Letter to Congregation
My dear parishioners:
How can we know if the devil is amongst us? This is the sad and sorry problem the people of Salem have been wrestling with, these many months. Accusing someone of doing traffic with the devil is not like catching a thief red-handed or even accusing a murderer. The devil is insubstantial and can take many guises, and in rooting out the devil, one is liable to find him standing by one's side in the guise of a friendly person -- or even a child.
In witnessing the trials held in Salem, I have seen men and women -- although mostly women -- accused of deviltry on the scantest pretext. Only the word 'witch' needs to be breathed by the most suggestible child, and then all of the fears of the community pour forth, and are channeled upon the person of the hapless accused. Most of the first women accused were despised persons within the community: Sarah Good, a beggar; Tituba, a slave from Barbados; and Sarah Osborne, a woman largely condemned for being impious and meddlesome. However, gradually, the names of persons accused began to encompass a wider range of individuals, and accusations are rife that long-standing social tensions between various families, and opposition to Reverend Parris, have fueled the hatred. "The only thing that most of them had in common was having been 'cried out' on. Otherwise they afforded nearly as wide a variety in race, religion, and class as did Massachusetts itself" (Starkey 133).
In short, it is said that the devil has a power to assume a pleasing...
The trials were wondrous sights to behold: the possessed girls, one of them as young as eight, would writhe upon the floor and complain that the accused had pierced them with pins or that they could see a demon whispering in the ear of the accuser. The supposedly learned judge listened, rapt by the spectacles of how these charges were presented. When he questioned the defendants, he did not ask if the defendant was guilty or innocent, but presumed the accused person's guilt. The fact that the events in question could not be seen with the eyes of anyone but the young girls made the testimony more, rather than less credible in the eyes of the judge, and the more the accused protested their innocence, the more the girls shrieked and wailed.
One curious aspect of the process was that if the defendant pleaded guilty to witchcraft, repented, and then named the names of other supposed witches, he or she was released. Thus, there is tremendous incentive to point fingers at others, rather than to remain in prison or face death. Only one man I am aware of has entirely outwitted the justice system: one Giles Corey, who refused to plea either guilty or innocent and was crushed to death by impressments for his impudence.
However, I can see why some men, even learned men, might be so credulous.…
