Salem witch trials

“ The American Witch and
Views of the Educated In America there were witch trials—in Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, [3] —some years before 1692. In Boston, 1648, Margaret Jones, of malignant touch, was hanged, and Mrs. Ann (Wm.) Hebbins, in 1655. In Springfield, 1651, Mrs. Mary (Hugh) Parsons was hanged. In Ipswich quarter court, 1652, a man was sentenced to pay a fine of twenty shillings, or to be whipped for “having familiarity with the Devil.” ”

“ He was a man of “overweening vanity,” panting for fame, and the strenuous mover in the trials. He harangued the populace and sermonized on witchcraft; he wrote a book: “The Trials of Witches,” and even on horseback, at the hanging of Rev. George Burroughs, he harangued the people gathered there, lest they interfere and rob the gallows.
23By the new charter courts of justice were to be established by the General Court. The witch trials were, therefore, stranded and must remain in statu quo, apparently, for several months, while awaiting the action of the General Court. ”

“ The court adjourned for the day, convinced that the devil had chosen Salem as a special point of attack. Soon, other people in the village began imagining that they, too, were being pursued by witches. Neighbor began accusing neighbor until the whole community was swept up by the hysteria.
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Throughout the summer of 1692, Salem was gripped by the witch hunt. Twenty persons were executed for witchcraft; 55 were frightened or tortured into confessing their guilt; 150 were jailed; more than 200 were denounced by former friends and neighbors. For a time it looked as if Massachusetts had gone mad. ”

“ It is noticeable that the exercise of witchcraft is generally ascribed to women; and that of witch mastery, the superior attribute, to men.
The form of a judicial process found favor with the Puritan temperament in old Salem, although by a grim mockery the verdict was decided in advance. The independent mountaineer likes to take the law in his own hands, as the following story illustrates:
"A farmer believed a woman was bewitching his stock. He drew a picture of her and set it up as a target; then he sunk a piece of silver in his bullet with an awl, that being the charm for shooting a witch. ”

“ It is well to note that the clergymen involved in the prosecution were not New England Puritans, and that the whole affair took place just ten years after the last execution of a witch in Massachusetts. Of itself, this incident might suffice to silence those who ascribe the Salem outbreak to the influence of certain distinguished men, as well as those who maintain that the New Englanders were more superstitious than their fellow-citizens at home, that their Puritanism was somehow to blame for it, and that witchcraft was practically dead in the Mother Country when the Salem outbreak took place. ”

“ Among these benevolent and excellent men, the names of Willard of Boston, Brattle of Cambridge and Higginson of Salem are most conspicuous. These gentlemen refused all part in the witch prosecutions, and earnestly protested against bringing the crime of witchcraft before the civil tribunals, alleging that the individuals charged with this sin were in the hands of God, who alone had a right to punish them, and that the liability to mistake in the nature of the evidence, and the want of a just discrimination, on a subject so mysterious, entirely disqualified the courts to act upon such cases. ”

“ Before he could hear in his remote home in Maine what was doing at Salem in the first days of the Witch Tragedy, he was summoned to his old neighborhood, was charged with sorcery on the most childish and absurd testimony conceivable, and executed in August, 1692. One of the witnesses—a young girl morbid in body and mind—poured out her remorse to him the day before his death. He, believing her a victim of Satan, forgave her, prayed with her, and died honored and beloved by all who were not under the curse of the bigotry of the time. ”

“ If ever there was a witch in the world, she, it was said, was one. Her trial was conducted at Charlestown in the presence of a great throng. There was more evidence against her than any tried at Salem; but the common mind disenthralled of the hideous delusion asserted itself, through the jury by a verdict of acquittal.
Cotton Mather, who was thoroughly imbued with the delusion, to cover his confusion, got up a case of witchcraft in his own parish. He averred that miracles were wrought in Boston. ”

“ The recollection of the old controversy in the parish could not be forgotten; and Parris, moved by personal malice as well as blind zeal, 'stifled the accusation of some,' such is the testimony of the people of his own village, and, at the same time, 'vigilantly promoting the accusation of others,' was 'the beginning and procurer of the afflictions of Salem village and country.' Martha Corey, who, on her examination in the meeting-house, before a throng, with a firm spirit, alone, against them all, denied the presence of witchcraft, was committed to prison. ”

“ It is a grave error into which many modern writers have been drawn, when alluding to Salem witchcraft, to lay the responsibility of that dire delusion entirely upon Salem people, as if they alone were to be held accountable for the dreadful occurrences of 1692. The laws of England in those days, all the authorities of New England, and, with but rare exceptions, all the people everywhere throughout the civilized world, recognized witchcraft as a fact and believed it to be a crime. The most learned men in England and in other countries believed fully in witchcraft. ”

“ Among the curiosities of New England shown to tourists and visitors, is the original site of some of the extraordinary trials and executions for witchcraft in the town of Salem, now known as Danvers, Mass. Looking back upon the events of two hundred years ago, the prosecution of the alleged witches appears to us to have been persecution of the most infamous type. The only justification for the stern Puritans is the fact that they inherited their ideas of witchcraft and its evils from their forefathers, and from the country whence most of them came. ”

“ Many people seriously believed that the idea of witchcraft, as a capital offense, originated in Salem, and attribute to the original witch-house the reputation of having really given birth to a new superstition and a new persecution. ”

“ MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692-1693. The Salem Witchcraft madness: its ending, and the reaction. "On the second Wednesday in October, 1692, about a fortnight after the last hanging of eight at Salem, the representatives of the colony assembled; and the people of Andover, their minister joining with them, appeared with their remonstrance against the doings of the witch tribunals. Of the discussions that ensued no record is preserved; we know only the issue. The general court ordered by bill a convocation of ministers, that the people might be led in the right way as to the witchcraft. ... ”

