Lawson Deodat Lawson was a minister in Salem Village from 1684 to 1688 and is famous for a 10-page pamphlet describing the witchcraft accusations in the early spring of 1692. The pamphlet was billed as "collected by Deodat Lawson" and printed within the y ...
(1684–1688), stayed for a short time, leaving after the church in Salem refused to ordain him—and therefore not over issues with the congregation. The parish disagreed about Salem Village's choice of
Samuel Parris
Samuel Parris (1653February 27, 1720) was the Puritan minister in Salem Village, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials. He was also the father of one of the afflicted girls, and the uncle of another.
Life and career
Samuel Parris, son of T ...
as its first ordained minister. On June 18, 1689, the villagers agreed to hire Parris for £66 annually, "one third part in money and the other two third parts in provisions," and use of the parsonage.
On October 10, 1689, however, they raised his benefits, voting to grant him the deed to the parsonage and two acres (0.8 hectares) of land. This conflicted with a 1681 village resolution which stated that "it shall not be lawful for the inhabitants of this village to convey the houses or lands or any other concerns belonging to the Ministry to any particular persons or person: not for any cause by vote or other ways".
Though the prior ministers' fates and the level of contention in Salem Village were valid reasons for caution in accepting the position, Rev. Parris increased the village's divisions by delaying his acceptance. He did not seem able to settle his new parishioners' disputes: by deliberately seeking out "iniquitous behavior" in his congregation and making church members in good standing suffer public penance for small infractions, he contributed significantly to the tension within the village. Its bickering increased unabated. Historian
Marion Starkey suggests that, in this atmosphere, serious conflict may have been inevitable.
Religious context
![Cotton Mather](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Cotton_Mather.jpg)
Prior to the constitutional turmoil of the 1680s, the Massachusetts government had been dominated by conservative
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...
secular leaders. While Puritans and the Church of England both shared a common influence in
Calvinism
Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Cal ...
, Puritans had opposed many of the traditions of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
, including use of the
Book of Common Prayer
The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...
, the
use of clergy vestments during services, the use of the
sign of the cross
Making the sign of the cross ( la, signum crucis), or blessing oneself or crossing oneself, is a ritual blessing made by members of some branches of Christianity. This blessing is made by the tracing of an upright cross or + across the body with ...
at
baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
, and kneeling to receive
communion, all of which they believed constituted
popery
The words Popery (adjective Popish) and Papism (adjective Papist, also used to refer to an individual) are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox ...
. King
Charles I Charles I may refer to:
Kings and emperors
* Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings
* Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily
* Charles I of ...
was hostile to this viewpoint, and Anglican church officials tried to repress these dissenting views during the 1620s and 1630s. Some Puritans and other religious minorities had sought refuge in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
but ultimately many made a
major migration to
colonial North America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...
to establish their own society.
These immigrants, who were mostly constituted of families, established several of the earliest colonies in New England, of which the
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
was the largest and most economically important. They intended to build a society based on their religious beliefs. Colonial leaders were elected by the
freemen of the colony, those individuals who had had their religious experiences formally examined and had been admitted to one of the colony's Puritan congregations. The colonial leadership were prominent members of their congregations and regularly consulted with the local ministers on issues facing the colony.
In the early 1640s, England erupted in
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
. The Puritan-dominated
Parliamentarians emerged victorious, and the Crown was supplanted by
the Protectorate
The Protectorate, officially the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, refers to the period from 16 December 1653 to 25 May 1659 during which England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and associated territories were joined together in the Com ...
of
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...
in 1653. Its failure led to
restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
of the old order under
Charles II. Emigration to New England slowed significantly in these years. In Massachusetts, a successful merchant class began to develop that was less religiously motivated than the colony's early settlers.
Gender context
An overwhelming majority of people accused and convicted of witchcraft were women (about 78%). Overall, the Puritan belief and prevailing New England culture was that women were inherently sinful and more susceptible to damnation than men were. Throughout their daily lives, Puritans, especially Puritan women, actively attempted to thwart attempts by the Devil to overtake them and their souls. Indeed, Puritans held the belief that men and women were equal in the eyes of God, but not in the eyes of the Devil. Women's souls were seen as unprotected in their weak and vulnerable bodies. Several factors may explain why women were more likely to admit guilt of witchcraft than men. Historian Elizabeth Reis asserts that some likely believed they had truly given in to the Devil, and others might have believed they had done so temporarily. However, because those who confessed were reintegrated into society, some women might have confessed in order to spare their own lives.
Quarrels with neighbors often incited witchcraft allegations. One example of this is Abigail Faulkner, who was accused in 1692. Faulkner admitted she was "angry at what folk said," and the Devil may have temporarily overtaken her, causing harm to her neighbors. Women who did not conform to the norms of Puritan society were more likely to be the target of an accusation, especially those who were unmarried or did not have children.
Publicising witchcraft
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting H ...
, a minister of Boston's North Church, was a prolific publisher of pamphlets, including some that expressed his belief in
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
. In his book ''Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions'' (1689), Mather describes his "oracular observations" and how "stupendous witchcraft" had affected the children of Boston mason John Goodwin.
[Mather, Cotton. ''Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions. 1689']
law.umkc.edu
; accessed January 18, 2019.
Mather illustrates how the Goodwins' eldest child had been tempted by the devil and had stolen linen from the washerwoman
Goody Glover.
[''Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt'', Rosenthal, et al., 2009, p. 15, n2] Glover, of
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...
descent, was characterized as a disagreeable old woman and described by her husband as a witch; this may have been why she was accused of casting spells on the Goodwin children. After the event, four out of six Goodwin children began to have strange fits, or what some people referred to as "the disease of astonishment." The manifestations attributed to the disease quickly became associated with witchcraft. Symptoms included neck and back pains, tongues being drawn from their throats, and loud random outcries; other symptoms included having no control over their bodies such as becoming limber, flapping their arms like birds, or trying to harm others as well as themselves. These symptoms fuelled the craze of 1692.
[
]
Timeline
Initial events
In Salem Village in February 1692, Betty Parris
Elizabeth "Betty" Parris (November 28, 1682 – March 21, 1760) was one of the young girls who accused other people of being witches during the Salem witch trials. The accusations made by Betty (Elizabeth) and her cousin Abigail Williams caused t ...
(age 9) and her cousin Abigail Williams
Abigail Williams (born c. 1681, date of death unknown) was an 11- or 12-year-old girl who, along with nine-year-old Betty Parris, was among the first of the children to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft in 1692; these accusations eve ...
(age 11), the daughter and the niece, respectively, of Reverend Samuel Parris, began to have fits described as "beyond the power of epileptic fits
An epileptic seizure, informally known as a seizure, is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with los ...
or natural disease to effect" by John Hale, the minister of the nearby town of Beverly. The girls screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions, according to the eyewitness account of Reverend Deodat Lawson, a former minister in Salem Village.
The girls complained of being pinched and pricked with pins. A doctor, historically assumed to be William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Other young women in the village began to exhibit similar behaviors. When Lawson preached as a guest in the Salem Village meetinghouse, he was interrupted several times by the outbursts of the afflicted.
