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Welcome to Fairfax Underground, a project site designed to improve communication among residents of Fairfax County, VA. Feel free to post anything Northern Virginia residents would find interesting.
Witches - Myth or Reality?
Posted by:
The Dharma Intiative
()
Date: May 21, 2012 12:08AM
Witches. Myth born in Reality, or Reality born in Myth?
http://www.castleofspirits.com/witches.html
James G Montgomery
The present-day view of the witch is very similar to that of the three witches mentioned in Shakespeare’s tragic Macbeth. That being, three ugly old hags hunched around a bubbling cauldron, cackling and laughing in croaky voices, beings who possess magical powers and evoke fear and revulsion from ‘normal’ and sane people in society. The recent pseudo documentary The Blair Witch Project is a good example of this irrational fear. And yet witches also arouse our curiosity; for instance witness such programs as the classic Bewitched and the latter day Charm. This maybe because of a new television image of so called good witches, not to mention, good looking young witches, but also their ability to use charms, cast spells, and see into our future. These beings have surpassed us as mere mortals and therefore can almost be set up as demi gods which it is possible, that they once were.
Entwined with our curiosity about witches and witchcraft however, is the basic premise that witches are somehow evil, somehow unholy, creatures of the night and therefore of nightmares. Indeed the Bible and Christian church condemns sorcery and in doing so not only invites the persecution of witches, but perpetuates the irrational and possibly primeval fears of humanity. Therefore one must ask, were witches inherently evil, or were they falsely accused of evil acts by zealots and opportunists from rival religions seeking to either further their own personal gain or that of their religion?
The word ‘witch’ has over time become just another word, frequently used as a mild curse word for a disliked or bossy woman. In European antiquity, however, before the rise of the organised Christianity, the ‘witch’ had a different meaning altogether. The ‘witch’ was seen as a wise person, usually a wise woman, one who was skilled in the healing arts. She may have had a knowledge of ancient herbal medicines and was often a midwife as well. Her religious beliefs, if she had any, were more often than not a faith based on the ancient environment which surrounded her and thus she had a supreme belief in, and respect for Nature, for example a faith in the Sun, the Moon, the forest, and in all livings creatures. The ‘witch’ also had a special reverence for the seasons of the year and the seasonal festivals celebrating the change in the weather relating to the harvesting of crops, something not unusual in pre-Christian Europe and something that still exists today in many parts of the world such as Africa.
True ancient witchcraft, contrary to popular belief, had absolutely nothing to do with the Devil or Satan as this entity was simply a supremely evil being found in the predominant teachings of European religion, namely, Christianity. The ancient witches who worshipped Nature in their Old, pre Christian religion, did not even recognise the existence of Satan. In actuality they were more afraid of various spirits and entities such as imps and sprites which were reputed to haunt dark recesses of forests and in caves. However, over centuries the ‘witch’ would come into direct conflict with the new Christian belief that rejected the pagan view of nature as a living and life giving being, as well as the importance of women in such a system.
In pre-Christian Europe most people originally followed a pagan faith quite innocently and by necessity, based upon seasons and earthly changes. Ancient witches, or priestesses, recognised a Goddess as well as a God. Indeed they would quite often recognise a number of Gods and Goddesses depending upon the season or whatever circumstances they found themselves in, again, not an unusual trait, even in today’s world. Eventually, these witches and their alleged satanic knowledge, would be challenged by the Church as they posed a direct threat to the very existence of such a Church as witchcraft in its truest form was, and remained, popular among the common people. Indeed, at first the Church denied the purported powers of witchcraft, claiming they were superstition or delusion, and that God alone had supernatural powers. However, as the popularity of witchcraft did not die out the Church was forced to revert to other, more devious methods of gaining total support and therefore total obedience. As one can clearly see, for the Church to become an all powerful and all knowing institution, it had to rid itself of any competitors. And so witches and witchcraft were easily denounced by the church and its rituals in all their finery, pomp and ceremony. The myth of the ugly old crone was now being pushed by the Church and in comparison to the Church’s gold and silver and often false reverence, the ‘witch’ became segregated and marginalised, now only a useless old crone living in the woods and posing no threat to anyone.
Later, when it was clear that witchcraft would not die out as rapidly as expected, the Church changed tact and reversed its original claims expressing the belief that witches were real and were in direct conflict with the Christian God by being evil creatures in league with the Devil, which only the Church, as the now only representative of God, could eradicate.
Starting in the main in the late 14th century Europe, witches began to suffer persecution, torture, and death in many cases. The wholesale slaughter of alleged witches was to continue largely unabated until the 1700s. Mainly it was women who were murdered, although sometimes men were accused of witchcraft as well and suffered the consequences. Indeed, the persecutors killed because of their religious fanaticism, their desire to build upon their religions power or due to totally irrational fear of what had now, through the exhortations of the Church, had become the unknown and therefore evil. Other times witches were simply killed for profit as money could be made from witch hunting. In this atmosphere of religious zealotry and male bigotry many women were killed simply on the slightest of suspicions as their was no one to judge who was a witch and who wasn’t. After all, God was now the only authority a person had to answer to and if a witch had been killed, who could say whether God’s will had been done or not. In all cases, including the celebrated Joan of Arc, no one would question the legitimacy of the now all powerful Christian Church.
Modern society now recalls the days of the benevolent, though still widely misunderstood, ancient witch with her earth-based, nature worship. Indeed the 1970s and the advent of the hippie saw a number of people turning to a type of pseudo nature worship with the next two decades seeing the advent and subsequent promotion of such ‘supernatural’ phenomena such as crystal power, faith healing and physic readings. However, in most cases the history and heritage of witchcraft in its true sense is disguised or transformed to suit modern day beliefs and the modern day penchant for ‘instant fixes’. In ancient times, for instance, certain wells or springs with their flowing waters were considered to have powers bordering on magical and were used for good luck or healing. Today we see an equivalent in Christianity and ‘Holy Water.’ The black and smouldering cauldron that is seen as a negative and infinitely evil symbol of the witch today, was, in ancient Celtic times, considered a source of knowledge, healing and sustenance. Rather than a negative force it was a life giving and positive sign relating to the improvement of one’s life.
St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, with the help of other missionaries, peacefully converted pagan Irish Celts to Christianity in the 5th century. Not surprisingly he is revered to this day for his great learning and kindness, traits which he most probably possessed and yet can we be sure than any of these early founding fathers of Christianity were in fact, saintly, or Christian in their outlooks, considering that the Church itself only cared for one thing, the expansion of its own power as an all knowing and all powerful institute. It is most probable that the early Saints were as they are remembered, kind and Godfearing men who truly believed in Christian values and not simply in the expansion of the Church as an institute of total authority in all things spiritual. The Irish experience however peaceful it may have been was most probably unlike many other conversions throughout Europe and eventually in the New World, where conversion by the sword was more common.
