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The Salem witch trials of Colonial America resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft in 1692 in Massachusetts, the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan paranoia which led to the deaths of at least 25 people and the imprisonment of scores more. Witch trials were held in Europe several hundred years before those in Salem.

Background

The first were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. Good, orphaned as a teenager at the death of her mother, a French innkeeper, was the town beggar, noted for her strange "muttering." Osborne was a bedridden elderly woman who had gotten on the wrong side of the Putnams when she cheated her first husband's children out of their inheritance, giving it to her new husband. Tituba was the Carib Native American slave of Samuel Parris; though she is very often referred to as black in modern historical and fictional interpretations of the trials, there is no evidence that she was anything but Native American.

These women were charged with witchcraft on March 1 and put in prison. Other accusations followed: Dorcas Good (four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good), Rebecca Nurse (a bedridden grandmother of saintly disposition), Abigail Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Martha Corey, and Elizabeth and John Proctor. As the number of accusations grew, the jail populations of Salem, Boston, and surrounding areas swelled, and a new problem surfaced: Without a legitimate form of government, there was no way to try these women. None of them were tried until late May, when Governor Phips arrived and instituted a Court of Oyer and Terminer (to "hear and determine"). By then, Sarah Osborne had died in jail without a trial, as had Sarah Good's newborn baby girl, and many others were ill; there were perhaps 80 people in jail awaiting trial.

Over the summer, the Court heard cases approximately once per month, at mid-month. Of the accused, only one was released when the girls recanted their identification of him. All cases that were heard ended with the accused being condemned to death for witchcraft; no one was found innocent. Only those who pleaded guilty to witchcraft and supplied other names to the court were spared execution. Elizabeth Proctor and at least one other woman were given respite "for the belly," because they were pregnant. Though convicted, they would not be hanged until they had given birth. A series of four executions over the summer saw nineteen people hanged, including a respected minister, a former constable who refused to arrest more accused witches, and at least three people of some wealth. Six of the nineteen were men; most of the rest were impoverished women beyond childbearing age.

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

The land suffered along with the people. Crops went untended, cattle uncared for. Often, accused people who had not yet been arrested gathered up their most portable belongings and fled to New York or beyond. Sawmills, their owners missing or distracted, their workers arrested or gawking at the spectacles at the jails or in the meetinghouses, sat idle. Commerce ground to, if not a halt, at least a snail's pace. And there was news of further Indian unrest to the west.

The ending

The witch trials ended in January 1693, although people already jailed for witchcraft were not all released until the next spring. Officially, the royal appointed governor of Massachusetts, Sir William Phips, ended them after an appeal by Boston-area clergy headed by Increase Mather, "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits," published October 3, 1692. In it, Increase Mather stated "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned." Echoes of this phrase can be found in the United States of America's innocent-until-proven-guilty judicial system of today.

This incident was so profound that it helped end the influence of the Puritan faith on the governing of New England.

Reasons for the hysteria

There are various theories as to why the community of Salem Village exploded into delusions of witchcraft and demonic interference. The most common one is that the Puritans, who governed Massachusetts Bay Colony with little royal intervention from its settlement in 1630 until the new Charter was installed in 1692, went through mass religion-induced hysterical delusion. Most modern experts view that as too simplistic an explanation. Other theories include child abuse, fortune-telling experiments gone amok, ergot-related paranoid fantasies (ergot is a fungus that grows on damp barley, producing a substance very similar to D-lysergic acid; in a pre-industrial society, it is easy to accidentally ingest it), conspiracy by the Putnam family to destroy the rival Porter family, and societal victimization of women.

There was also great stress within the Puritan community. They had lost their charter in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and in the spring of 1692 still did not know what their future would be. They were under constant Indian attack and could not depend on England at all for support; their militia came from the ranks of their young men, and in 1675's King Philip's War their entire population had been decimated: one of ten European settlers in New England was killed by Indian attacks. Though that war was over, Indian raids and skirmishes were a constant hazard. More and more, New England was becoming a mercantile colony, and Puritans and non-Puritans alike were making a lot of money, which the Puritans saw as both necessary and sinful. And as the merchant class rose in status, the ministerial class declined.

