Salem Witch Trials

Question 1

Causes of Witch Trials

Answer 1

Religious Situation in Massachusetts:

• Hunts mainly occurred in Puritan New England Colonies
• Colonies were theocracies and the urge to create a godly state developed in new world

1688-9 Boston Case:

• In 1688, 4 of John Goodwin’s children began acting strangely
• Mary Glover, old woman, accused of bewitching them

Political Situation in Massachusetts:

• 1684: Royal Charter governing Massachusetts ran out
• Old charter had allowed autonomy an had enabled the development of a Theocracy
• Puritans feared losing autonomy and that God’s commonwealth would be overthrown
• 1691: New Charter said Massachusetts should conform to English Law and allow Religious Toleration

King William’s War:

• 1689: Tensions erupted between English Colonists and Wabanaki Native Americans
• Many refugees fleeing Native American raids brought reports of massacres and predictions of savagery to come
• Children and others may have been worried about what was to come

Local Situation:

• Salem had around 600 residents, village known for their internal disputes
• Feuding between 2 most prosperous families; Putnams and Porters; families committed to either side and disputes became a test of ‘clan loyalty’
• Village Minister Samuel Parris supported Putnams and preached against Porters

Question 2

Initial Events:

Accusations and Investigations

Answer 2

Initial Events:

• February 1692: Betty Parris began behaving strangely- Lashing out and diving under furniture, Cousin Abigail Williams soon followed
• Local Doctor, William Griggs, decided illness was work of the Devil
• Other girls who visited Betty and Abigail also became afflicted
• Girls screamed and contorted themselves; Minister from Beverly (John Hale) thought the girls were possessed

Cause of Symptoms:

• various Medical and Psychological explanations for girls’ symptoms
• Psychological Hysteria: in response to fear of Native American attack, Satan and recent Smallpox epidemic
• Possession Neuroses: resulting from belief in existence of Demons and Witches
• Convulsive Ergotism: caused by eating mouldy Rye Bread made from grain infected by Ergot- Fungus from which LSD is derived
• Asthma Attacks
• Modern Historians believe that Girls were acting and may have been motivated by jealousy or need for attention
• Possible that girls were mimicking behaviour of Goodwin children

Witch Cake:

• February 1692: Mary Sibley, neighbour of Parris, instructed a Native American Slave, John, to make a Witch Cake- using traditional English magic to identify who was afflicting the girls
• Cake made from Rye Meal and Urine of afflicted girls, and was fed ti a dog
• When dog ate cake, Witch would be hurt and you would be able to hear her cries of pain

Accusations:

• Some time between 25th and 29th Feb 1692, the girls named their afflicters
• Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba were named
• Each satisfied typical traits of a witch- Tituba was a slave and an outsider, Good was a beggar and had long been suspected of practicing Witchcraft, and Osborne rarely attended church meetings
• Putnam family pressed local JP’s for action and sat by girls and threw weight behind prosecution- gave urgency to proceedings

Investigation:

• Putnams brought suspicions to Essex County JP’s, Johnathan Corwin and John Hathorne, who issued warrants for 3 women named by girls and arranged for an inquest
• JP’s confronted girls’ contortions: girls twisted arms and backs, were bitten and pinched by invisible agents, contorted faces, sometimes couldn’t speak and other times couldn’t stop speaking
• Sarah Good: accused Sarah Osborne of afflicting girls whilst trying to defend herself
• Tituba: originally denied everything, but when JP’s refused to believe her she said Good and Osborne were witches and that she was approached by a tall man with white hair who told her he was God
• Witnesses brought forward to give evidence of Maleficium against the 3 and JP’s had the women imprisoned whilst awaiting trial

Question 3

Initial Events:

New Charges and Confessions

Answer 3

New Charges:

• 11 March: Ann Putnam accused Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse of afflicting her, Corey had voiced scepticism of girls’ accusations and Nurse had been in long-standing feud with Putnams
• Ann Putnam’s mother also claimed she had been afflicted by Corey and Nurse, also claimed she had been visited by 2 ghosts who claimed they had been murdered by John Willard
• Whilst Deodat Lawson preached in Salem Meeting House, Abigail Williams cried out ‘look where Goodwife Cloyse sits on the beam suckling her yellow bird between her fingers’, Cloyse accused by girls of being a witch
• Examiners prompted girls into fits by asking them to identify suspects, cuing them to act out afflictions, JP’s more convinced that Devil was at work within colony
• Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth and several of colony’s councillors visited Salem to witness spectacle, meeting house was full as girls performed
• Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott went to Andover and were blindfolded and touched by men and women, named 4 of them as Witches, people of Andover began accusing each other

Girls’ Evidence:

• Girls had become Witch-Finders, by May they only had to name someone to secure an arrest
• Girls were good listeners and adults around them provided clues of people long suspected of deviant ways or unpopular beliefs

Confessions:

• Some suspects began to confess to being in league with Devil, Tituba and Abigail Hobbs among the first to confess
• Hobbs became an informer, accusing others of being Witches
• Mary Warren and Deliverance Hobbs also confessed and told JP’s that there were over 300 Witches in Massachusetts, they were brought periodically from prison to accuse new suspects
• Tituba cleared by Grand Jury in May, had been charged with making contact with Devil (she confessed to this), but not with harming anyone

Situation in May:

• By end of May, 62 people in custody
• 14 May: New Governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, arrived from England and created special Oyer and Terminer Court to deal with Salem Situation
• Phips feared that unless something was done quickly, there would be more accusations and possible spread of cases across colony
• Between June and September, many accused tried by court, which met 5 times
• If accused indicted by Grand Jury, the case went on trial, trials swift and conducted in English Adversarial way

Question 4

Trials and Executions:

1st, 2nd and 3rd Court Sessions

Answer 4

Source Evidence:

• Records of Trials themselves have been lost
• Some records made available to Cotton Mather, who wrote book defending trials- Wonders of the Invisible World
• Robert calef wrote counter-book with materials supplied to him by opponents of trials- More Wonders of the Invisible World, believed proceeding were a mix of superstition and ministers using trials to cement their power over the Colony
• Neither had been present at the trials

Spectral and Other Evidence:

• Much of evidence used against accused was spectral evidence: the testimony of the girls, who claimed to see apparition of person affecting them
• Opponents of this evidence claimed Devil could impersonate innocent people, others stated Devil couldn’t use person’s shape without their permission
• Historians once thought that Spectral Evidence was one of main reasons for people being found guilty
• Historian Wendel Craker showed non-spectral charges crucial, Judges (advised by Cotton Mather) seem to follow directions of English Puritan William Perkins with regard to rules governing evidence in Witch trials
• Perkins thought that Spectral evidence could be used to indict but not convict, thought confession or evidence of non-spectral acts of Witchcraft was required
• 79 people charged with spectral evidence only, not one of them called to court to answer charges

First Trial:

• William Soughton chief Magistrate
• Bridget Bishop’s case was 1st to be brought to Grand Jury, went to trial same day and executed on 10 June
• 3rd June: Nurse and Willard also indicted by jury, didn’t immediately go to trial as court adjourned until June 30
• Some people appalled by conduct of trial e.g. John Hale condemned girls’ writhing in Court and medieval forms of ‘proof’ such as touching test, court sought advice of Massachusetts’ influential ministers

Cotton Mather’s Influence:

• Appeared to be best source of knowledge on Witches: Had written book, An account of the Bewitching of the Goodwin Children, and his father was hugely respected
• Mather cautioned judges not to rely on spectral evidence alone but did not reject spectral evidence outright
• Conclusion of Return of Several Ministers to the Governor and Council in Boston recommended ‘speedy and vigorous prosecution’ of those who followed Devil

Second and Third Court Sessions:

• 30 June- July: Grand Juries endorsed indictments against Sarah Good, Elizabeth and John Proctor, Elizabeth Howe and others
• 2nd August: George Burroughs, Martha Corey and others also indicted
• 19th August: Nurse, Burroughs, Proctors and others went on trial; John Proctor and Burroughs executed, Elizabeth Proctor given stay of execution because she was pregnant

Question 5

Trials and Executions:

4th and 5th Court Sessions

Answer 5

Confessions:

• July: Confessions began again, a Constable invited Salem girls to Andover to uncover cause of his wife’s illness, Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott went and found Witches
• 1st people named were Ann Foster, Daughter Mary Lacer Sr and Granddaughter Mary Lacey Jr; all 3 confessed to making pact with Devil
• After this, Accusations and Confessions rapidly increased, around 1/3rd of those charged (50/156) admitted complicity
• Often stated that Confession was the surest way of escaping execution

Situation in September 1692:

• By September, vast number of people stood accused and JP’s were rushing around Essex County taking depositions
• Cotton Mather confirmed his belief that entire colony was beset with Witches as number of cases increased and many in Andover confessed

Fourth and Fifth Sessions:

• September: Grand Juries indicted 18 more people
• 19th September: Giles Corey, 71 yr old farmer, refused to plead Guilty or Innocent, pressed beneath heavy load of stones in order to make him plea- took him 2 days to die
• 4 suspects pleaded Guilty and 11 others tried and found Guilty
• 22nd September: 8 executed, one condemned Witch (Mary Bradbury) managed to escape from prison

Wonders of the Invisible World:

• 1692: Mather began writing book, as a defence of the trials
• Mather set out to prove that convictions were justified, impassioned language with which he defended court’s actions led to belief that he was one of the instigators of the hunts

Question 6

End of the Witch-Hunt

Answer 6

Ministerial Opposition:

• Samuel Willard, Boston Minister, spoke openly against the trails, also anonymously wrote pamphlet objecting to the trials and questioning the reliability of the girls’ fits
• Mathers’ father, Increase Mather, wrote pamphlet stating that it was better that ‘10 witches should escape than 1 innocent person be condemned’

Actions of Phips:

• Governor Phips initially set up Oyer and Terminer court to stop further accusations
• Court became standing Witch tribunal and it seemed that no one was safe from girls’ accusations
• Phips disbanded court and released the 5 awaiting execution in Gaol

Superior Court of Judicature 1693:

• 1693: New Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Gaol Delivery convened in Salem
• Phips now specifically prevented Soughton from allowing spectral evidence to be admissible
• All tried were found not guilty
• Grand Juries held for many of those remaining in Gaol and charges dismissed against many
• May 1693: Phips freed those still in prison
• Accusations still appeared but authorities refused to take them seriously

Question 7

The Aftermath

Answer 7

Impact of Hunts on Salem:

• Hunt had serious economic impact on Salem, numbers of people involved in trials meant that fields left untended, farm work neglected and planting season interrupted
• Many families who had lands confiscated as a result of accusations were left with no money or home
• Hatreds and resentments arose, especially from those who had been falsely imprisoned or had lost family members

Criticisms and Regret:

• Salem trials followed by intense criticism and expressions of regret from judges and jury members
• 1693-97: Calef collected court records and petitions and other accounts of the trials and placed them alongside portions of Mathers’ book- damning attack on Cotton Mather and Calef’s book published in 1700
• John Hale, minister in Beverly and present for many of proceedings, completed his book expressing regret of actions taken
• Reverent Parris admitted he ‘may have been mistaken’ and lost church post in 1696
• Ann Putnam publicly asked for forgiveness and claimed she was deluded by Satan into accusing innocents
• Not one of false accusers punished for their actions

Process of Pardon:

• Those falsely imprisoned and families of those executed petitioned General Court seeking declaration of innocence and compensation for families of those executed
• 1697: General Court declared day of fasting and soul-searching for the tragedy that occurred in Salem
• 1711: General Court passed bill reversing judgement against those who petitioned in 1709
• 1957: Act passed that pronounced innocence of all those accused