The first three people accused and arrested for allegedly afflicting Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, 12-year-old Ann Putnam, Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard
Elizabeth Hubbard is an American actress perhaps best known for her role as Dr. Althea Davis on '' The Doctors'' (1964–69, 1970–77, 1981–82), and as powerful businesswoman Lucinda Walsh on ''As the World Turns'' (1984-2010). She also pla ...
, were Sarah Good
Sarah Good (, 1653 – , 1692)Contemporary records commonly used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating months and years. By the Gregorian calendar and using modern style dating, all of the witch trial events in this artic ...
, Sarah Osborne
Sarah Osborne (also variously spelled Osbourne, Osburne, or Osborn; née Warren, formerly Prince, (c. 1643 – May 10, 1692) was a colonist in the Massachusetts Bay colony and one of the first women to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem w ...
, and Tituba
Tituba Indian was an enslaved woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693. She was brought to colonial Massachusetts from Barbados by Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village. She w ...
—with Tituba being the first. Some historians believe that the accusation by Ann Putnam Jr. suggests that a family feud may have been a major cause of the witch trials. At the time, a vicious rivalry was underway between the Putnam and Porter families, one which deeply polarized the people of Salem. Citizens would often have heated debates, which escalated into full-fledged fighting, based solely on their opinion of the feud. Some of the physical symptoms resembled convulsive ergot poisoning, proposed 284 years later.
Good was a destitute woman accused of witchcraft because of her reputation. At her trial, she was accused of rejecting Puritan ideals of self-control and discipline when she chose to torment and "scorn hildreninstead of leading them towards the path of salvation".
Sarah Osborne rarely attended church meetings. She was accused of witchcraft because the Puritans believed that Osborne had her own self-interests in mind following her remarriage to an indentured servant
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an " indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment ...
. The citizens of the town disapproved of her trying to control her son's inheritance from her previous marriage.
Tituba, an enslaved South American Indian woman from the West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
, likely became a target because of her ethnic differences from most of the other villagers. She was accused of attracting girls like Abigail Williams and Betty Parris with stories of enchantment from ''Malleus Maleficarum
The ''Malleus Maleficarum'', usually translated as the ''Hammer of Witches'', is the best known treatise on witchcraft. It was written by the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer (under his Latinized name ''Henricus Institor'') and first ...
''. These tales about sexual encounters with demons, swaying the minds of men, and fortune-telling were said to stimulate the imaginations of girls and made Tituba an obvious target of accusations.
Each of these women was a kind of outcast and exhibited many of the character traits typical of the "usual suspects" for witchcraft accusations; they were left to defend themselves. Brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft, they were interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692, then sent to jail.
In March, others were accused of witchcraft: Martha Corey
Martha Corey (1619 or 1620 – September 22, 1692) was accused and convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, on September 9, 1692, and was hanged on September 22, 1692. Her second husband, Giles Corey, was also accused.
Early life ...
, child Dorothy Good
Dorothy Good (historically referred to as Dorcas Good; ca. 1687/1688 – ?) was the daughter of William Good and Sarah Good (née Solart). Dorothy and her mother Sarah were accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem at the beginning of the Salem w ...
, and Rebecca Nurse
Rebecca Nurse (February 13, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.
She was the wif ...
in Salem Village, and Rachel Clinton in nearby Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
. Martha Corey had expressed skepticism about the credibility of the girls' accusations and thus drawn attention. The charges against her and Rebecca Nurse deeply troubled the community because Martha Corey was a full covenanted member of the Church in Salem Village, as was Rebecca Nurse in the Church in Salem Town. If such upstanding people could be witches, the townspeople thought, then anybody could be a witch, and church membership was no protection from accusation. Dorothy Good, the daughter of Sarah Good
Sarah Good (, 1653 – , 1692)Contemporary records commonly used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating months and years. By the Gregorian calendar and using modern style dating, all of the witch trial events in this artic ...
, was only four years old but was not exempted from questioning by the magistrates; her answers were construed as a confession that implicated her mother. In Ipswich, Rachel Clinton was arrested for witchcraft at the end of March on independent charges unrelated to the afflictions of the girls in Salem Village.
The initial examinations included physical exams where the accused were examined for unique markings such as moles, birth marks that were commonly believed to be associated with the Devil's influence. It was thought that those markings represented the Devil drinking the accused women's blood.
Accusations and examinations before local magistrates
When Sarah Cloyce
Sarah Cloyce (alt. Cloyes; Towne; c. 1641 – 1703) was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed. Cloyce was about 50-years-old at the time and was ...
(Nurse's sister) and Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor were arrested in April, they were brought before John Hathorne
John Hathorne (August 1641 – May 10, 1717) was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.
Hatho ...
and Jonathan Corwin
Jonathan Corwin (also Curwin or Corwen, November 14, 1640 – June 9, 1718) was a New England merchant, politician, and magistrate. He is best known as one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692, although his later work als ...
at a meeting in Salem Town. The men were both local magistrates and also members of the Governor's Council. Present for the examination were Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, and Assistants Samuel Sewall, Samuel Appleton, James Russell and Isaac Addington. During the proceedings, objections by Elizabeth's husband, John Proctor, resulted in his arrest that day.
Within a week, Giles Corey
Giles Corey ( August 1611 – September 19, 1692) was an English-born American farmer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or ...
(Martha's husband and a covenanted church member in Salem Town), Abigail Hobbs
Abigail Hobbs was a girl of about 14-17 years old when she was arrested for witchcraft on April 18, 1692, along with Giles Corey, Mary Warren, and Bridget Bishop. Prior to living in Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts), she and her fami ...
, Bridget Bishop
Bridget Bishop ( 1632 – 10 June 1692) was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.
Family life ...
, Mary Warren (a servant in the Proctor household and sometime accuser), and Deliverance Hobbs
Deliverance Hobbs was accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. She and her husband, William Hobbs, originally came from Casco, Maine, which was in Wabanaki Indian territory.
Her daughter, Abigail Hobbs, was arrested on April 18, 169 ...
(stepmother of Abigail Hobbs), were arrested and examined. Abigail Hobbs, Mary Warren, and Deliverance Hobbs all confessed and began naming additional people as accomplices. More arrests followed: Sarah Wildes, William Hobbs (husband of Deliverance and father of Abigail), Nehemiah Abbott Jr., Mary Eastey
Mary Towne Eastey (also spelled Esty, Easty, Estey, Eastick, Eastie, or Estye) ( bap. August 24, 1634 – September 22, 1692) was a defendant in the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts. She was executed by hanging in Salem in 1692.
...
(sister of Cloyce and Nurse), Edward Bishop Jr. and his wife Sarah Bishop, and Mary English.
On April 30, Reverend George Burroughs
George Burroughs ( 1650August 19, 1692) was an American religious leader who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is best known for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, some ...
, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin
Susannah Martin (née North, baptized September 30, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was one of fourteen women executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of colonial Massachusetts.
Early life
The English-born Martin was the fourth daughter ...