Emperor Constantine, when centred in Constantinople, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. After his death subsequent imperial decrees were aimed at stamping out Paganism with an edict being produced in AD340 outlawing pagan practices in the Eastern Empire. By AD346 the practice of pagan worship became punishable by death. Following this, there were periods when paganism was decriminalised and even openly practiced again, especially under the Roman ruler Julian, who himself became a pagan after being inspired by the mysteries of ancient Greece. However, paganism eventually began to lose favour with Christianity becoming a stronger and much more organised institution.
This is not to say, however, that pagans had no blood on their hands and were solely the victims of Christian intolerance. Early Christians were, without doubt, persecuted under the pagan rule of the Roman Empire with many early Christians martyred for their faith. The raids and land grabs of the Vikings were another example of pagan atrocities committed against Christians, especially in Ireland and Britain where the Norsemen sacked monasteries, killed monks, raped women and seized slaves and the spoils of victory.
Indeed, so intense was the struggle for religion and beliefs that there was often pagan/ pagan killing as well. In ancient pagan Greece there was the ‘pharmakos’ or ‘scapegoat’, as we now know it as, which involved killing a human being to alleviate some natural calamity such as plague or the withering of crops. Of special note was the ‘Wicker man’ of the pagan Celts. As reported in accounts by Julius Caesar and other Romans, the Celts would build a huge, cage-like structure in the shape of a large man made from wood or wicker. Inside it were stuffed living human beings. In bonfire-like fashion the ‘Wicker man’ was lit, sacrificing the people inside. Ironically, Christians centuries later would burn pagans and alleged pagans as well, as ‘evil’ witches or heretics, during the Burning Times.
Examination of a Witch
T.H. Matteson 1853
Attachments:
http://www.castleofspirits.com/witches.html
James G Montgomery
The present-day view of the witch is very similar to that of the three witches mentioned in Shakespeare’s tragic Macbeth. That being, three ugly old hags hunched around a bubbling cauldron, cackling and laughing in croaky voices, beings who possess magical powers and evoke fear and revulsion from ‘normal’ and sane people in society. The recent pseudo documentary The Blair Witch Project is a good example of this irrational fear. And yet witches also arouse our curiosity; for instance witness such programs as the classic Bewitched and the latter day Charm. This maybe because of a new television image of so called good witches, not to mention, good looking young witches, but also their ability to use charms, cast spells, and see into our future. These beings have surpassed us as mere mortals and therefore can almost be set up as demi gods which it is possible, that they once were.
Entwined with our curiosity about witches and witchcraft however, is the basic premise that witches are somehow evil, somehow unholy, creatures of the night and therefore of nightmares. Indeed the Bible and Christian church condemns sorcery and in doing so not only invites the persecution of witches, but perpetuates the irrational and possibly primeval fears of humanity. Therefore one must ask, were witches inherently evil, or were they falsely accused of evil acts by zealots and opportunists from rival religions seeking to either further their own personal gain or that of their religion?
The word ‘witch’ has over time become just another word, frequently used as a mild curse word for a disliked or bossy woman. In European antiquity, however, before the rise of the organised Christianity, the ‘witch’ had a different meaning altogether. The ‘witch’ was seen as a wise person, usually a wise woman, one who was skilled in the healing arts. She may have had a knowledge of ancient herbal medicines and was often a midwife as well. Her religious beliefs, if she had any, were more often than not a faith based on the ancient environment which surrounded her and thus she had a supreme belief in, and respect for Nature, for example a faith in the Sun, the Moon, the forest, and in all livings creatures. The ‘witch’ also had a special reverence for the seasons of the year and the seasonal festivals celebrating the change in the weather relating to the harvesting of crops, something not unusual in pre-Christian Europe and something that still exists today in many parts of the world such as Africa.
True ancient witchcraft, contrary to popular belief, had absolutely nothing to do with the Devil or Satan as this entity was simply a supremely evil being found in the predominant teachings of European religion, namely, Christianity. The ancient witches who worshipped Nature in their Old, pre Christian religion, did not even recognise the existence of Satan. In actuality they were more afraid of various spirits and entities such as imps and sprites which were reputed to haunt dark recesses of forests and in caves. However, over centuries the ‘witch’ would come into direct conflict with the new Christian belief that rejected the pagan view of nature as a living and life giving being, as well as the importance of women in such a system.
In pre-Christian Europe most people originally followed a pagan faith quite innocently and by necessity, based upon seasons and earthly changes. Ancient witches, or priestesses, recognised a Goddess as well as a God. Indeed they would quite often recognise a number of Gods and Goddesses depending upon the season or whatever circumstances they found themselves in, again, not an unusual trait, even in today’s world. Eventually, these witches and their alleged satanic knowledge, would be challenged by the Church as they posed a direct threat to the very existence of such a Church as witchcraft in its truest form was, and remained, popular among the common people. Indeed, at first the Church denied the purported powers of witchcraft, claiming they were superstition or delusion, and that God alone had supernatural powers. However, as the popularity of witchcraft did not die out the Church was forced to revert to other, more devious methods of gaining total support and therefore total obedience. As one can clearly see, for the Church to become an all powerful and all knowing institution, it had to rid itself of any competitors. And so witches and witchcraft were easily denounced by the church and its rituals in all their finery, pomp and ceremony. The myth of the ugly old crone was now being pushed by the Church and in comparison to the Church’s gold and silver and often false reverence, the ‘witch’ became segregated and marginalised, now only a useless old crone living in the woods and posing no threat to anyone.
Later, when it was clear that witchcraft would not die out as rapidly as expected, the Church changed tact and reversed its original claims expressing the belief that witches were real and were in direct conflict with the Christian God by being evil creatures in league with the Devil, which only the Church, as the now only representative of God, could eradicate.
Starting in the main in the late 14th century Europe, witches began to suffer persecution, torture, and death in many cases. The wholesale slaughter of alleged witches was to continue largely unabated until the 1700s. Mainly it was women who were murdered, although sometimes men were accused of witchcraft as well and suffered the consequences. Indeed, the persecutors killed because of their religious fanaticism, their desire to build upon their religions power or due to totally irrational fear of what had now, through the exhortations of the Church, had become the unknown and therefore evil. Other times witches were simply killed for profit as money could be made from witch hunting. In this atmosphere of religious zealotry and male bigotry many women were killed simply on the slightest of suspicions as their was no one to judge who was a witch and who wasn’t. After all, God was now the only authority a person had to answer to and if a witch had been killed, who could say whether God’s will had been done or not. In all cases, including the celebrated Joan of Arc, no one would question the legitimacy of the now all powerful Christian Church.
Modern society now recalls the days of the benevolent, though still widely misunderstood, ancient witch with her earth-based, nature worship. Indeed the 1970s and the advent of the hippie saw a number of people turning to a type of pseudo nature worship with the next two decades seeing the advent and subsequent promotion of such ‘supernatural’ phenomena such as crystal power, faith healing and physic readings. However, in most cases the history and heritage of witchcraft in its true sense is disguised or transformed to suit modern day beliefs and the modern day penchant for ‘instant fixes’. In ancient times, for instance, certain wells or springs with their flowing waters were considered to have powers bordering on magical and were used for good luck or healing. Today we see an equivalent in Christianity and ‘Holy Water.’ The black and smouldering cauldron that is seen as a negative and infinitely evil symbol of the witch today, was, in ancient Celtic times, considered a source of knowledge, healing and sustenance. Rather than a negative force it was a life giving and positive sign relating to the improvement of one’s life.
