Spellcraft And EarthMagick

Salem witch trials

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex Counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused who were not formally pursued by the authorities. The two courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, were hanged. One man, refusing to enter a plea, was ordered to be crushed to death under heavy stones. At least five more of the accused died in prison.

Despite being generally known as the "Salem" witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover, as well as Salem Town, Massachusetts. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. All twenty-six who went to trial before this court were convicted. The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Town, but also in Ipswich, Boston, and Charlestown, produced only three convictions in the thirty-one witchcraft trials it conducted.

While not the first or only witch-hunt in New England or Europe, the story of innocent people being accused and convicted on untrustworthy evidence has secured its place in the cultural imagination of the United States of America. Salem has been invoked as a cautionary tale in response to McCarthyism in the 1950s and Day care sex abuse hysteria in the 1980s.

Local context



In 1689, Salem Village was finally allowed by the church in Salem Town to form their own separate covenanted church congregation and ordain their own minister, after many petitions to do so. Salem Village was torn by internal disputes between neighbors who disagreed about the choice of Samuel Parris as their first ordained minister, and about the choice to grant him the deed to the parsonage as part of his compensation.

In Andover, the church was in the process of dividing into two congregations, one in the north of the town led by their long-time minister, Francis Dane, and another in the south by Thomas Barnard, the teacher in the Andover church.

The initial outbreak

In Salem Village in 1692, Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11, the daughter and niece (respectively) of Reverend Samuel Parris, began to have fits described as "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect," by John Hale, minister in nearby 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 Rev. Deodat Lawson, a former minister in the town. 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 in the Salem Village meetinghouse, he was interrupted several times by 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 were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. Sarah Good was poor and known to beg for food or shelter from neighbors. Sarah Osburne had married her indentured servant and rarely attended church meetings. Tituba, as a slave of a different ethnicity than the Puritans, was an obvious target for accusations. All of these women fit the description of the "usual suspects" for witchcraft accusations, and no one stood up for them. These women were brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft and interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692, then sent to jail (Boyer 3).

Other accusations followed in March: Martha Corey, Dorothy Good (mistakenly called Dorcas Good in her arrest warrant) and Rebecca Nurse in Salem Village, and Rachel Clinton in nearby Ipswich. Martha Corey had voiced skepticism about the credibility of the girls' accusations, drawing attention to herself. The charges against her and Rebecca Nurse greatly concerned 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, then anybody could be a witch, and church membership was no protection from accusation. Dorothy Good, the daughter of Sarah Good, was only 4 years old, and when questioned by the magistrates her answers were construed as a confession, implicating her mother. In Ipswich, Rachel Clinton was arrested for witchcraft at the end of March on charges unrelated to the afflictions of the girls in Salem Village.

Accusations and examinations before local magistrates

In April, the stakes rose. When Sarah Cloyce (Nurse's sister) and Elizabeth (Bassett) Proctor were arrested, they were brought before John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, not only in their capacity as local magistrates, but as members of the Governor's Council, at a meeting in Salem Town. Present for the examination were Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, and Assistants Samuel Sewall, Samuel Appleton, James Russell, and Isaac Addington. Objections by John Proctor during the proceedings resulted in his arrest that day as well.

Within a week, Giles Corey (Martha's husband, and a covenanted church member in Salem Town), Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Mary Warren (a servant in the Proctor household and sometime accuser herself), and Deliverance Hobbs (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 Wilds, William Hobbs (husband of Deliverance and father of Abigail), Nehemiah Abbott Jr., Mary Easty (sister of Cloyce and Nurse), Edward Bishop Jr. and his wife Sarah Bishop, and Mary English, and finally on April 30, the Reverend George Burroughs, Lydia Dustin, Susannah Martin, Dorcas Hoar, Sarah Morey, and Philip English (Mary's husband). Nehemiah Abbott Jr. was released because the accusers agreed he was not the person whose specter had afflicted them. Mary Easty was released for a few days after her initial arrest because the accusers failed to confirm that it was she who had afflicted them, and then she was rearrested when the accusers reconsidered.

In May, accusations continued to pour in, but some of those named began to evade apprehension. Multiple warrants were issued before John Willard and Elizabeth Colson were apprehended, but George Jacobs Jr. and Daniel Andrews were not caught. Until this point, all the proceedings were still only 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 even more people. Sarah Osborne, one of the first three 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, Alice Parker, 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, Elizabeth Colson, Elizabeth Hart, Thomas Farrar, Sr., Roger Toothaker, 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, Sarah Rice, Elizabeth Howe, Capt. John Alden (son of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of Plymouth Colony), 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, this brought the total number of people in custody for the court to handle to 62.