, Dorcas Hoar, Sarah Morey, and Philip English (Mary's husband) were arrested. Nehemiah Abbott Jr. was released because the accusers agreed he was not the person whose specter had afflicted them. Mary Eastey was released for a few days after her initial arrest because the accusers failed to confirm that it was she who had afflicted them; she was arrested again when the accusers reconsidered. In May, accusations continued to pour in, but some of the suspects began to evade apprehension. Multiple warrants were issued before John Willard and Elizabeth Colson were apprehended; George Jacobs Jr. and Daniel Andrews were not caught. Until this point, all the proceedings were investigative, but on May 27, 1692, William Phips ordered the establishment of a Special Court of Oyer and Terminer for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties to prosecute the cases of those in jail. Warrants were issued for more people. Sarah Osborne, one of the first three persons accused, died in jail on May 10, 1692.
Warrants were issued for 36 more people, with examinations continuing to take place in Salem Village: Sarah Dustin (daughter of Lydia Dustin), Ann Sears, Bethiah Carter Sr. and her daughter Bethiah Carter Jr., George Jacobs Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs, John Willard
John Willard ( 1657 - August 19, 1692) was one of the people executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials. He was hanged on Gallows Hill, Salem on August 19, 1692.
At the time of the first allegations of witchc ...
, Alice Parker
Alice Parker (born December 16, 1925) is an American composer, arranger, conductor, and teacher. She has authored five operas, eleven song-cycles, thirty-three cantatas, eleven works for chorus and orchestra, forty-seven choral suites, and ...
, Ann Pudeator, Abigail Soames, George Jacobs Jr. (son of George Jacobs Sr. and father of Margaret Jacobs), Daniel Andrew, Rebecca Jacobs (wife of George Jacobs Jr. and sister of Daniel Andrew), Sarah Buckley and her daughter Mary Witheridge.
Also included were Elizabeth Colson, Elizabeth Hart, Thomas Farrar Sr. Roger Toothaker
Roger Toothaker (163416 June 1692) was a physician from Billerica, Massachusetts who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in May 1692. He was sent to Boston Gaol (Massachusetts), Boston Jail where he died the following month.
...
, Sarah Proctor (daughter of John and Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Bassett (sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Susannah Roots, Mary DeRich (another sister-in-law of Elizabeth Proctor), Sarah Pease, Elizabeth Cary, Martha Carrier, Elizabeth Fosdick, Wilmot Redd
Wilmot Redd (a.k.a. Wilmot Read and Wilmot Reed) (early 17th century - September 22, 1692) was one of the victims of the Salem witch trials of 1692. She was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and executed by hanging on September 22, 1692. Her husb ...
, Sarah Rice, Elizabeth Howe
Elizabeth Howe (née Jackson; c. 1637–July 19, 1692) was one of the accused in the Salem witch trials. She was found guilty and executed on July 19, 1692.
Background
Elizabeth Jackson Howe was born 14 May 1637 near Rowley, Yorkshire, the ...
, Capt. John Alden (son of John Alden
John Alden (c. 1598 - September 12, 1687) was a crew member on the historic 1620 voyage of the ''Mayflower'' which brought the English settlers commonly known as Pilgrims to Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts, US. He was hired in Sou ...
and Priscilla Mullins
Priscilla Alden (, ) was a noted member of Massachusetts's Plymouth Colony of Pilgrims and the wife of fellow colonist John Alden (1687). They married in 1621 in Plymouth.
Biography
Priscilla was most likely born in Dorking in Surrey, the dau ...
), William Proctor (son of John and Elizabeth Proctor), John Flood, Mary Toothaker (wife of Roger Toothaker and sister of Martha Carrier) and her daughter Margaret Toothaker, and Arthur Abbott. When the Court of Oyer and Terminer convened at the end of May, the total number of people in custody was 62.
Cotton Mather wrote to one of the judges, John Richards, a member of his congregation, on May 31, 1692, expressing his support of the prosecutions, but cautioning him,
Formal prosecution: The Court of Oyer and Terminer
The Court of Oyer and Terminer
In English law, oyer and terminer (; a partial translation of the Anglo-French ''oyer et terminer'', which literally means "to hear and to determine") was one of the commissions by which a judge of assize sat. Apart from its Law French name, the ...
convened in Salem Town on June 2, 1692, with William Stoughton, the new Lieutenant Governor, as Chief Magistrate, Thomas Newton as the Crown's Attorney prosecuting the cases, and Stephen Sewall as clerk. Bridget Bishop's case was the first brought to the grand jury, who endorsed all the indictments against her. Bishop was described as not living a Puritan lifestyle, for she wore black clothing and odd costumes, which was against the Puritan code. When she was examined before her trial, Bishop was asked about her coat, which had been awkwardly "cut or torn in two ways".
This, along with her "immoral" lifestyle, affirmed to the jury that Bishop was a witch. She went to trial the same day and was convicted. On June 3, the grand jury endorsed indictments against Rebecca Nurse and John Willard, but they did not go to trial immediately, for reasons which are unclear. Bishop was executed by hanging on June 10, 1692.
Immediately following this execution, the court adjourned for 20 days (until June 30) while it sought advice from New England's most influential ministers "upon the state of things as they then stood." Their collective response came back dated June 15 and composed by Cotton Mather:
Hutchinson sums the letter, "The two first and the last sections of this advice took away the force of all the others, and the prosecutions went on with more vigor than before." (Reprinting the letter years later in ''Magnalia'', Cotton Mather left out these "two first and the last" sections.) Major Nathaniel Saltonstall
Col. Nathaniel Saltonstall (also spelled Nathanial Saltonstall; – May 21, 1707) was a judge for the Court of Oyer and Terminer, a special court established in 1692 for the trial and sentence of people, mostly women, for the crime of witchcraft ...
, Esq., resigned from the court on or about June 16, presumably dissatisfied with the letter and that it had not outright barred the admission of spectral evidence Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions.
Such testimony was frequently given during the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries. The alleged victims of witchcraft wo ...
. According to Upham, Saltonstall deserves the credit for "being the only public man of his day who had the sense or courage to condemn the proceedings, at the start." (chapt. VII) More people were accused, arrested and examined, but now in Salem Town, by former local magistrates John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and Bartholomew Gedney, who had become judges of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Suspect Roger Toothaker died in prison on June 16, 1692.
From June 30 through early July, grand juries endorsed indictments against Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor, Martha Carrier, Sarah Wildes and Dorcas Hoar. Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin and Sarah Wildes, along with Rebecca Nurse, went to trial at this time, where they were found guilty. All five women were executed by hanging on July 19, 1692. In mid-July, the constable in Andover invited the afflicted girls from Salem Village to visit with his wife to try to determine who was causing her afflictions. Ann Foster, her daughter Mary Lacey Sr., and granddaughter Mary Lacey Jr. all confessed to being witches. Anthony Checkley was appointed by Governor Phips to replace Thomas Newton as the Crown's Attorney when Newton took an appointment in New Hampshire.
In August, grand juries indicted George Burroughs
George Burroughs ( 1650August 19, 1692) was an American religious leader who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is best known for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, some ...
, Mary Eastey
Mary Towne Eastey (also spelled Esty, Easty, Estey, Eastick, Eastie, or Estye) ( bap. August 24, 1634 – September 22, 1692) was a defendant in the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts. She was executed by hanging in Salem in 1692.
...