Perhaps the most compelling new theory is that of Mary Beth Norton, who argued in her book In The Devil's Snare that any or all of the above explanations likely played an important role, but Salem and the rest of New England, and particularly the north and northwest areas, were besieged by frequent Indian attacks, which created an atmosphere of fear that contributed greatly to the hysteria. Her evidence: Most of the accused witches and most of the afflicted girls had strong societal or personal ties to Indian attacks over the preceding 15 years. The accusers frequently referenced a "black man," discussed joint meetings between the alleged witches and Indians in sabbats, and described images of torture taken directly from tales of Indian captivity. In addition, Puritan clergy had, since King Philip's War in 1675, frequently referred to Indians as being of the devil, had associated them with witchcraft and, in pulpit-pounding sermons that lasted as long as five hours, expounded repeatedly about Satan and his devils besieging the Puritans, who were seen as the army of God. In short, to the New England Puritan mind, concerted Indian attacks were the Devil trying to bring down the Puritan society, and attacks should be expected from within as well as without. By 1691, Puritans were primed for witchcraft hysteria.

Salem Village itself was a microcosm of Puritan stress. Half of those in the Village were farmers and supported the minister, Samuel Parris, in breaking away from Salem Town to form their own distinct township; the other half wanted to remain part of Salem Town, retaining the merchant ties, and refused to contribute to the maintenance of Parris and his family. In addition, a number of refugees from recent Indian attacks in the Maine and New Hampshire regions had taken shelter with relatives in Salem, bringing tales of horror with them. As a result, by 1691 Salem Village was a powder keg, and the spreading possession of young girls was the spark that set it off.

One major factor that contributed to the witchcraft hysteria in 1692 that cannot be overlooked was the fear generated by strongly held Puritan beliefs that Satan and his demons were in the physical world, causing a multitude of problems while enticing ordinary human beings to assist the unholy armies of darkness by becoming witches and warlocks. Everything from Indian attacks to spoiled milk was thought to be the work of Satan and his malevolent allies, both supernatural and human. These beliefs were as real to the Puritans of Salem Village as the rocky soil of New England beneath their feet.

Vestiges of the Puritan fear of the unseen world can still be seen in New England. In many public libraries, serious historical works on the Salem Witchcraft Trials, like In The Devil's Snare by Mary Beth Norton, are generally found next to books on ghosts, alien abduction, and books on the occult.

Participants

Clerical participants and commentators

• The Rev. Cotton Mather
• The Rev. Samuel Parris
• The Rev. Increase Mather
• The Rev. Francis Dane
• The Rev. Deodat Lawson
• The Rev. Samuel Willard
• The Rev. John Hale

Presiding officials

Presiding officials, Court of Oyer and Terminer

• Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton, Chief Magistrate
• Captain Jonathan Walcott
• Sheriff John Walcott

Associate Magistrates

• John Hathorne
• Samuel Sewall
• Thomas Danforth
• Bartholomew Gedney
• John Richards
• Nathaniel Saltonstall
• Peter Sargent
• Stephen Sewall, Clerk
• Wait Still Winthrop

Afflicted

Those who complained of bewitchment:

• Sarah Bibber
• Elizabeth Booth
• Sarah Churchill
• Martha Goodwin
• Elizabeth Hubbard
• Mary Lacey (also an accused witch)
• Mercy Lewis
• Elizabeth "Betty" Parris
• Bethshaa Pope
• Ann Putnam, Jr.
• Susanna Sheldon
• Mercy Short
• Martha Sprague
• Mary Walcott
• Mary Warren (was accused of witchcraft when she recanted and said the girls "did but dissemble", i.e. "were just faking it")
• Bray Wilkins (testified against John Willard)
• Daniel Wilkins (death purportedly caused by John Willard)
• Abigail Williams