St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, with the help of other missionaries, peacefully converted pagan Irish Celts to Christianity in the 5th century. Not surprisingly he is revered to this day for his great learning and kindness, traits which he most probably possessed and yet can we be sure than any of these early founding fathers of Christianity were in fact, saintly, or Christian in their outlooks, considering that the Church itself only cared for one thing, the expansion of its own power as an all knowing and all powerful institute. It is most probable that the early Saints were as they are remembered, kind and Godfearing men who truly believed in Christian values and not simply in the expansion of the Church as an institute of total authority in all things spiritual. The Irish experience however peaceful it may have been was most probably unlike many other conversions throughout Europe and eventually in the New World, where conversion by the sword was more common.
Emperor Constantine, when centred in Constantinople, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. After his death subsequent imperial decrees were aimed at stamping out Paganism with an edict being produced in AD340 outlawing pagan practices in the Eastern Empire. By AD346 the practice of pagan worship became punishable by death. Following this, there were periods when paganism was decriminalised and even openly practiced again, especially under the Roman ruler Julian, who himself became a pagan after being inspired by the mysteries of ancient Greece. However, paganism eventually began to lose favour with Christianity becoming a stronger and much more organised institution.
This is not to say, however, that pagans had no blood on their hands and were solely the victims of Christian intolerance. Early Christians were, without doubt, persecuted under the pagan rule of the Roman Empire with many early Christians martyred for their faith. The raids and land grabs of the Vikings were another example of pagan atrocities committed against Christians, especially in Ireland and Britain where the Norsemen sacked monasteries, killed monks, raped women and seized slaves and the spoils of victory.
Indeed, so intense was the struggle for religion and beliefs that there was often pagan/ pagan killing as well. In ancient pagan Greece there was the ‘pharmakos’ or ‘scapegoat’, as we now know it as, which involved killing a human being to alleviate some natural calamity such as plague or the withering of crops. Of special note was the ‘Wicker man’ of the pagan Celts. As reported in accounts by Julius Caesar and other Romans, the Celts would build a huge, cage-like structure in the shape of a large man made from wood or wicker. Inside it were stuffed living human beings. In bonfire-like fashion the ‘Wicker man’ was lit, sacrificing the people inside. Ironically, Christians centuries later would burn pagans and alleged pagans as well, as ‘evil’ witches or heretics, during the Burning Times.
Examination of a Witch
T.H. Matteson 1853
Attachments:
Re: Witches - Myth or Reality?
Posted by:
Witchie Poo
()
Date: May 21, 2012 12:09AM
Witches?
http://www.castleofspirits.com/witches2.html
First of all, let me tell you that what I'm about to write has been only with my family for years, we haven't told anyone. I have two stories, both happened in my late teens when I was in India.
Here’s the first one...
For a family vacation , my Dad decided to go to a remote hill resort that was not too well known so we could get some peace and quiet. Someone suggested Panhala (the name of the resort) to us and so off we went.
It was a very beautiful place, very quiet with not many tourists at all. We booked ourselves in a small comfortable family run Inn (there were no other guests there apart from us). The Inn owners were a couple with a 1 yr old. This inn was a little far away from the rest of the town and was on the shores of a big lake. On the other side of the lake was a big house which seemed empty to us. In spite of such beautiful serene surroundings (lake etc), we were surprised to find no one from the town or any tourists around there. But we were glad since we wanted peace and quiet.....
The very next day, around 2:00 pm after lunch, Dad, Mom, my younger brother and I decided to take a walk. The landlord's baby and her nanny (who was a local) also decided to come with us. We must have walked around 1 mile from the Inn along the shores of the lake, when we found a lady dressed in red standing under a tree. I found it strange that I could see the tree's shadow, but not the lady's. By now, we were very near the lady, who smiled at us and started to call out to the small baby. We waved back, but as soon as the nanny saw her, she just held the baby tightly and started to run. We were totally taken aback and very confused, but we thought that something happened to the baby so we ran to help the nanny as well. We must have run a few yards when I turned back to see the lady, and she has just disappeared !!!! We were in a completely open area, with no bushes or trees for miles around. The only tree there was where the lady was standing, she couldn't’t have gone anywhere (except climb the tree even so she would have to be very swift). My dad turned and saw no one too, so we all ran back to the Inn.
When we mentioned this incident to the owners and locals, they believed us and said that the lady in red was actually a witch and there were some mysterious happenings in the dark house across the lake where they could hear babies cry etc. Anyway, my Dad refused to stay there any longer and we packed up and went home.
Second one..
This happened when my family and a friend were driving (after visiting some places). We were all tired and it was very late (12:30 am) and we just wanted to stop somewhere for the night. We found a hotel (which had been converted into one from a house) and booked ourselves for the night. Our friend wanted to sleep in the open and camped outside in the hotel grounds. We got 2 rooms (1 for my parents and 1 from my brother and me). From the moment we entered, we all could feel some presence in both our rooms, but were too tired to ask about it. My brother and I just crashed into our beds, but both woke about an hour later (2:00am) unable to sleep. We both felt some presence in our room and felt very chilly (considering it was the peak of summer which in India means temperatures close to 90 F). I had to take a leak and since it was a hotel converted from a house, the bathrooms were located at the end of a long corridor (rather than in the rooms itself). I went to the bathroom with a distinct feeling of being followed, and even in the bathroom I felt I was being watched. It was pretty scary!!! After I came back, my brother was in a worse state and claimed that someone was "walking around" in the room. We both decided to wake our parents and went to their room only to find that they were wide awake and were having similar experiences. All four of us sat together and started to pray, we immediately felt better and so we prayed loudly through the night.
Next morning, our friend wondered why we were moving about so much in our rooms instead of sleeping !!! Apparently, he saw 3 to 4 people moving around, opening and closing the curtains in my room. Must have been ghosts, since we were all only in 1 room all night.
P.S. : Isn't it strange that both these incidents happened on our family vacations.!!!!!
http://www.castleofspirits.com/witches2.html
First of all, let me tell you that what I'm about to write has been only with my family for years, we haven't told anyone. I have two stories, both happened in my late teens when I was in India.
Here’s the first one...
For a family vacation , my Dad decided to go to a remote hill resort that was not too well known so we could get some peace and quiet. Someone suggested Panhala (the name of the resort) to us and so off we went.
It was a very beautiful place, very quiet with not many tourists at all. We booked ourselves in a small comfortable family run Inn (there were no other guests there apart from us). The Inn owners were a couple with a 1 yr old. This inn was a little far away from the rest of the town and was on the shores of a big lake. On the other side of the lake was a big house which seemed empty to us. In spite of such beautiful serene surroundings (lake etc), we were surprised to find no one from the town or any tourists around there. But we were glad since we wanted peace and quiet.....