, Martha Corey
Martha Corey (1619 or 1620 – September 22, 1692) was accused and convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, on September 9, 1692, and was hanged on September 22, 1692. Her second husband, Giles Corey, was also accused.
Early life ...
and George Jacobs Sr. Trial juries convicted Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor was given a temporary stay of execution because she was pregnant. On August 19, 1692, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs Sr., George Burroughs, John Willard, and John Proctor were executed.
September 1692
In September, grand juries indicted 18 more people. The grand jury failed to indict William Proctor, who was re-arrested on new charges. On September 19, 1692, Giles Corey
Giles Corey ( August 1611 – September 19, 1692) was an English-born American farmer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or ...
refused to plead at trial, and was killed by ''peine forte et dure
' (Law French for "hard and forceful punishment") was a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system, in which a defendant who refused to plead ("stood mute") would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon h ...
'', a form of torture in which the subject is pressed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones, in an attempt to make him enter a plea. Four pleaded guilty and 11 others were tried and found guilty.
On September 20, Cotton Mather wrote to Stephen Sewall: "That I may be the more capable to assist in lifting up a standard against the infernal enemy", requesting "a narrative of the evidence given in at the trials of half a dozen, or if you please, a dozen, of the principal witches that have been condemned." On September 22, 1692, eight more persons were executed, "After Execution Mr. Noyes turning him to the Bodies, said, what a sad thing it is to see Eight Firebrands of Hell hanging there."
Dorcas Hoar was given a temporary reprieve, with the support of several ministers, to make a confession of being a witch. Mary Bradbury
Mary (née Perkins) Bradbury (baptized September 3, 1615December 20, 1700) was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. However, she managed to avoid her sentence until the trials had been discredited, and ...
(aged 77) managed to escape with the help of family and friends. Abigail Faulkner Sr. was pregnant and given a temporary reprieve (some reports from that era say that Abigail's reprieve later became a stay of charges).
Mather quickly completed his account of the trials, ''Wonders of the Invisible World'' and it was given to Phips when he returned from the fighting in Maine in early October. Burr says both Phips' letter and Mather's manuscript "must have gone to London by the same ship" in mid-October.
On October 29, Judge Sewall wrote, "the Court of Oyer and Terminer count themselves thereby dismissed ... asked whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit, expressing some fear of Inconvenience by its fall, heGovernour said it must fall". Perhaps by coincidence, Governor Phips' own wife, Lady Mary Phips, was among those who had been "called out upon" around this time. After Phips' order, there were no more executions.
Superior Court of Judicature, 1693
In January 1693, the new Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Gaol ail
Ail or AIL may refer to:
* Illness, a state of poor health
* Ail (''Sailor Moon''), a character in the ''Sailor Moon'' anime series
* Acceptance in lieu, an arrangement in the UK for accepting works of art etc. in lieu of tax
* Agilus, a Frankis ...
Delivery convened in Salem, Essex County, again headed by William Stoughton, as Chief Justice, with Anthony Checkley continuing as the Attorney General, and Jonathan Elatson as Clerk of the Court. The first five cases tried in January 1693 were of the five people who had been indicted but not tried in September: Sarah Buckley, Margaret Jacobs, Rebecca Jacobs, Mary Whittredge (or Witheridge) and Job Tookey. All were found not guilty. Grand juries were held for many of those remaining in jail. Charges were dismissed against many, but 16 more people were indicted and tried, three of whom were found guilty: Elizabeth Johnson Jr., Sarah Wardwell, and Mary Post.
When Stoughton wrote the warrants for the execution of these three and others remaining from the previous court, Governor Phips issued pardons, sparing their lives. In late January/early February, the Court sat again in Charlestown, Middlesex County, and held grand juries and tried five people: Sarah Cole (of Lynn), Lydia Dustin and Sarah Dustin, Mary Taylor and Mary Toothaker. All were found not guilty but were not released until they paid their jail fees. Lydia Dustin died in jail on March 10, 1693.
At the end of April, the Court convened in Boston, Suffolk County, and cleared Capt. John Alden by proclamation. It heard charges against a servant girl, Mary Watkins, for falsely accusing her mistress of witchcraft. In May, the Court convened in Ipswich, Essex County, and held a variety of grand juries. They dismissed charges against all but five people. Susannah Post, Eunice Frye, Mary Bridges Jr., Mary Barker and William Barker Jr. were all found not guilty at trial, finally putting an end to the series of trials and executions.
Legal procedures
Overview
After someone concluded that a loss, illness, or death had been caused by witchcraft, the accuser entered a complaint against the alleged witch with the local magistrates. If the complaint was deemed credible, the magistrates had the person arrested and brought in for a public examination—essentially an interrogation where the magistrates pressed the accused to confess.
If the magistrates at this local level were satisfied that the complaint was well-founded, the prisoner was handed over to be dealt with by a superior court. In 1692, the magistrates opted to wait for the arrival of the new charter and governor, who would establish a Court of Oyer and Terminer
In English law, oyer and terminer (; a partial translation of the Anglo-French ''oyer et terminer'', which literally means "to hear and to determine") was one of the commissions by which a judge of assize sat. Apart from its Law French name, the ...
to handle these cases. The next step, at the superior court level, was to summon witnesses before a grand jury.
A person could be indicted on charges of afflicting with witchcraft, or for making an unlawful covenant with the Devil. Once indicted, the defendant went to trial, sometimes on the same day, as in the case of the first person indicted and tried on June 2, Bridget Bishop, who was executed eight days later, on June 10, 1692.
There were four execution dates, with one person executed on June 10, 1692, five executed on July 19, 1692 (Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe and Sarah Wildes), another five executed on August 19, 1692 (Martha Carrier, John Willard, George Burroughs, George Jacobs Sr., and John Proctor), and eight on September 22, 1692 (Mary Eastey, Martha Corey, Ann Pudeator, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Alice Parker, Wilmot Redd and Margaret Scott).
Several others, including Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor and Abigail Faulkner, were convicted but given temporary reprieves because they were pregnant. Five other women were convicted in 1692, but the death sentence was never carried out: Mary Bradbury
Mary (née Perkins) Bradbury (baptized September 3, 1615December 20, 1700) was tried, convicted and sentenced to hang as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. However, she managed to avoid her sentence until the trials had been discredited, and ...
(in absentia), Ann Foster (who later died in prison), Mary Lacey Sr. (Foster's daughter), Dorcas Hoar and Abigail Hobbs
Abigail Hobbs was a girl of about 14-17 years old when she was arrested for witchcraft on April 18, 1692, along with Giles Corey, Mary Warren, and Bridget Bishop. Prior to living in Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts), she and her fami ...
.
Giles Corey
Giles Corey ( August 1611 – September 19, 1692) was an English-born American farmer who was accused of witchcraft along with his wife Martha Corey during the Salem witch trials. After being arrested, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or ...
, an 81-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem (called Salem Farms), refused to enter a plea when he came to trial in September. The judges applied an archaic form of punishment called ''peine forte et dure,'' in which stones were piled on his chest until he could no longer breathe. After two days of ''peine fort et dure,'' Corey died without entering a plea.[Boyer, p. 8.] His refusal to plead is usually explained as a way of preventing his estate from being confiscated by the Crown, but, according to historian Chadwick Hansen, much of Corey's property had already been seized, and he had made a will in prison: "His death was a protest ... against the methods of the court". A contemporary critic of the trials, Robert Calef
Robert Calef (baptized 2 November 1648 – 13 April 1719) was a cloth merchant in colonial Boston. He was the author o''More Wonders of the Invisible World'' a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692 ...
