Salem Witchcraft Trials in One

Salem Witchcraft Trials

In one satirical movie on the ugly episode of witchcraft, a judge asks two witnesses for their views on why they think the accused woman is a witch. The responses are worth paying attention to because they reveal the flimsiness of the entire episode. One man says, "She turned me into a newt. I got better." The judge doesn't seem convinced so he asks a girl to comment and she remarks, "She looks like a witch." This seems to convince the judge completely and he announces death sentence for the accused. (Glenn, 1997 p. 473)

The whole point of the movie was to expose the utter absurdity of witchcraft trials. In reality, we would want to believe that no judge would convict the accused on such shallow evidence. But Peter Charles Hoffer's book, The Salem witchcraft trials: a legal history, shows that indeed witchcraft trials would be just that ridiculous and shallow because a strange hysteria had gripped the people of Salem, Massachusetts in late 1600s. These trials were not a work of fiction in any way, they actually took place and Hoffer offers very original explanation of what led to this hysterical episode in the history of Salem.

Salem witchcraft episode took place from early 1692 and ended somewhere in the middle of the following year. During this time, 19 people were executed for worshipping the devil. In one terrible incident, one man was actually "pressed to death" with rocks for he did not respect court's verdict. Most others were imprisoned including a toddler (Glenn, 1997). Most accused lost their properties for their allegedly association with witchcraft. In his book on the subject, Hoffer shows that it was not just "woman hatred" that led to witchcraft accusations; he believes that many other factors contributed to the hysteria including religious beliefs, clan conflicts, Anglo-American law and customs and also superstitions. Interesting young girls were at the forefront of this episode for they were the ones who started the hysteria in the first place.

In the seventeenth century, Salem Village was a close and small community with less than five hundred people. The hysteria took place in Salem Village which was located some ten miles from Salem Town. In those days, Village was still a place ruled by the rich and the powerful. In the case of Salem, two clans dominated the political arena namely the Porters and the Putnams. Putnams were interested in turning the village into a separate municipality but this did not materialize and hence they were allowed to open a Congregational Meeting House in 1672. Putnams chose the ministers for this House and the fourth minister, Samuel Parris, turned out to be the source of witch hunt that began in Salem soon after his appointment in 1689. Since the minister was chosen by the Putnams, Porter family and their close friends refused to attend the House and this led to deep resentment in the Putnams who were looking for a way to avenge this humiliation. In 1692, winters were particularly harsh and many people fell sick. Sickness was considered something that devil would start and hence people were looking for a scapegoat on which these illnesses could be blamed. (Glenn, 1997 p. 474)

Hoffer refuses to believe that the episode of hysteria was grounded in women hatred as some other historian had believed. He argues the outbreak of this episode resulted from other factors: "True, the targets of witchcraft prosecutions were overwhelmingly women . . . . Men of learning . . . agreed: suspected witches were either weak-minded wenches, easily misled by the Great Deceiver, or ill-tempered hags who asked the Devil for assistance." But Hoffer further adds that, "[b]y reducing our story to a puppet show, in which superstition and antifeminism by turns manipulate the feelings and acts of the players, we demean the choices made by the accusers . . . ." Hoffer believes that choice and contingency were to blame for this hysteria since the same situation was not noticed in other New England towns. This shows that while some other towns may have experienced the scare, they did not allow it to turn so extremely ugly. Hence it was the special and unique circumstances of Salem that turned it to such magnitude: ". . . [T]he completely accidental arrival of a Barbados planter turned merchant turned lay preacher [Parris] and his African-born slave were the reasons the crisis took the form that it did." Hoffer thus aims to "recover and reassert the human agencies of the characters in the Salem trials."

Hoffer feels that special economic and political factors contributed to the witch hunt in Salem and recognizes three groups who had a major role to play in the episode. It was the young girls, the ministers and government officials who gave it the shape it took. Betty Parris, who was Samuel Parris' daughter blamed witchcraft for her condition when she fell ill. Soon after her, five other girls claimed to having been bewitched. Interestingly all these girls were associated with the Putnams. We can thus safely assume that class and clan conflicts were the root cause of witchcraft hysteria in Salem. Putnams were the lower class compared to Porters and when the initial charges began, they soon turned into a major issue when crop began failing and Cotton Mather of Boston got involved. The governor who otherwise wouldn't have interfered stepped in to clam the public down. In his attempt to calm their fears, he allowed witchcraft trials. Magistrates were panicked by what they saw and manipulated the law to force convictions. Thus personal vendetta, devil phobia and the politically motivated people all gave rise to the witchcraft hysteria in Salem.

In the initial cases only the underprivileged were accused. This was to see how people would react to the accusations. Once it became clear that witchcraft accusation was gaining momentum and people were taking it seriously, girls became accusing more respectable and prominent members of the society including the governor's wife. In his book, Hoffer studies five prominent trials and there were of Bridget Bishop, a woman who belonged to the marginalized section of the society, Rebecca Nurse, who was a respectable member of the society and a good wife; John Proctor and George Burroughs, the scoffers; and Giles Corey, the hard man who was pressed under the rocks for refusing to participate in the trails. The public changed their attitude towards witchcraft and witch hunt after the judgment against Burroughs and Corey.

This happened because Burroughs who had once been a minister could recite Lord's Prayer perfectly, something people assumed witches couldn't do. One of the accusers retracted after this and instead blamed the judge for forcing a conviction. Corey's execution was the last one to occur from Salem hysteria. After that, some convictions followed but no more executions were recorded. Hence there was a clear change in public sentiment after the last two executions.

It must be noted that while Church had once been involved in witch hunt and witchcraft accusations, in the case of Salem, most clergy actually played a role in bringing an end to the ugly episode. Ministers such as Increase Mather visited the governor to ask for removal of spectral evidence from proceedings of witchcraft trials. They said that unless an evidence could "infallibly prove" the accusation, no one should be convicted. They believed that it was better to allow hundred alleged witches to escape the law than to see one innocent man executed on false charges.

In October 1692, the beginning of the end of this mayhem was seen when Governor Phips dissolved the court and later granted pardon to all. One man believed that Governor had done that only to safe his own wife and now he could see that these accusations were entirely false. Later most people admitted that they had overreacted to the situation and even Cotton Mather confessed that "errors" had been made in handling this crisis. The chief judge William Stoughton came under attack for his overzealous response to the accusations which led to many innocent deaths and false convictions. He however refused to shoulder any blame for the situation. Samuel Parris also did not accept his role in triggering the hysteria.