Cotton Mather wrote to one of the judges, John Richards, on May 31, 1692, voicing his support of the prosecutions, but cautioning him of the dangers of relying on spectral evidence and advising the court on how to proceed

PROCEDURE USED IN THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT TRIALS


1. The afflicted person makes a complaint to the Magistrate about a suspected witch. The complaint is sometimes made through a third person.

2. The Magistrate issues a warrant for the arrest of the accused person.

3. The accused person is taken into custody and examained by two or more Magistrates. If, after listening to testimony, the Magistrate believes that the accused person is probably guilty, the accused is sent to jail for possible reexamination and to await trial.

4. The case is presented to the Grand Jury. Depositions relating to the guilt or innocence of the accused are entered into evidence.

5. If the accused is indicted by the Grand Jury, he or she is tried before the Court of Oyer and Terminer. A jury, instructed by the Court, decides the defendant's guilt.

6. The convicted defendant receives his or her sentence from the Court. In each case at Salem, the convicted defendant was sentenced to be hanged on a specified date.

7. The Sheriff and his deputies carry out the sentence of death on the specified date.

You're Accused!

It's the spring of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. You've just been accused by "an afflicted girl" of being a witch. The reason for the accusation against you might have been any from a long list of possibilities. Perhaps you're reclusive, talk to yourself, or exhibit some other form of eccentric behavior. Perhaps you were involved in a previous dispute with the family of the afflicted girl. Perhaps you don't go to church, or go to the wrong church, or sided with the wrong faction in recent congregational strife within the Salem Village Church. Perhaps you speak French or are suspected with having aided the Wabanakis in the recent Indian wars. Or perhaps you expressed support for a recently accused witch or--worse yet--accused the accusers of lying. Whatever the reason, you're in big trouble now. What do you do?.

Flee Salem

Good idea, if you can swing it. Several accused witches did escape from jail and survive the 1692 hysteria. They included Philip and Mary English, John Alden, Hezekiah Usher, and Mrs. Nathaniel Cary. However, all these accused persons had either money or influence that made their escape possible.

Accuse Someone Else

The theory here is that if you're afflicted by witchcraft, you can't be a witch yourself. This theory even convinced some daughters to testify against their own mothers. It's not a bad idea (if you have no conscience), but--sorry--it's too late now. You should have thought of this idea a few days ago. Now, your accusation will look like an obvious attempt to distract attention from your own guilt. The accusation of witchcraft has been made against you and you're still going to have to deal with it.

Get Pregnant

This isn't as silly an idea as it sounds. Pregnant women, even if convicted of witchcraft, would not be executed so long as they remained pregnant. The theory is that even if you deserve death, the baby inside you does not--so the officials will put off your execution. This was called "reprieve for the belly."
Of course, you still might be executed eventually, but the hope is that the hysteria won't last another nine months.
One slight problem, however. Who will you find in jail to impregnate you?

Confess

This route, pioneered by accused witches Tituba and Deliverance Hobbs, turned out to be a life saver. Confessing witches weren't executed. Instead, they were kept apart from other prisoners, to be called upon in trials when their testimony might be helpful to the prosecution. The Puritans believed that once a person made a full confession, his or her fate should be left in God's hands, not man's. Fifty-five persons in the Salem area confessed to witchcraft in 1692, adding substantial credibility to the initial charges of witchcraft made by the afflicted girls.
Do you really want to admit to being a witch?

Plead Innocent and Stand for Trial

This is the approach that led to nineteen innocent persons being carted off to Gallows Hill during the summer of 1692. If you plead innocent, you'll have to face trial without a lawyer and without the ability to call witnesses on your own behalf, answer unanwerable questions ("If you're not a witch, how do explain the fact that these afflicted girls fall into fits the minute you enter the room?")--all before a court that unanimously believes in witchcraft and believes that you're guilty. (Even in the one case that the jury came back with an acquittal, the trial of Rebecca Nurse, the court sent the jury back to reconsider the verdict. The second time around, the jury found Nurse guilty.) You'll face spectral evidence--and how do you propose to convince the court that your apparition was not doing all this work on the part of the Devil? Just exactly what was your apparition doing on the night of April 23 anyway?

Refuse to Stand for Trial

Octogenarian Giles Corey gave this option a try. Knowing the fate that awaited him if he stood for trial, Giles refused to answer the ritual question, "Will you be tried by your God and your country (that is, a jury)?" The penalty for refusing to answer was peine forte et dure, an especially unpleasant way of going that involves piling heavy stones on your body until you either agree to stand trial or are crushed to death.