, wrote, "Giles Corey pleaded not Guilty to his Indictment, but would not put himself upon Tryal by the Jury (they having cleared none upon Tryal) and knowing there would be the same Witnesses against him, rather chose to undergo what Death they would put him to."
As convicted witches, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey had been excommunicated from their churches and denied proper burials. As soon as the bodies of the accused were cut down from the trees, they were thrown into a shallow grave, and the crowd dispersed. Oral history claims that the families of the dead reclaimed their bodies after dark and buried them in unmarked graves on family property. The record books of the time do not note the deaths of any of those executed.
Spectral evidence
Much, but not all, of the evidence used against the accused was ''spectral evidence Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions.
Such testimony was frequently given during the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries. The alleged victims of witchcraft wo ...
,'' or the testimony of the afflicted who claimed to see the apparition or the shape of the person who was allegedly afflicting them. The theological dispute that ensued about the use of this evidence was based on whether a person had to give permission to the Devil for his/her shape to be used to afflict. Opponents claimed that the Devil was able to use anyone's shape to afflict people, but the Court contended that the Devil could not use a person's shape without that person's permission; therefore, when the afflicted claimed to see the apparition of a specific person, that was accepted as evidence that the accused had been complicit with the Devil.
Cotton Mather's ''The Wonders of the Invisible World'' was written with the purpose to show how careful the court was in managing the trials. Unfortunately the work did not get released until after the trials had already ended. In his book, Mather explained how he felt spectral evidence was presumptive and that it alone was not enough to warrant a conviction. Robert Calef, a strong critic of Cotton Mather, stated in his own book titled ''More Wonders of the Invisible World'' that by confessing, an accused would not be brought to trial, such as in the cases of Tituba and Dorcas Good.
Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
and other ministers sent a letter to the Court, "The Return of Several Ministers Consulted", urging the magistrates not to convict on spectral evidence alone. (The court later ruled that spectral evidence was inadmissible, which caused a dramatic reduction in the rate of convictions and may have hastened the end of the trials.) A copy of this letter was printed in Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
's ''Cases of Conscience'', published in 1693. The publication ''A Tryal of Witches'', related to the 1662 Bury St Edmunds witch trial, was used by the magistrates at Salem when looking for a precedent in allowing spectral evidence. Since the jurist Sir Matthew Hale
Sir Matthew Hale (1 November 1609 – 25 December 1676) was an influential English barrister, judge and jurist most noted for his treatise ''Historia Placitorum Coronæ'', or ''The History of the Pleas of the Crown''.
Born to a barrister and ...
had permitted this evidence, supported by the eminent philosopher, physician and author Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne (; 19 October 160519 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a deep curi ...
, to be used in the Bury St Edmunds witch trial and the accusations against two Lowestoft
Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the most easterly UK settlement, it is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and sou ...
women, the colonial magistrates also accepted its validity and their trials proceeded.
Witch cake
According to a March 27, 1692 entry by Parris in the ''Records of the Salem-Village Church'', a church member and close neighbor of Rev. Parris, Mary Sibley (aunt of Mary Walcott
Mary Walcott (July 5, 1675 – 1752) was one of the "afflicted" girls called as a witness at the Salem witch trials in early 1692-93.
Life
Born July 5, 1675, she was the daughter of Captain Jonathan Walcott (1639–1699), and his wife, Mary Sibl ...
), directed John Indian, a man enslaved by Parris, to make a ''witch cake.''[Salem Villag]
Church Records, pp. 10–12.
/ref> This may have been a superstitious attempt to ward off evil spirits. According to an account attributed to Deodat Lawson ("collected by Deodat Lawson") this happened around March 8, over a week after the first complaints had gone out and three women were arrested. Lawson's account describes this cake "a means to discover witchcraft" and provides other details such as that it was made from rye meal and urine from the afflicted girls and was fed to a dog.
In the Church Records, Parris describes speaking with Sibley privately on March 25, 1692, about her "grand error" and accepted her "sorrowful confession." After the main sermon on March 27, and the wider congregation was dismissed, Parris addressed covenanted church-members about it and admonished all the congregation against "going to the Devil for help against the Devil." He stated that while "calamities" that had begun in his own household "it never brake forth to any considerable light, until diabolical means were used, by the making of a cake by my Indian man, who had his direction from this our sister, Mary Sibley." This doesn't seem to square with Lawson's account dating it around March 8. The first complaints were February 29 and the first arrests were March 1.
Traditionally, the allegedly afflicted girls are said to have been entertained by Parris' slave, Tituba
Tituba Indian was an enslaved woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693. She was brought to colonial Massachusetts from Barbados by Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village. She w ...
. A variety of secondary sources, starting with Charles W. Upham in the 19th century, typically relate that a circle of the girls, with Tituba's help, tried their hands at fortune telling. They used the white of an egg and a mirror to create a primitive crystal ball to divine the professions of their future spouses and scared one another when one supposedly saw the shape of a coffin instead. The story is drawn from John Hale's book about the trials, but in his account, only one of the girls, not a group of them, had confessed to him afterward that she had once tried this. Hale did not mention Tituba as having any part of it, nor did he identify when the incident took place. But the record of Tituba's pre-trial examination holds her giving an energetic confession, speaking before the court of "creatures who inhabit the invisible world," and "the dark rituals which bind them together in service of Satan", implicating both Good and Osborne while asserting that "many other people in the colony were engaged in the devil's conspiracy against the Bay."
Tituba's race has often been described in later accounts as of Carib-Indian or African descent, but contemporary sources describe her only as an "Indian". Research by Elaine Breslaw has suggested that Tituba may have been captured in what is now Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
and brought to Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
, and so may have been an Arawak Indian. Other slightly later descriptions of her, by Gov. Thomas Hutchinson writing his history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...
in the 18th century, describe her as a "Spanish Indian." In that day, that typically meant a Native American from the Carolinas/Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
/Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
.
Touch test
The most infamous application of the belief in effluvia was the ''touch test'' used in Andover during preliminary examinations in September 1692. Parris had explicitly warned his congregation against such examinations. If the accused witch touched the victim while the victim was having a fit, and the fit stopped, observers believed that meant the accused was the person who had afflicted the victim. As several of those accused later recounted,
we were blindfolded, and our hands were laid upon the afflicted persons, they being in their fits and falling into their fits at our coming into their presence, as they said. Some led us and laid our hands upon them, and then they said they were well and that we were guilty of afflicting them; whereupon we were all seized, as prisoners, by a warrant from the justice of the peace and forthwith carried to Salem.
The Rev. John Hale explained how this supposedly worked: "the Witch by the cast of her eye sends forth a Malefick Venome into the Bewitched to cast him into a fit, and therefore the touch of the hand doth by sympathy cause that venome to return into the Body of the Witch again".
