Salem Witchcraft Trials (1691-92)

Question 1

The Putnam Family

Answer 1

• Had been in Salem for 3 generations
• World where status came from piety and landholding
• See values of Salem town as a looming threat.
• See Salem Village as last line of defense against evil values
• Want an official Salem village church (church= a gathering of people who an ordained minister accepted as saint)

Question 2

Deodat Lawson

Answer 2

(Putnam’s choice for Minister in Salem village)
•Pastor 1684-88, ordained 86
•His ordination causes deep divisions in Salem
•Magistrates who come to arbitrate appalled by how decorum had broken down in Salem

Question 3

World of Signs and Wonder

Answer 3

• Life is not random

* Comets, eclipses, fires, epidemics, deformed births, dreams, crop families all were signs from God

Question 4

Samuel Parris

Answer 4

• Controversial minister who takes over for Lawson in Salem Village in 1688
• His complaints further divide a divided village
• Wants his own house, gold candlesticks, firewood
• Failed businessman from Barbados, turned to ministry
• Owns 2 Indian slaves: Tituba and John
• 2 of his daughters and is 11 year old niece Abigail Williams have first fits
• initially thinks God is punishing him for his own shortcomings, then he suspects outside forces.

Question 5

Tituba

Answer 5

Slave from Barbados. Makes a witch cake for a neighbor. accused of being a witch. one of the first to confess. helped convict others to save herself.

Question 6

Abigail Williams

Answer 6

• Niece of Samuel Parris
• One of the primary accusers
• Accused 44 people

Question 7

Glorious Revolution of 1688

Answer 7

•Associated with John Locke enlightened ideas, and questioning the divine right

Question 8

Court of Oyer and Terminer

Answer 8

• Grand jury
• Petit jury
• Defendants could speak, call witnesses

Question 9

Goody Osborn

Answer 9

one of the first accused witches.

Question 10

touch test

Answer 10

•If one of the witches is brought into the court rooms the girls would have an ailment and if the witch toughed them and they got better they were considered a witch.

Question 11

Indian Raids

Answer 11

• January 1692
• 40 miles north
• 50 killed, 8 kidnapped in raid in Maine

Question 12

spectral evidence

Answer 12

•When you claim you can see something that no one else can see.

Question 13

Trial by ordeal

Answer 13

• If your hand healed after being burned you were innocent

* If you were thrown in holy water and you floated you were guilty because the holy water didn’t want the guilty in it

Question 14

George Burroughs

Answer 14

• One time minister pre- Deodat Lawson (early 1680s) of Salem Village who made the mistake of borrowing money from the Putnam’s to pay for the wine at wife’s funeral
• As minister, expresses willingness to preach to both Anglicans and Puritans. Pushed out and goes to Maine.

Question 15

Ergot Poisoning

Answer 15

• LSD like hallucinations (tingling, convulsions, vomiting, delirium)
• Cause by wet springs and summers
• Can be localized, can hit one field and not another.
• But why no where else in New England? And 1691 is a wet year, not 1692. And why just the girls?