“ This notion was further enlarged by the establishment of the additional doctrine, that a witch could be present, and act with demoniac power upon her victims, anywhere, at all times, and at any distance, without the instrumental agency of any other animal or being, in her spirit, spectre, or apparition. When the person on trial was accused of having tortured or strangled or pinched or bruised another, it did not break the force of the accusation to bring hundreds of witnesses to prove that he was, at the very time, in another remote place or country ”

“ Collateral and incidental questions cannot be pursued in details. A new law, however, is now given out, that must be followed, hereafter, by all writers—that is, to give not a catalogue merely, but an account of the contents, of every book and tract they have read. It is thus announced by our Reviewer: "We assume Mr. Upham has not seen this tract, as he neither mentioned it nor made use of its material."
The document here spoken of was designed to give Increase Mather's ideas on the subject of witchcraft trials, written near the close of those in Salem, in 1692. ”

“ No human strength could strip the witch of these mighty energies while she lived; nothing but death could destroy them. There was, as our ancestors considered, incontestable evidence, that she had put them forth to the injury, loss, and perhaps death, of others.
Can it be wondered at, that, under such circumstances, the law connecting capital punishment with the guilt of witchcraft was resorted to as the only means to protect society, and warn others from entering into the dark, wicked, and malignant compact? ”

“ The subject of witchcraft grew more interesting after the execution of Mary Easty, and to examine Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyse, or Cloyce, as Mr. Bancroft spells the name, the deputy governor and five magistrates went to Salem. It was a great day. Several ministers were present. Parris officiated, and, by his own record, it is plain that he himself elicited every accusation. His first witness John, the West India negro servant, husband to Tituba, was rebuked by Sarah Cloyse as a grievous liar. Abigail Williams, the niece to Parris, was also at hand with her wonderful tales of sorcery. ”

“ It must be borne in mind, however, that the Massachusetts colonies were not alone in this belief in witchcraft. It was common throughout the world, and was as aged as humanity. Deprived of the aid of modern science in explaining peculiar processes and happenings, man had long been accustomed to fall back upon devils, witches, and evil spirits as premises for his arguments. While the execution of the witch was not so common an event elsewhere in the world, during the Salem period, yet it was not unknown among so-called enlightened people. ”

“ The fact of witchcraft was admitted by Lord Bacon and Mr. Addison. Dr. Johnson more than inclined to the same side of the question; and Sir William Blackstone quite frowns on opposers of this doctrine. These facts are mentioned not to justify Mr. Sewall and his associates on the bench; but to show the injustice of selecting them as peculiarly guilty. The severe charges which have been brought against the people of Salem, Gov. Winthrop, Dr. Cotton Mather, and others of this country, lie equally against the most learned, pious, and eminent of mankind. ”

“ This petition was re-enforced by an "address" to the General Court, dated July 8, 1703, by several ministers of the county of Essex. They speak of the accusers in the witchcraft trials as "young persons under diabolical molestations," and express this sentiment: "There is great reason to fear that innocent persons then suffered, and that God may have a controversy with the land upon that account." They earnestly beg that the prayer of the petitioners, lately presented, may be granted. This petition was signed by Thomas Barnard, of Andover; Joseph Green, of Salem Village ”

“ The wickedest witch in Salem jail Is to that girl a saint." "Nay, mother, hold thy cruel tongue; God knows," the young man cried, "He never made a whiter soul Than hers by Wenham side. "She tends her mother sick and blind, And every want supplies; To her above the blessed Book She lends her soft blue eyes. "Her voice is glad with holy songs, Her lips are sweet with prayer; Go where you will, in ten miles round Is none more good and fair." ”

“ Look, people of Salem! You know this spot right well. 'Tis here that witches are reported to hold their wicked revels. What better place have we in which to try a witch? Custom hath had it aforetime that we have tried them in the courthouse. Now let us try them on their own ground. 'Twill show that we fear neither them nor their master. Neither their black books, nor their caldron's brew. Stand forth, Goody Gurton, the accused. What have you to say? There is the woman whose child you have bewitched and stolen. ”

“ The Salem witchcraft delusion originated in his family in 1692. His daughter and his niece, Abigail Williams, girls about twelve years of age, accused Tituba, a South American slave, living in the house as a servant, of bewitching them. Mr. Parris beat Tituba until she was forced to confess herself a witch, and John, her husband, became, through fear, the accuser of others. The delusion spread, many were apprehended, most of whom were imprisoned, and others accused, among the latter being the wife of Gov. ”

“ It is safe to say, that, if he had not been superseded by the arrival of Sir William Phipps as governor under the new charter, they would never have taken place. Notwithstanding all this,—in spite of the remonstrances, at the time, of Brattle, and afterwards of Hutchinson,—Boston and other towns (earlier, if not equally, committed to such proceedings) have, by a sort of general conspiracy, joined the rest of the world in trying to throw and fasten the whole responsibility and disgrace of witchcraft prosecutions upon Salem. ”

“ Prosecutions for witchcraft continued in the older countries after they had been abandoned here; although it soon began to be difficult, everywhere, to procure the conviction of a person accused of witchcraft. In 1716, a Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, the latter aged nine years, were hanged in Huntingdon, in England, for witchcraft. In the year 1720, an attempt, already alluded to, was made to renew the Salem excitement in Littleton, Mass., but it failed: the people had learned wisdom at a price too dear to allow them so soon to forget it. In a letter to Cotton Mather, written Feb. ”