The very next day, around 2:00 pm after lunch, Dad, Mom, my younger brother and I decided to take a walk. The landlord's baby and her nanny (who was a local) also decided to come with us. We must have walked around 1 mile from the Inn along the shores of the lake, when we found a lady dressed in red standing under a tree. I found it strange that I could see the tree's shadow, but not the lady's. By now, we were very near the lady, who smiled at us and started to call out to the small baby. We waved back, but as soon as the nanny saw her, she just held the baby tightly and started to run. We were totally taken aback and very confused, but we thought that something happened to the baby so we ran to help the nanny as well. We must have run a few yards when I turned back to see the lady, and she has just disappeared !!!! We were in a completely open area, with no bushes or trees for miles around. The only tree there was where the lady was standing, she couldn't’t have gone anywhere (except climb the tree even so she would have to be very swift). My dad turned and saw no one too, so we all ran back to the Inn.
When we mentioned this incident to the owners and locals, they believed us and said that the lady in red was actually a witch and there were some mysterious happenings in the dark house across the lake where they could hear babies cry etc. Anyway, my Dad refused to stay there any longer and we packed up and went home.
Second one..
This happened when my family and a friend were driving (after visiting some places). We were all tired and it was very late (12:30 am) and we just wanted to stop somewhere for the night. We found a hotel (which had been converted into one from a house) and booked ourselves for the night. Our friend wanted to sleep in the open and camped outside in the hotel grounds. We got 2 rooms (1 for my parents and 1 from my brother and me). From the moment we entered, we all could feel some presence in both our rooms, but were too tired to ask about it. My brother and I just crashed into our beds, but both woke about an hour later (2:00am) unable to sleep. We both felt some presence in our room and felt very chilly (considering it was the peak of summer which in India means temperatures close to 90 F). I had to take a leak and since it was a hotel converted from a house, the bathrooms were located at the end of a long corridor (rather than in the rooms itself). I went to the bathroom with a distinct feeling of being followed, and even in the bathroom I felt I was being watched. It was pretty scary!!! After I came back, my brother was in a worse state and claimed that someone was "walking around" in the room. We both decided to wake our parents and went to their room only to find that they were wide awake and were having similar experiences. All four of us sat together and started to pray, we immediately felt better and so we prayed loudly through the night.
Next morning, our friend wondered why we were moving about so much in our rooms instead of sleeping !!! Apparently, he saw 3 to 4 people moving around, opening and closing the curtains in my room. Must have been ghosts, since we were all only in 1 room all night.
P.S. : Isn't it strange that both these incidents happened on our family vacations.!!!!!
Re: Witches - Myth or Reality?
Posted by:
I Believe!
()
Date: May 21, 2012 12:58AM
Real!!!
Attachments:
Attachments:
Re: Witches - Myth or Reality?
Posted by:
waitress at a bar
()
Date: May 21, 2012 01:49AM
dude can't tell ya how many times i've encountered a witch at a local bar
Re: Witches - Myth or Reality?
Posted by:
HaHa
()
Date: May 21, 2012 02:56AM
waitress at a bar Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> dude can't tell ya how many times i've encountered
> a witch at a local bar
You know that's funny. My wife and I went to this place in Falls Church not all that far from Route 7 and 495, and I ran into a lady that was like a witch hanging out near the restroom. She asked me if she could "drink" my blood sometime. I laughed and said, "Wow that's some pick-up line line, what are you a vampire?". "No, a witch" was her reply. Well I told her no, because my wife is hot and she was sooooooo not! Creepy thing though. Has that happened to anyone around here in Northern VA?
-------------------------------------------------------
> dude can't tell ya how many times i've encountered
> a witch at a local bar
You know that's funny. My wife and I went to this place in Falls Church not all that far from Route 7 and 495, and I ran into a lady that was like a witch hanging out near the restroom. She asked me if she could "drink" my blood sometime. I laughed and said, "Wow that's some pick-up line line, what are you a vampire?". "No, a witch" was her reply. Well I told her no, because my wife is hot and she was sooooooo not! Creepy thing though. Has that happened to anyone around here in Northern VA?
Re: Witches - Myth or Reality?
Posted by:
Salem Witch Trials
()
Date: May 21, 2012 03:04AM
The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary
by Douglas Linder
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_ACCT.HTM
From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended.
Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692.
In 1688, John Putnam, one of the most influential elders of Salem Village, invited Samuel Parris, formerly a marginally successful planter and merchant in Barbados, to preach in the Village church. A year later, after negotiations over salary, inflation adjustments, and free firewood, Parris accepted the job as Village minister. He moved to Salem Village with his wife Elizabeth, his six-year-old daughter Betty, niece Abagail Williams, and his Indian slave Tituba, acquired by Parris in Barbados.
The Salem that became the new home of Parris was in the midst of change: a mercantile elite was beginning to develop, prominent people were becoming less willing to assume positions as town leaders, two clans (the Putnams and the Porters) were competing for control of the village and its pulpit, and a debate was raging over how independent Salem Village, tied more to the interior agricultural regions, should be from Salem, a center of sea trade.
Sometime during February of the exceptionally cold winter of 1692, young Betty Parris became strangely ill. She dashed about, dove under furniture, contorted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis. The symptoms also could have been caused, as Linda Caporael argued in a 1976 article in Science magazine, by a disease called "convulsive ergotism" brought on by injesting rye--eaten as a cereal and as a common ingredient of bread--infected with ergot. (Ergot is caused by a fungus which invades developing kernels of rye grain, especially under warm and damp conditions such as existed at the time of the previous rye harvest in Salem. Convulsive ergotism causes violent fits, a crawling sensation on the skin, vomiting, choking, and--most interestingly--hallucinations. The hallucinogenic drug LSD is a dervivative of ergot.) Many of the symptoms or convulsive ergotism seem to match those attributed to Betty Parris, but there is no way of knowing with any certainty if she in fact suffered from the disease--and the theory would not explain the afflictions suffered by others in Salem later in the year.
At the time, however, there was another theory to explain the girls' symptoms. Cotton Mather had recently published a popular book, "Memorable Providences," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty's behavior in some ways mirrored that of the afflicted person described in Mather's widely read and discussed book. It was easy to believe in 1692 in Salem, with an Indian war raging less than seventy miles away (and many refugees from the war in the area) that the devil was close at hand. Sudden and violent death occupied minds.
Talk of witchcraft increased when other playmates of Betty, including eleven-year-old Ann Putnam, seventeen-year-old Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott, began to exhibit similar unusual behavior. When his own nostrums failed to effect a cure, William Griggs, a doctor called to examine the girls, suggested that the girls' problems might have a supernatural origin. The widespread belief that witches targeted children made the doctor's diagnosis seem increasing likely.
A neighbor, Mary Sibley, proposed a form of counter magic. She told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and feed the cake to a dog. ( Dogs were believed to be used by witches as agents to carry out their devilish commands.) By this time, suspicion had already begun to focus on Tituba, who had been known to tell the girls tales of omens, voodoo, and witchcraft from her native folklore. Her participation in the urine cake episode made her an even more obvious scapegoat for the inexplicable.