Accused

This is not a complete list; there were anywhere from 150 to 300 accused recorded, and there may have been many more not imprisoned:

• Capt. John Alden Jr.
• Daniel Andrew
• Capt. Andres Ortega II
• Sarah Bassett
• Edward Bishop
• Sarah Bishop
• Mary Black
• Dudley Bradstreet
• John Bradstreet
• Sarah Buckley
• Richard Carrier
• Candy, a slave from Salem
• Mary Clarke
• Sarah Easty Cloyce
• Sarah Cole
• Giles Corey
• Mary Bassett DeRich
• Ann Dolliver
• Rebecca Eames
• Mary English
• Philip English
• Abigail Faulkner
• Ann Foster
• Dorcas Hoar
• Abigail Hobbs
• Deliverance Hobbs
• Elizabeth Howe
• Mary Ireson
• George Jacobs, Jr.
• Margaret Jacobs
• Elizabeth Johnson
• Mary Lacey, Sr.
• Mary Lacey (also an afflicted child)
• Sarah Osborne
• Lady Phips, wife of Governor Phips
• Susannah Post
• Elizabeth Bassett Proctor
• Mary (Woodrow) Sibley, wife of Samuel Sibley
• "Tituba" and her husband John Indian
• Job Tookey
• Hezekiah Usher
• Mary Withridge

Executed

• Bridget Bishop — hanged June 10, 1692
• The Rev. George Burroughs — hanged August 19, 1692
• Martha Carrier — hanged August 19, 1692
• Martha Corey — hanged September 22, 1692
• Giles Corey — pressed to death September 19, 1692
• Mary Easty — hanged September 22, 1692
• Sarah Good — hanged June 19, 1692
• Elizabeth Howe — hanged June 19, 1692
• George Jacobs, Sr. — hanged August 19, 1692
• Susannah Martin — hanged June 19, 1692
• Rebecca Nurse — hanged June 19, 1692
• Alice Parker — hanged September 22, 1692
• Mary Parker — hanged September 22, 1692
• John Proctor — hanged August 19, 1692
• Ann Pudeator — hanged September 22, 1692
• Wilmott Redd — hanged September 22, 1692
• Margaret Scott — hanged September 22, 1692
• Samuel Wardwell — hanged September 22, 1692
• Sarah Wildes — hanged June 19, 1692
• John Willard — hanged August 19, 1692

Died in jail

• Sarah Osborne
• "Dr." Roger Toothaker
• Ann Foster
• Lydia Dustin
• Dorcas Good (daughter of Sarah Good)

Note

Increase Mather is frequently misquoted as saying it is better that "a hundred guilty witches go free": what he actually wrote, however, was "Ten Suspected Witches".

References

• Marc Aronson, Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials, Simon and Schuster, November, 2003, hardcover, 272 pages, ISBN 0689848641; large-print, Thorndike Press, April, 2004, hardcover, 324 pages, ISBN 078626442X
• Boyer, Paul & Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, MJF Books, 1974.
• Starkey, Marion L., The Devil in Massachusetts, Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.
• Miller, Arthur, The Crucible — a play which implicitly compares McCarthyism to a witch-hunt
• Norton, Mary Beth, In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Knopf, 2002
• Roach, Marilynne K.,The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-To-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege, Cooper Square Press, 2002.

See also

• spectral evidence
• The Crucible
• red scare

External links

• Salem Witch Trials and The Crucible
• A documentary archive including original court papers on the trials, maps, interactive maps, biographies, and internal and external links to more resources.
• Massachusetts Historical Society, Salem Witch Trials original document images
• Salem Witch Trials includes lists of the afflicted, accused, and victims. Also has trial transcripts, biographies, and a message board.

• Massachusetts history
• U.S. colonial history
• Witchcraft
• Mass Hysteria
• Salem witch trials
• 1692 in law