Other evidence
Other evidence included the confessions of the accused; testimony by a confessed witch who identified others as witches; the discovery of ''poppits'' (''poppet
In folk magic and witchcraft, a poppet (also known as poppit, moppet, mommet or pippy) is a doll made to represent a person, for casting spells on that person or to aid that person through magic. They are occasionally found lodged in chimneys ...
s''), books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of ointments in the possession or home of the accused; and observation of what were called '' witch's teats'' on the body of the accused. A witch's teat was said to be a mole or blemish somewhere on the body that was insensitive to touch; discovery of such insensitive areas was considered ''de facto'' evidence of witchcraft.
Primary sources and early discussion
Puritan ministers throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony were exceedingly interested in the trial. Several traveled to Salem in order to gather information about the trial. After witnessing the trials first-hand and gathering accounts, these ministers presented various opinions about the trial starting in 1692.
Deodat Lawson Deodat Lawson was a minister in Salem Village from 1684 to 1688 and is famous for a 10-page pamphlet describing the witchcraft accusations in the early spring of 1692. The pamphlet was billed as "collected by Deodat Lawson" and printed within the y ...
, a former minister in Salem Village, visited Salem Village in March and April 1692. The resulting publication, entitled ''A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft, at Salem Village: Which happened from the Nineteenth of March, to the Fifth of April 1692'', was published while the trials were ongoing and relates evidence meant to convict the accused. Simultaneous with Lawson, William Milbourne, a Baptist minister in Boston, publicly petitioned the General Assembly in early June 1692, challenging the use of spectral evidence by the Court. Milbourne had to post £200 bond (equal to £, or about US$42,000 today) or be arrested for "contriving, writing and publishing the said scandalous Papers".
The most famous primary source about the trials is Cotton Mather's ''Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches, Lately Executed in New-England'', printed in October 1692. This text had a tortured path to publication. Initially conceived as a promotion of the trials and a triumphant celebration of Mather's leadership, Mather had to rewrite the text and disclaim personal involvement as suspicion about spectral evidence started to build. Regardless, it was published in both Boston and London, with an introductory letter of endorsement by William Stoughton, the Chief Magistrate. The book included accounts of five trials, with much of the material copied directly from the court records, which were supplied to Mather by Stephen Sewall, a clerk in the court.
Cotton Mather's father, Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
, completed ''Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits'' at the same time as ''Wonders'' and published it in November 1692. This book was intended to judiciously acknowledge the growing doubts about spectral evidence, while still maintaining the accuracy of Cotton's rewritten, whitewashed text. Like his son, Increase minimized his personal involvement, although he included the full text of his August petition to the Salem court in support of spectral evidence. Judging from the apologetic tone of ''Cases of Conscience'' that the moral panic had subsided, Thomas Brattle
Thomas Brattle (June 20, 1658 – May 18, 1713) was an American merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College and member of the Royal Society. He is known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials and the formation of the Brattle Str ...
directly ridiculed the "superstitions" of Salem and Increase's defense of his son in an open letter notable for its openly sarcastic tone.
Samuel Willard
Samuel Willard (January 31, 1640 – September 12, 1707) was a New England Puritan clergyman. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College in 1659, and was minister at Groton from 1663 to 1676, before being driven out by ...
, minister of the Third Church in Boston was a onetime strong supporter of the trials and of spectral evidence but became increasingly concerned as the Mathers crushed dissent. Writing anonymously to conceal his dissent, he published a short tract entitled "Some Miscellany Observations On our present Debates respecting Witchcrafts, in a Dialogue Between S. & B." The authors were listed as "P. E. and J. A." (Philip English and John Alden), but the work is generally attributed to Willard. In it, two characters, S (Salem) and B (Boston), discuss the way the proceedings were being conducted, with "B" urging caution about the use of testimony from the afflicted and the confessors, stating, "whatever comes from them is to be suspected; and it is dangerous using or crediting them too far". This book lists its place of publication as Philadelphia, but it is believed to have been secretly printed in Boston.
Aftermath and closure
Although the last trial was held in May 1693, public response to the events continued. In the decades following the trials, survivors and family members (and their supporters) sought to establish the innocence of the individuals who were convicted and to gain compensation. In the following centuries, the descendants of those unjustly accused and condemned have sought to honor their memories. Events in Salem and Danvers in 1992 were used to commemorate the trials. In November 2001, years after the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the trials, the Massachusetts legislature passed an act exonerating all who had been convicted and naming each of the innocent, with the exception of Elizabeth Johnson, who was cleared by the Massachusetts Senate on 26 May 2022, the last conviction to be reversed, after pressure from schoolchildren who discovered the anomaly. The trials have figured in American culture and been explored in numerous works of art, literature and film.
Reversals of attainder and compensation to the survivors
The first indication that public calls for justice were not over occurred in 1695 when Thomas Maule, a noted Quaker, publicly criticized the handling of the trials by the Puritan leaders in Chapter 29 of his book ''Truth Held Forth and Maintained'', expanding on Increase Mather
Increase Mather (; June 21, 1639 Old Style – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). He was influential in the administ ...
by stating, "it were better that one hundred Witches should live, than that one person be put to death for a witch, which is not a Witch". For publishing this book, Maule was imprisoned twelve months before he was tried and found not guilty.
On December 17, 1696, the General Court ruled that there would be a fast day on January 14, 1697, "referring to the late Tragedy, raised among us by Satan and his Instruments." On that day, Samuel Sewall asked Rev. Samuel Willard to read aloud his apology to the congregation of Boston's South Church, "to take the Blame & Shame" of the "late Commission of Oyer & Terminer at Salem". Thomas Fiske and eleven other trial jurors also asked forgiveness.
From 1693 to 1697, Robert Calef
Robert Calef (baptized 2 November 1648 – 13 April 1719) was a cloth merchant in colonial Boston. He was the author o''More Wonders of the Invisible World'' a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692 ...
, a "weaver" and a cloth merchant in Boston, collected correspondence, court records and petitions, and other accounts of the trials, and placed them, for contrast, alongside portions of Cotton Mather's ''Wonders of the Invisible World'', under the title ''More Wonders of the Invisible World'',[Alt URL]
/ref>
Calef could not get it published in Boston and he had to take it to London, where it was published in 1700. Scholars of the trials—Hutchinson, Upham, Burr, and even Poole—have relied on Calef's compilation of documents. John Hale, a minister in Beverly who was present at many of the proceedings, had completed his book, ''A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft'' in 1697, which was not published until 1702, after his death, and perhaps in response to Calef's book. Expressing regret over the actions taken, Hale admitted, "Such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the afflicted, and the power of former presidents, that we walked in the clouds, and could not see our way."
Various petitions were filed between 1700 and 1703 with the Massachusetts government, demanding that the convictions be formally reversed. Those tried and found guilty were considered dead in the eyes of the law, and with convictions still on the books, those not executed were vulnerable to further accusations. The General Court initially reversed the attainder only for those who had filed petitions, only three people who had been convicted but not executed: Abigail Faulkner Sr., Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Wardwell. In 1703, another petition was filed, requesting a more equitable settlement for those wrongly accused, but it was not until 1709, when the General Court received a further request, that it took action on this proposal. In May 1709, 22 people who had been convicted of witchcraft, or whose relatives had been convicted of witchcraft, presented the government with a petition in which they demanded both a reversal of attainder and compensation for financial losses.