Meanwhile, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren. According to historian Peter Hoffer, the girls "turned themselves from a circle of friends into a gang of juvenile delinquents." ( Many people of the period complained that young people lacked the piety and sense of purpose of the founders' generation.) The girls contorted into grotesque poses, fell down into frozen postures, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. In a village where everyone believed that the devil was real, close at hand, and acted in the real world, the suspected affliction of the girls became an obsession.
Sometime after February 25, when Tituba baked the witch cake, and February 29, when arrest warrants were issued against Tituba and two other women, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams named their afflictors and the witchhunt began. The consistency of the two girls' accusations suggests strongly that the girls worked out their stories together. Soon Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis were also reporting seeing "witches flying through the winter mist." The prominent Putnam family supported the girls' accusations, putting considerable impetus behind the prosecutions.
The first three to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Tituba was an obvious choice (LINK TO TITUBA'S EXAMINATION). Good was a beggar and social misfit who lived wherever someone would house her (LINK TO GOOD'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO GOOD'S TRIAL), and Osborn was old, quarrelsome, and had not attended church for over a year. The Putnams brought their complaint against the three women to county magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, who scheduled examinations for the suspected witches for March 1, 1692 in Ingersoll's tavern. When hundreds showed up, the examinations were moved to the meeting house. At the examinations, the girls described attacks by the specters of the three women, and fell into their by then perfected pattern of contortions when in the presence of one of the suspects. Other villagers came forward to offer stories of cheese and butter mysteriously gone bad or animals born with deformities after visits by one of the suspects.The magistrates, in the common practice of the time, asked the same questions of each suspect over and over: Were they witches? Had they seen Satan? How, if they are were not witches, did they explain the contortions seemingly caused by their presence? The style and form of the questions indicates that the magistrates thought the women guilty.
The matter might have ended with admonishments were it not for Tituba. After first adamantly denying any guilt, afraid perhaps of being made a scapegoat, Tituba claimed that she was approached by a tall man from Boston--obviously Satan--who sometimes appeared as a dog or a hog and who asked her to sign in his book and to do his work. Yes, Tituba declared, she was a witch, and moreover she and four other witches, including Good and Osborn, had flown through the air on their poles. She had tried to run to Reverend Parris for counsel, she said, but the devil had blocked her path. Tituba's confession succeeded in transforming her from a possible scapegoat to a central figure in the expanding prosecutions. Her confession also served to silence most skeptics, and Parris and other local ministers began witch hunting with zeal.
Soon, according to their own reports, the spectral forms of other women began attacking the afflicted girls. Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, and Mary Easty (LINK TO EASTY'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO EASTY'S PETITION FOR MERCY) were accused of witchcraft. During a March 20 church service, Ann Putnam suddenly shouted, "Look where Goodwife Cloyce sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird between her fingers!" Soon Ann's mother, Ann Putnam, Sr., would join the accusers. Dorcas Good, four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, became the first child to be accused of witchcraft when three of the girls complained that they were bitten by the specter of Dorcas. (The four-year-old was arrested, kept in jail for eight months, watched her mother get carried off to the gallows, and would "cry her heart out, and go insane.") The girls accusations and their ever more polished performances, including the new act of being struck dumb, played to large and believing audiences.
Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a way to avoid the gallows. Deliverance Hobbs became the second witch to confess, admitting to pinching three of the girls at the Devil's command and flying on a pole to attend a witches' Sabbath in an open field. Jails approached capacity and the colony "teetered on the brink of chaos" when Governor Phips returned from England. Fast action, he decided, was required.
Phips created a new court, the "court of oyer and terminer," to hear the witchcraft cases. Five judges, including three close friends of Cotton Mather, were appointed to the court. Chief Justice, and most influential member of the court, was a gung-ho witch hunter named William Stoughton. Mather urged Stoughton and the other judges to credit confessions and admit "spectral evidence" (testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter). Ministers were looked to for guidance by the judges, who were generally without legal training, on matters pertaining to witchcraft. Mather's advice was heeded. the judges also decided to allow the so-called "touching test" (defendants were asked to touch afflicted persons to see if their touch, as was generally assumed of the touch of witches, would stop their contortions) and examination of the bodies of accused for evidence of "witches' marks" (moles or the like upon which a witch's familiar might suck) (SCENE DEPICTING EXAMINATION FOR MARKS). Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtrooms-- hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises-- was also generally admitted. Many protections that modern defendants take for granted were lacking in Salem: accused witches had no legal counsel, could not have witnesses testify under oath on their behalf, and had no formal avenues of appeal. Defendants could, however, speak for themselves, produce evidence, and cross-examine their accusers. The degree to which defendants in Salem were able to take advantage of their modest protections varied considerably, depending on their own acuteness and their influence in the community.
The first accused witch to be brought to trial was Bridget Bishop. Almost sixty years old, owner of a tavern where patrons could drink cider ale and play shuffleboard (even on the Sabbath), critical of her neighbors, and reluctant to pay her her bills, Bishop was a likely candidate for an accusation of witchcraft (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF BISHOP). The fact that Thomas Newton, special prosecutor, selected Bishop for his first prosecution suggests that he believed the stronger case could be made against her than any of the other suspect witches. At Bishop's trial on June 2, 1692, a field hand testified that he saw Bishop's image stealing eggs and then saw her transform herself into a cat. Deliverance Hobbs, by then probably insane, and Mary Warren, both confessed witches, testified that Bishop was one of them. A villager named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him. A jury of matrons assigned to examine Bishop's body reported that they found an "excrescence of flesh." Several of the afflicted girls testified that Bishop's specter afflicted them. Numerous other villagers described why they thought Bishop was responsible for various bits of bad luck that had befallen them. There was even testimony that while being transported under guard past the Salem meeting house, she looked at the building and caused a part of it to fall to the ground. Bishop's jury returned a verdict of guilty . One of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, aghast at the conduct of the trial, resigned from the court. Chief Justice Stoughton signed Bishop's death warrant, and on June 10, 1692, Bishop was carted to Gallows Hill and hanged (LINK TO IMAGE OF BISHOP'S HANGING).
As the summer of 1692 warmed, the pace of trials picked up. Not all defendants were as disreputable as Bridget Bishop. Rebecca Nurse was a pious, respected woman whose specter, according to Ann Putnam, Jr. and Abagail Williams, attacked them in mid March of 1692 (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF NURSE). Ann Putnam, Sr. added her complaint that Nurse demanded that she sign the Devil's book, then pinched her. Nurse was one of three Towne sisters , all identified as witches, who were members of a Topsfield family that had a long-standing quarrel with the Putnam family. Apart from the evidence of Putnam family members, the major piece of evidence against Nurse appeared to be testimony indicating that soon after Nurse lectured Benjamin Houlton for allowing his pig to root in her garden, Houlton died. The Nurse jury returned a verdict of not guilty, much to the displeasure of Chief Justice Stoughton, who told the jury to go back and consider again a statement of Nurse's that might be considered an admission of guilt (but more likely an indication of confusion about the question, as Nurse was old and nearly deaf). The jury reconvened, this time coming back with a verdict of guilty(LINK TO NURSE TRIAL). On July 19, 1692, Nurse rode with four other convicted witches to Gallows Hill.
Persons who scoffed at accusations of witchcraft risked becoming targets of accusations themselves. One man who was openly critical of the trials paid for his skepticism with his life. John Proctor, a central figure in Arthur Miller's fictionalized account of the Salem witchhunt, The Crucible, was an opinionated tavern owner who openly denounced the witchhunt. Testifying against Proctor were Ann Putnam, Abagail Williams, Indian John (a slave of Samuel Parris who worked in a competing tavern), and eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth, who testified that ghosts had come to her and accused Proctor of serial murder. Proctor fought back, accusing confessed witches of lying, complaining of torture, and demanding that his trial be moved to Boston. The efforts proved futile. Proctor was hanged. His wife Elizabeth, who was also convicted of witchcraft, was spared execution because of her pregnancy (reprieved "for the belly").
No execution caused more unease in Salem than that of the village's ex-minister, George Burroughs. Burroughs, who was living in Maine in 1692, was identified by several of his accusers as the ringleader of the witches. Ann Putnam claimed that Burroughs bewitched soldiers during a failed military campaign against Wabanakis in 1688-89, the first of a string of military disasters that could be blamed on an Indian-Devil alliance. In her interesting book, In the Devil's Snare, historian Mary Beth Norton argues that the large number of accusations against Burroughs, and his linkage to the frontier war, is the key to understanding the Salem trials. Norton contends that the enthusiasm of the Salem court in prosecuting the witchcraft cases owed in no small measure to the judges' desire to shift the "blame for their own inadequate defense of the frontier." Many of the judges, Norton points out, played lead roles in a war effort that had been markedly unsuccessful.
Among the thirty accusers of Burroughs was nineteen-year-old Mercy Lewis, a refugee of the frontier wars. Lewis, the most imaginative and forceful of the young accusers, offered unusually vivid testimony against Burroughs. Lewis told the court that Burroughs flew her to the top of a mountain and, pointing toward the surrounding land, promised her all the kingdoms if only she would sign in his book (a story very similar to that found in Matthew 4:8). Lewis said, "I would not writ if he had throwed me down on one hundred pitchforks." At an execution, a defendant in the Puritan colonies was expected to confess, and thus to save his soul. When Burroughs on Gallows Hill continued to insist on his innocence and then recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly (something witches were thought incapable of doing), the crowd reportedly was "greatly moved." The agitation of the crowd caused Cotton Mather to intervene and remind the crowd that Burroughs had had his day in court and lost.
One victim of the Salem witchhunt was not hanged, but rather pressed under heavy stones until his death. Such was the fate of octogenarian Giles Corey who, after spending five months in chains in a Salem jail with his also accused wife, had nothing but contempt for the proceedings. Seeing the futility of a trial and hoping that by avoiding a conviction his farm, that would otherwise go the state, might go to his two sons-in-law, Corey refused to stand for trial. The penalty for such a refusal was peine et fort, or pressing. Three days after Corey's death, on September 22, 1692, eight more convicted witches, including Giles' wife Martha, were hanged. They were the last victims of the witchhunt.
By early autumn of 1692, Salem's lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, " It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once." The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published what has been called "America's first tract on evidence," a work entitled Cases of Conscience, which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated Some Miscellany Observations, which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather's and Willard's works were given to Governor Phips. The writings most likely influenced the decision of Phips to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches.
By the time the witchhunt ended, nineteen convicted witches were executed (LINK TO LIST OF DEAD), at least four accused witches had died in prison, and one man, Giles Corey, had been pressed to death. About one to two hundred other persons were arrested and imprisoned on witchcraft charges. Two dogs were executed as suspected accomplices of witches.
Scholars have noted potentially telling differences between the accused and the accusers in Salem. Most of the accused lived to the south of, and were generally better off financially, than most of the accusers. In a number of cases, accusing families stood to gain property from the convictions of accused witches. Also, the accused and the accusers generally took opposite sides in a congregational schism that had split the Salem community before the outbreak of hysteria. While many of the accused witches supported former minister George Burroughs, the families that included the accusers had--for the most part--played leading roles in forcing Burroughs to leave Salem. The conclusion that many scholars draw from these patterns is that property disputes and congregational feuds played a major role in determining who lived, and who died, in 1692.
A period of atonement began in the colony following the release of the surviving accused witches. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology. Several jurors came forward to say that they were "sadly deluded and mistaken" in their judgments. Reverend Samuel Parris conceded errors of judgment, but mostly shifted blame to others. Parris was replaced as minister of Salem village by Thomas Green, who devoted his career to putting his torn congregation back together. Governor Phips blamed the entire affair on William Stoughton. Stoughton, clearly more to blame than anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself. He criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to "clear the land" of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.
The witches disappeared, but witchhunting in America did not. Each generation must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating its mistakes. Salem should warn us to think hard about how to best safeguard and improve our system of justice.
O Christian Martyr Who for Truth could die
When all about thee Owned the hideous lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition's sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
--Words written by John Greenleaf Whittier and inscribed on a monument marking the grave of Rebecca Nurse, one of the condemned "witches" of Salem.
Attachments:
by Douglas Linder
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_ACCT.HTM
From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. Dozens languished in jail for months without trials. Then, almost as soon as it had begun, the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended.
Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692.
In 1688, John Putnam, one of the most influential elders of Salem Village, invited Samuel Parris, formerly a marginally successful planter and merchant in Barbados, to preach in the Village church. A year later, after negotiations over salary, inflation adjustments, and free firewood, Parris accepted the job as Village minister. He moved to Salem Village with his wife Elizabeth, his six-year-old daughter Betty, niece Abagail Williams, and his Indian slave Tituba, acquired by Parris in Barbados.
The Salem that became the new home of Parris was in the midst of change: a mercantile elite was beginning to develop, prominent people were becoming less willing to assume positions as town leaders, two clans (the Putnams and the Porters) were competing for control of the village and its pulpit, and a debate was raging over how independent Salem Village, tied more to the interior agricultural regions, should be from Salem, a center of sea trade.
Sometime during February of the exceptionally cold winter of 1692, young Betty Parris became strangely ill. She dashed about, dove under furniture, contorted in pain, and complained of fever. The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis. The symptoms also could have been caused, as Linda Caporael argued in a 1976 article in Science magazine, by a disease called "convulsive ergotism" brought on by injesting rye--eaten as a cereal and as a common ingredient of bread--infected with ergot. (Ergot is caused by a fungus which invades developing kernels of rye grain, especially under warm and damp conditions such as existed at the time of the previous rye harvest in Salem. Convulsive ergotism causes violent fits, a crawling sensation on the skin, vomiting, choking, and--most interestingly--hallucinations. The hallucinogenic drug LSD is a dervivative of ergot.) Many of the symptoms or convulsive ergotism seem to match those attributed to Betty Parris, but there is no way of knowing with any certainty if she in fact suffered from the disease--and the theory would not explain the afflictions suffered by others in Salem later in the year.