Repentance was evident within the Salem Village church. Rev. Joseph Green and the members of the church voted on February 14, 1703, after nearly two months of consideration, to reverse the excommunication of Martha Corey. On August 25, 1706, when Ann Putnam Jr., one of the most active accusers, joined the Salem Village church, she publicly asked forgiveness. She claimed that she had not acted out of malice, but had been deluded by Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
into denouncing innocent people, mentioning Rebecca Nurse
Rebecca Nurse (February 13, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.
She was the wif ...
, in particular, and was accepted for full membership.
On October 17, 1711, the General Court passed a bill reversing the judgment against the twenty-two people listed in the 1709 petition (there were seven additional people who had been convicted but had not signed the petition, but there was no reversal of attainder for them). Two months later, on December 17, 1711, Governor Joseph Dudley
Joseph Dudley (September 23, 1647 – April 2, 1720) was a colonial administrator, a native of Roxbury in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the son of one of its founders. He had a leading role in the administration of the Dominion of New England ...
authorized monetary compensation to the 22 people in the 1709 petition. The amount of £578 12 s was authorized to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those accused, and most of the accounts were settled within a year, but Phillip English's extensive claims were not settled until 1718. Finally, on March 6, 1712, Rev. Nicholas Noyes and members of the Salem church reversed Noyes' earlier excommunications of Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey.
Memorials
Rebecca Nurse's descendants erected an obelisk-shaped granite memorial in her memory in 1885 on the grounds of the Nurse Homestead in Danvers, with an inscription from John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet ...
. In 1892, an additional monument was erected in honor of forty neighbors who signed a petition in support of Nurse.[Rebecca Nurse Homestead](_blank)
, rebeccanurse.org; accessed December 24, 2014.
Not all the condemned had been exonerated in the early 18th century. In 1957, descendants of the six people who had been wrongly convicted and executed but who had not been included in the bill for a reversal of attainder
In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditar ...
in 1711, or added to it in 1712, demanded that the General Court formally clear the names of their ancestral family members. An act was passed pronouncing the innocence of those accused, although it listed only Ann Pudeator by name. The others were listed only as "certain other persons", phrasing which failed specifically to name Bridget Bishop
Bridget Bishop ( 1632 – 10 June 1692) was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.
Family life ...
, Susannah Martin
Susannah Martin (née North, baptized September 30, 1621 – July 19, 1692) was one of fourteen women executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of colonial Massachusetts.
Early life
The English-born Martin was the fourth daughter ...
, Alice Parker
Alice Parker (born December 16, 1925) is an American composer, arranger, conductor, and teacher. She has authored five operas, eleven song-cycles, thirty-three cantatas, eleven works for chorus and orchestra, forty-seven choral suites, and ...
, Wilmot Redd
Wilmot Redd (a.k.a. Wilmot Read and Wilmot Reed) (early 17th century - September 22, 1692) was one of the victims of the Salem witch trials of 1692. She was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and executed by hanging on September 22, 1692. Her husb ...
and Margaret Scott.
The 300th anniversary of the trials was marked in 1992 in Salem and Danvers by a variety of events. A memorial park was dedicated in Salem which included stone slab benches inserted in the stone wall of the park for each of those executed in 1692. Speakers at the ceremony in August included playwright Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' ( ...
and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Peace Prize, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel b ...
. Danvers erected its own new memorial, and reinterred bones unearthed in the 1950s, assumed to be those of George Jacobs Sr., in a new resting place at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead.
In 1992, The Danvers Tercentennial Committee also persuaded the Massachusetts House of Representatives to issue a resolution honoring those who had died. After extensive efforts by Paula Keene, a Salem schoolteacher, state representatives J. Michael Ruane and Paul Tirone, along with others, issued a bill whereby the names of all those not previously listed were to be added to this resolution. When it was finally signed on October 31, 2001, by Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Jane Swift
Jane Maria Swift (born February 24, 1965) is an American politician and nonprofit executive who served as the 69th lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1999 to 2003 and, concurrently, as acting governor from April 2001 to January 2003. She wa ...
, more than 300 years later, all were finally proclaimed innocent.[The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts · 3]
newspapers.com
"New Law Exonerates", ''Boston Globe'', 1 November 2001.
Land in the area was purchased by the city of Salem in 1936 and renamed "Witch Memorial Land" but no memorial was constructed on the site, and popular misconception persisted that the executions had occurred at the top of Gallows Hill. Rebecca Eames of Boxford, who was brought to Salem for questioning, stated that she was held at "the house below the hill" where she could see people attending executions. This helped researchers rule out the summit as the execution site.[ In January 2016, the ]University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
announced its project team had determined the execution site on Gallows Hill in Salem, where nineteen "witches" had been hanged in public. Members of the Gallows Hill Project had worked with the city of Salem using old maps and documentation, as well as sophisticated GIS
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
and ground-penetrating radar
Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a Geophysics, geophysical method that uses radar pulses to Geophysical imaging, image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, ...
technology, to survey the area of what became known as Proctor's Ledge, located at the base of the hill, which they say was easier for spectators to reach than the top of Gallows Hill. The city owns the property and dedicated the ''Proctor's Ledge Memorial'' to the victims there in 2017. A documentary, ''Gallows Hill – Nineteen,'' is in production about these events.
In literature, media and popular culture
The story of the witchcraft accusations, trials and executions has captured the imagination of writers and artists in the centuries since the event took place. Their earliest impactful use as the basis for an item of popular fiction is the 1828 novel ''Rachel Dyer
''Rachel Dyer: A North American Story'' is a Gothic historical novel by American writer John Neal. Published in 1828 in Maine, it is the first bound novel about the Salem witch trials. Though it garnered little critical notice in its day, i ...
'' by John Neal.
Many interpretations have taken liberties with the facts of the historical episode in the name of literary and/or artistic license. As the trials took place at the intersection between a gradually disappearing medieval past and an emerging enlightenment, and dealt with torture and confession, some interpretations draw attention to the boundaries between the medieval and the post-medieval as cultural constructions.
Most recently, the events of the Salem witch trials were interpreted in the 2018 exploitation-teen comedy film ''Assassination Nation'', which changed the setting to the present United States and added thick social commentary in order to underline the absurdity of the actual events.
Medical theories about the reported afflictions
The cause of the symptoms of those who claimed affliction continues to be a subject of interest. Various medical and psychological explanations for the observed symptoms have been explored by researchers, including psychological hysteria
Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...
in response to Indian attacks, convulsive ergotism caused by eating rye bread
Rye bread is a type of bread made with various proportions of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat f ...
made from grain infected by the fungus ''Claviceps purpurea
''Claviceps purpurea'' is an ergot fungus that grows on the ears of rye and related cereal and forage plants. Consumption of grains or seeds contaminated with the survival structure of this fungus, the ergot sclerotium, can cause ergotism in h ...
'' (a natural substance from which LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
is derived), an epidemic of bird-borne encephalitis lethargica
Encephalitis lethargica is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleeping sickness" or "sleepy sickness" (distinct from tsetse fly-transmitted sleeping sickness), it was first described in 1917 by neurologist Constantin von Economo a ...