At the time, however, there was another theory to explain the girls' symptoms. Cotton Mather had recently published a popular book, "Memorable Providences," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty's behavior in some ways mirrored that of the afflicted person described in Mather's widely read and discussed book. It was easy to believe in 1692 in Salem, with an Indian war raging less than seventy miles away (and many refugees from the war in the area) that the devil was close at hand. Sudden and violent death occupied minds.
Talk of witchcraft increased when other playmates of Betty, including eleven-year-old Ann Putnam, seventeen-year-old Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott, began to exhibit similar unusual behavior. When his own nostrums failed to effect a cure, William Griggs, a doctor called to examine the girls, suggested that the girls' problems might have a supernatural origin. The widespread belief that witches targeted children made the doctor's diagnosis seem increasing likely.
A neighbor, Mary Sibley, proposed a form of counter magic. She told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and feed the cake to a dog. ( Dogs were believed to be used by witches as agents to carry out their devilish commands.) By this time, suspicion had already begun to focus on Tituba, who had been known to tell the girls tales of omens, voodoo, and witchcraft from her native folklore. Her participation in the urine cake episode made her an even more obvious scapegoat for the inexplicable.
Meanwhile, the number of girls afflicted continued to grow, rising to seven with the addition of Ann Putnam, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, and Mary Warren. According to historian Peter Hoffer, the girls "turned themselves from a circle of friends into a gang of juvenile delinquents." ( Many people of the period complained that young people lacked the piety and sense of purpose of the founders' generation.) The girls contorted into grotesque poses, fell down into frozen postures, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. In a village where everyone believed that the devil was real, close at hand, and acted in the real world, the suspected affliction of the girls became an obsession.
Sometime after February 25, when Tituba baked the witch cake, and February 29, when arrest warrants were issued against Tituba and two other women, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams named their afflictors and the witchhunt began. The consistency of the two girls' accusations suggests strongly that the girls worked out their stories together. Soon Ann Putnam and Mercy Lewis were also reporting seeing "witches flying through the winter mist." The prominent Putnam family supported the girls' accusations, putting considerable impetus behind the prosecutions.
The first three to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Tituba was an obvious choice (LINK TO TITUBA'S EXAMINATION). Good was a beggar and social misfit who lived wherever someone would house her (LINK TO GOOD'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO GOOD'S TRIAL), and Osborn was old, quarrelsome, and had not attended church for over a year. The Putnams brought their complaint against the three women to county magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, who scheduled examinations for the suspected witches for March 1, 1692 in Ingersoll's tavern. When hundreds showed up, the examinations were moved to the meeting house. At the examinations, the girls described attacks by the specters of the three women, and fell into their by then perfected pattern of contortions when in the presence of one of the suspects. Other villagers came forward to offer stories of cheese and butter mysteriously gone bad or animals born with deformities after visits by one of the suspects.The magistrates, in the common practice of the time, asked the same questions of each suspect over and over: Were they witches? Had they seen Satan? How, if they are were not witches, did they explain the contortions seemingly caused by their presence? The style and form of the questions indicates that the magistrates thought the women guilty.
The matter might have ended with admonishments were it not for Tituba. After first adamantly denying any guilt, afraid perhaps of being made a scapegoat, Tituba claimed that she was approached by a tall man from Boston--obviously Satan--who sometimes appeared as a dog or a hog and who asked her to sign in his book and to do his work. Yes, Tituba declared, she was a witch, and moreover she and four other witches, including Good and Osborn, had flown through the air on their poles. She had tried to run to Reverend Parris for counsel, she said, but the devil had blocked her path. Tituba's confession succeeded in transforming her from a possible scapegoat to a central figure in the expanding prosecutions. Her confession also served to silence most skeptics, and Parris and other local ministers began witch hunting with zeal.
Soon, according to their own reports, the spectral forms of other women began attacking the afflicted girls. Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, and Mary Easty (LINK TO EASTY'S EXAMINATION) (LINK TO EASTY'S PETITION FOR MERCY) were accused of witchcraft. During a March 20 church service, Ann Putnam suddenly shouted, "Look where Goodwife Cloyce sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird between her fingers!" Soon Ann's mother, Ann Putnam, Sr., would join the accusers. Dorcas Good, four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, became the first child to be accused of witchcraft when three of the girls complained that they were bitten by the specter of Dorcas. (The four-year-old was arrested, kept in jail for eight months, watched her mother get carried off to the gallows, and would "cry her heart out, and go insane.") The girls accusations and their ever more polished performances, including the new act of being struck dumb, played to large and believing audiences.
Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a way to avoid the gallows. Deliverance Hobbs became the second witch to confess, admitting to pinching three of the girls at the Devil's command and flying on a pole to attend a witches' Sabbath in an open field. Jails approached capacity and the colony "teetered on the brink of chaos" when Governor Phips returned from England. Fast action, he decided, was required.
Phips created a new court, the "court of oyer and terminer," to hear the witchcraft cases. Five judges, including three close friends of Cotton Mather, were appointed to the court. Chief Justice, and most influential member of the court, was a gung-ho witch hunter named William Stoughton. Mather urged Stoughton and the other judges to credit confessions and admit "spectral evidence" (testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter). Ministers were looked to for guidance by the judges, who were generally without legal training, on matters pertaining to witchcraft. Mather's advice was heeded. the judges also decided to allow the so-called "touching test" (defendants were asked to touch afflicted persons to see if their touch, as was generally assumed of the touch of witches, would stop their contortions) and examination of the bodies of accused for evidence of "witches' marks" (moles or the like upon which a witch's familiar might suck) (SCENE DEPICTING EXAMINATION FOR MARKS). Evidence that would be excluded from modern courtrooms-- hearsay, gossip, stories, unsupported assertions, surmises-- was also generally admitted. Many protections that modern defendants take for granted were lacking in Salem: accused witches had no legal counsel, could not have witnesses testify under oath on their behalf, and had no formal avenues of appeal. Defendants could, however, speak for themselves, produce evidence, and cross-examine their accusers. The degree to which defendants in Salem were able to take advantage of their modest protections varied considerably, depending on their own acuteness and their influence in the community.
The first accused witch to be brought to trial was Bridget Bishop. Almost sixty years old, owner of a tavern where patrons could drink cider ale and play shuffleboard (even on the Sabbath), critical of her neighbors, and reluctant to pay her her bills, Bishop was a likely candidate for an accusation of witchcraft (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF BISHOP). The fact that Thomas Newton, special prosecutor, selected Bishop for his first prosecution suggests that he believed the stronger case could be made against her than any of the other suspect witches. At Bishop's trial on June 2, 1692, a field hand testified that he saw Bishop's image stealing eggs and then saw her transform herself into a cat. Deliverance Hobbs, by then probably insane, and Mary Warren, both confessed witches, testified that Bishop was one of them. A villager named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him. A jury of matrons assigned to examine Bishop's body reported that they found an "excrescence of flesh." Several of the afflicted girls testified that Bishop's specter afflicted them. Numerous other villagers described why they thought Bishop was responsible for various bits of bad luck that had befallen them. There was even testimony that while being transported under guard past the Salem meeting house, she looked at the building and caused a part of it to fall to the ground. Bishop's jury returned a verdict of guilty . One of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, aghast at the conduct of the trial, resigned from the court. Chief Justice Stoughton signed Bishop's death warrant, and on June 10, 1692, Bishop was carted to Gallows Hill and hanged (LINK TO IMAGE OF BISHOP'S HANGING).