, and sleep paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which one is conscious but is completely paralyzed. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episodes ...
to explain the nocturnal attacks alleged by some of the accusers. Some modern historians are less inclined to focus on biological explanations, preferring instead to explore motivations such as jealousy, spite, and a need for attention to explain the behavior.[Ana Kucić]
Salem Witchcraft Trials: The Perception Of Women In History, Literature And Culture
University of Niš, Serbia, 2010, pp. 2–4.
See also
* List of people executed for witchcraft
This is a list of people executed for witchcraft, many of whom were executed during organized witch-hunts, particularly during the 15th–18th centuries. Large numbers of people were prosecuted for witchcraft in Europe between 1560 and 1630.Levac ...
* List of people of the Salem witch trials
This is a list of people associated with the Salem Witch Trials, a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between March 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty peop ...
* Modern witch-hunts Witch-hunts are practiced today throughout the world. While prevalent world-wide, hot-spots of current witch-hunting are India, Papua New Guinea, Amazonia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. While an unknown problem in vast parts of the Western populations of ...
* Salem witchcraft trial (1878)
The Salem witchcraft trial of 1878, also known as the Ipswich witchcraft trial and the second Salem witch trial, was an American civil case held in May 1878 in Salem, Massachusetts, in which Lucretia L. S. Brown, an adherent of the Christian Scie ...
* Witchcraft accusations against children
Children have been accused of witchcraft, both historically and in contemporary times, in societies that harbour beliefs about the existence of witches and black magic. These accusations have led to punishment, imprisonment, torture, and execution ...
* Witch trials in the early modern period
Witch trials in the early modern period saw that between 1400 to 1782, around 40,000 to 60,000 were killed due to suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. Some sources estimate that a total of 100,000 trials occurred at its maximum for a s ...
General
* Colonial history of the United States
The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...
* Hanging in the United States
Hanging has been practiced legally in the United States of America from before the nation's birth, up to 1972 when the United States Supreme Court found capital punishment to be in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitutio ...
* List of wrongful convictions in the United States
This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the s ...
* Moral panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usua ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Glanvill, Joseph. "Essay IV Against modern Sadducism in the matter of Witches and Apparitions" in Essay on several important subjects in philosophy and religion, 2nd Ed, London; printed for John Baker and H. Mortlock, 1676, pp. 1–4 (in the history 201 course-pack compiled by S. McSheffrey & T. McCormick)
*
* Mather, Cotton. ''Memorable Providence, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions.'
law.umkc.edu
(accessed June 5, 2010)
* Trans. Montague Summer. Questions VII & XI. "Maleus Maleficarum Part I.
sacred-texts.com
June 9, 2010.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* The Examination of Bridget Bishop, April 19, 1692. "Examination and Evidence of Some Accused Witches in Salem, 1692
law.umkc.edu
(accessed June 5, 2010)
* The Examination of Sarah Good, March 1, 1692. "Examination and Evidence of Some the Accused Witches in Salem, 1692
law.umkc.edu
(accessed June 6, 2010)
Further reading
* Aronson, Marc. ''Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials''. Atheneum: New York. 2003.
* Baker, Emerson W. ''A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience'' (2014), Emphasis on the causes
* Boyer, Paul & Nissenbaum, Stephen. ''Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft''. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA. 1974.
* Brown, David C.. ''A Guide to the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692''. David C. Brown: Washington Crossing, PA. 1984.
* Burns, Margo & Rosenthal, Bernard. "Examination of the Records of the Salem Witch Trials". ''William and Mary Quarterly'', 2008, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 401–422.
* Demos, John. ''Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England''. New York: Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 1982.
* Fels, Tony. ''Switching sides : how a generation of historians lost sympathy for the victims of the Salem witch hunt''. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018
* Foulds, Diane E. (2010). ''Death in Salem: The Private Lives Behind the 1692 Witch Hunt''.
* Godbeer, Richard. ''The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England''. Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
: New York. 1992.
*
* Hale, Rev. John. (1702). ''A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft''.
* Hill, Frances. ''A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials''. Doubleday: New York. 1995.
* Hoffer, Peter Charles. "The Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Legal History". (University of Kansas, 1997).
* Karlsen, Carol F. ''The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England''. New York: Vintage, 1987. his work provides essential background on other witchcraft accusations in 17th century New England.
* Lasky, Kathryn. ''Beyond the Burning Time''. Point: New York, 1994
* Le Beau, Bryan, F. ''The Story of the Salem Witch Trials: `We Walked in Clouds and Could Not See Our Way`''. Prentice-Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ. 1998.
* Levack, Brian P. ed. ''The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America'' (2013
excerpt and text search
* Mappen, Marc, ed. ''Witches & Historians: Interpretations of Salem''. 2nd Edition. Keiger: Malabar, FL. 1996.
* Miller, Arthur. ''The Crucible
''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as a ...
'' – a play which compares McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
to a witch-hunt.
* Norton, Mary Beth. ''In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692''. New York: Random House, 2002.
* Ray, Benjamin C. ''Satan and Salem: The Witch-Hunt Crisis of 1692''. The University of Virginia Press, 2015.
* Robbins, Rossell Hope. The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. Crown Publishers Inc., 1959.
* Robinson, Enders A. ''Salem Witchcraft and Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables''. Heritage Books: Bowie, MD. 1992.
* Rosenthal, Bernard. ''Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692''. Cambridge University Press: New York. 1993.
* Rosenthal, Bernard, ed., et al. ''Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt''. Cambridge University Press: New York. 2009.
* 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.
* Trask, Richard B. ''`The Devil hath been raised`: A Documentary History of the Salem Village Witchcraft Outbreak of March 1692''. Revised edition. Yeoman Press: Danvers, MA. 1997.
* Weisman, Richard. ''Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts''. University of Massachusetts Press
The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...
: Amherst, MA. 1984.
* Wilson, Jennifer M. ''Witch''. Authorhouse, 2005.
* Wilson, Lori Lee. ''The Salem Witch Trials''. How History Is Invented series. Lerner: Minneapolis. 1997.
* Woolf, Alex. ''Investigating History Mysteries''. Heinemann Library: 2004.
* Wright, John Hardy. ''Sorcery in Salem''. Arcadia: Portsmouth, NH. 1999.
* Preston, VK. "Reproducing Witchcraft: Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live". TDR / The Drama Review, 2018, Vol. 62, No. 1, pp. 143–159
External links
Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692
University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School
University of Virginia, archive of extensive primary sources, including court papers, maps, interactive maps, and biographies (includes former "Massachusetts Historical Society" link)
''Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II''
by Charles Upham, 1867, Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
SalemWitchTrials.com Essays, biographies of the accused and afflicted
Salem Witch Trials website
Cotton Mather, ''The Wonders of the Invisible World. Observations as Well Historical as Theological, upon the Nature, the Number, and the Operations of the Devils'' (1693)
(online pdf edition), at Digital Commons
Salem Witch Trials
, Salem website.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salem Witch Trials
1692 in Massachusetts
1693 in Massachusetts
History of Salem, Massachusetts
Mass psychogenic illness
Religiously motivated violence in the United States
Salem, Massachusetts
Trials in the United States
Women sentenced to death
Men sentenced to death