As the summer of 1692 warmed, the pace of trials picked up. Not all defendants were as disreputable as Bridget Bishop. Rebecca Nurse was a pious, respected woman whose specter, according to Ann Putnam, Jr. and Abagail Williams, attacked them in mid March of 1692 (LINK TO EXAMINATION OF NURSE). Ann Putnam, Sr. added her complaint that Nurse demanded that she sign the Devil's book, then pinched her. Nurse was one of three Towne sisters , all identified as witches, who were members of a Topsfield family that had a long-standing quarrel with the Putnam family. Apart from the evidence of Putnam family members, the major piece of evidence against Nurse appeared to be testimony indicating that soon after Nurse lectured Benjamin Houlton for allowing his pig to root in her garden, Houlton died. The Nurse jury returned a verdict of not guilty, much to the displeasure of Chief Justice Stoughton, who told the jury to go back and consider again a statement of Nurse's that might be considered an admission of guilt (but more likely an indication of confusion about the question, as Nurse was old and nearly deaf). The jury reconvened, this time coming back with a verdict of guilty(LINK TO NURSE TRIAL). On July 19, 1692, Nurse rode with four other convicted witches to Gallows Hill.
Persons who scoffed at accusations of witchcraft risked becoming targets of accusations themselves. One man who was openly critical of the trials paid for his skepticism with his life. John Proctor, a central figure in Arthur Miller's fictionalized account of the Salem witchhunt, The Crucible, was an opinionated tavern owner who openly denounced the witchhunt. Testifying against Proctor were Ann Putnam, Abagail Williams, Indian John (a slave of Samuel Parris who worked in a competing tavern), and eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth, who testified that ghosts had come to her and accused Proctor of serial murder. Proctor fought back, accusing confessed witches of lying, complaining of torture, and demanding that his trial be moved to Boston. The efforts proved futile. Proctor was hanged. His wife Elizabeth, who was also convicted of witchcraft, was spared execution because of her pregnancy (reprieved "for the belly").
No execution caused more unease in Salem than that of the village's ex-minister, George Burroughs. Burroughs, who was living in Maine in 1692, was identified by several of his accusers as the ringleader of the witches. Ann Putnam claimed that Burroughs bewitched soldiers during a failed military campaign against Wabanakis in 1688-89, the first of a string of military disasters that could be blamed on an Indian-Devil alliance. In her interesting book, In the Devil's Snare, historian Mary Beth Norton argues that the large number of accusations against Burroughs, and his linkage to the frontier war, is the key to understanding the Salem trials. Norton contends that the enthusiasm of the Salem court in prosecuting the witchcraft cases owed in no small measure to the judges' desire to shift the "blame for their own inadequate defense of the frontier." Many of the judges, Norton points out, played lead roles in a war effort that had been markedly unsuccessful.
Among the thirty accusers of Burroughs was nineteen-year-old Mercy Lewis, a refugee of the frontier wars. Lewis, the most imaginative and forceful of the young accusers, offered unusually vivid testimony against Burroughs. Lewis told the court that Burroughs flew her to the top of a mountain and, pointing toward the surrounding land, promised her all the kingdoms if only she would sign in his book (a story very similar to that found in Matthew 4:8). Lewis said, "I would not writ if he had throwed me down on one hundred pitchforks." At an execution, a defendant in the Puritan colonies was expected to confess, and thus to save his soul. When Burroughs on Gallows Hill continued to insist on his innocence and then recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly (something witches were thought incapable of doing), the crowd reportedly was "greatly moved." The agitation of the crowd caused Cotton Mather to intervene and remind the crowd that Burroughs had had his day in court and lost.
One victim of the Salem witchhunt was not hanged, but rather pressed under heavy stones until his death. Such was the fate of octogenarian Giles Corey who, after spending five months in chains in a Salem jail with his also accused wife, had nothing but contempt for the proceedings. Seeing the futility of a trial and hoping that by avoiding a conviction his farm, that would otherwise go the state, might go to his two sons-in-law, Corey refused to stand for trial. The penalty for such a refusal was peine et fort, or pressing. Three days after Corey's death, on September 22, 1692, eight more convicted witches, including Giles' wife Martha, were hanged. They were the last victims of the witchhunt.
By early autumn of 1692, Salem's lust for blood was ebbing. Doubts were developing as to how so many respectable people could be guilty. Reverend John Hale said, " It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once." The educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published what has been called "America's first tract on evidence," a work entitled Cases of Conscience, which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Increase Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. Samuel Willard, a highly regarded Boston minister, circulated Some Miscellany Observations, which suggested that the Devil might create the specter of an innocent person. Mather's and Willard's works were given to Governor Phips. The writings most likely influenced the decision of Phips to order the court to exclude spectral evidence and touching tests and to require proof of guilt by clear and convincing evidence. With spectral evidence not admitted, twenty-eight of the last thirty-three witchcraft trials ended in acquittals. The three convicted witches were later pardoned. In May of 1693, Phips released from prison all remaining accused or convicted witches.
By the time the witchhunt ended, nineteen convicted witches were executed (LINK TO LIST OF DEAD), at least four accused witches had died in prison, and one man, Giles Corey, had been pressed to death. About one to two hundred other persons were arrested and imprisoned on witchcraft charges. Two dogs were executed as suspected accomplices of witches.
Scholars have noted potentially telling differences between the accused and the accusers in Salem. Most of the accused lived to the south of, and were generally better off financially, than most of the accusers. In a number of cases, accusing families stood to gain property from the convictions of accused witches. Also, the accused and the accusers generally took opposite sides in a congregational schism that had split the Salem community before the outbreak of hysteria. While many of the accused witches supported former minister George Burroughs, the families that included the accusers had--for the most part--played leading roles in forcing Burroughs to leave Salem. The conclusion that many scholars draw from these patterns is that property disputes and congregational feuds played a major role in determining who lived, and who died, in 1692.
A period of atonement began in the colony following the release of the surviving accused witches. Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and an apology. Several jurors came forward to say that they were "sadly deluded and mistaken" in their judgments. Reverend Samuel Parris conceded errors of judgment, but mostly shifted blame to others. Parris was replaced as minister of Salem village by Thomas Green, who devoted his career to putting his torn congregation back together. Governor Phips blamed the entire affair on William Stoughton. Stoughton, clearly more to blame than anyone for the tragic episode, refused to apologize or explain himself. He criticized Phips for interfering just when he was about to "clear the land" of witches. Stoughton became the next governor of Massachusetts.
The witches disappeared, but witchhunting in America did not. Each generation must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating its mistakes. Salem should warn us to think hard about how to best safeguard and improve our system of justice.
O Christian Martyr Who for Truth could die
When all about thee Owned the hideous lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition's sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
--Words written by John Greenleaf Whittier and inscribed on a monument marking the grave of Rebecca Nurse, one of the condemned "witches" of Salem.
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