The Salem Witchcraft Episode

1. The Salem Witchcraft Episode

2. The Salem Witchcraft Episode

• How it began:
– West Indian
slave, Tituba
and girls in
Minister Samuel
Parris’s kitchen
early 1692

3. Girls’ strange behavior alarms the community

– Saw specters
– Felt pinched, choked
or kicked
– Writhed on floor and
screaming
– Carried on
arguments with
invisible spirits

4. Village pressed girls to name names

• Tituba
• Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne
– - two old women unpopular in the village

5. Results of naming:

• All arrested
• - Tituba confessed - she said 4 women
and a man responsible including the
two Sarahs
• - Tituba claimed the others had
threatened her if she did not aid them

6. When accused refused to confess, search for corroborating evidence:

• voodoo dolls, pins
• physical signs
– - mark of allegiance with the devil

7. Search for evidence of cause and effect

• Relationship between witch's malice
and victim's sufferings
– Ex. Sarah Good

8. Most damning evidence

• Spectral visions of
accused
– their likenesses appeared
to the victims
– victims reported seeing
this during their torments

9. Accusations against former minister of Salem, George Burroughs

10.

• Testimony of Ann
Putnam against George
Burroughs –
• “he had had three
wives, and that he had
bewitched the first two
of them to death… he
killed Mistress
Lawson… He made
Abigail Hobbs a
witch…”

11. What proof of these accusations?

• “Sheldon
testified that
Burroughs’ two
wives appeared
in their winding
sheets, and said
that man
[Burroughs]
killed them.”

12. What proof of these accusations?

•“Mary Lewes deposition going to be read and he looked upon
her, and she fell into a dreadful and tedious fit.”

13. Testimony of Samuel Webber

• “said Burroughs, he coming to our house, we were
in discourse about the same [Burrough’s great
strength], and he then told me that he had put his
fingers into the bung of a barrel of molasses and
lifted it up and carried it round him and set it
down again.”

14. Testimony of Thomas Greenslit

“He saw Mr. Burroughs
lift and hold out a gun
of six foot barrel or
thereabouts, putting
the forefinger of his
right hand into the
muzzle of said gun,
and so held it out at
arm’s end, only with
that finger.”

15. Why did some accused confess?

• Declaration of Margaret Jacobs –
• “They told me if I would not confess, I
should be put down into the dungeon and
would be hanged, but if I would confess I
should have my life.”

16.

• By September 1692 20 people had
been executed
• Over 100 people still remained in jail

17. Concerns about witchcraft accusations

• Ministers started to get nervous about
executions and accusations
• Minister Cotton Mather wrote and
published a sermon condemning use of
spectral evidence

18. Mather argued that to believe the evidence of a specter was to take the devil at his own word

• "It was better that 10
suspected witches
should escape than
that one innocent
person should be
condemned."

19. Government response to Mather’s criticism

• Fall 1692: Governor dismissed the court trying
witchcraft cases
ordered no more arrests be made
January 1693: new court formed to hear remaining
cases of those still awaiting trial
majority acquitted, 3 women convicted but
received immediate reprieve

20. Conclusion of the Witchcraft episode

April 1793 remaining prisoners
released
• 150 people accused, 25 people
executed or died in prison

21. Why did these disturbances occur? Why 1690s and why Salem?

22. Warfare and Politics

• 1. King Philip’s War
• 2. Dominion of New England
• 3. Circumstances in Salem

23. 1. King Philip’s War 1675

• Chief of Pokanokets – King Philip
• Alliances with Nipmucks, Narragansetts
• 25 of 90 Puritan towns destroyed

24. Results for colonists:

• 10% adult male population killed or
wounded
• Interior towns abandoned
• Per capita income reduced

25. 2. Dominion of New England 1686

• What: One government over all the New
England colonies
• Why: the British government wanted more
control over its colonies

26. Why New England?

• Smuggling – colonists ignored the
Navigation Acts
– 1. Only English merchants & ships could
engage in trade with the colonies
– 2. American products could be sold only in
England or other English colonies

27. Smuggling – ignoring the Navigation Acts

– 3. Foreign goods for colonies had to be shipped
from England (paying import duties)
– 4. Colonies could not export products that
competed with English products

28. Result

• Colonial Charters Revoked in
–
–
–
–
–
–
New Jersey
Connecticut
New York
Rhode Island
Massachusetts
New Hampshire & Maine

29. New form of government under the Dominion of New England

• Sir Edmund Andros appointed governor
• Colonial Assemblies (legislatures) dissolved
• Appointed Council became colonial
authority

30. End of the Dominion of New England

• King William and Queen Mary became
monarchs of Britain 1688
• Dominion dissolved
• Colonies again autonomous

31. But - Consequences for Massachusetts

Massachusetts became a Royal Colony
1. Governor appointed in England, not by the colony
2. Religious toleration required
Anglican Church (Ch of England) established in
Massachusetts
3. Voting & Office holding open to non-Puritans

32. Impact of these changes on the witchcraft episode

• King Philips war destroyed communities
and orphaned children
– Created state of anxiety and uncertainty
• Dominion of New England created crisis in
colonial government
– Threatened Puritan control

33. But Why Salem? Geography of witchcraft accusations:

• Of 14 accused witches living in the
village, 12 lived in eastern section
• Of 32 adults who testified against the
accused, 30 lived in western section

34.

35. East-West split in the village - why and what is it?

• Salem Town was original
settlement
• By 1668 4 outlying areas
had become separate towns
Salem farmers in outlying
western section wanted to
do the same, but Townsmen
resisted this

36. 1672 General Court of Massachusetts allowed Salem Village to build its own meeting house, but did not allow it to become independent in other ways

• Salem Village still paid taxes to
Salem Town
• Salem Town chose the constables
for Salem Village
• Salem Town arranged where new
roads would go
• Salem Town established selling
price for grain
• Salem Town continued to oversee
new land grants to settlers

37. Additional tensions:

• Split within
Salem
Village itself

38. Split within Salem Village

• Disputes over who would be minister
• What this dispute was a symptom of:
– who had power in Salem Village

39. Long history of disputes within Salem Village

• Lists of petitions, counter-petitions, etc
documenting religious and other
quarrels in the village
Same names appear on different sides of
quarrels every time

40. The lists from these disputes coincide closely with the divisions in 1692 between accusers and accused

41. Analysis

• Political, religious and economic conflict
was converted into the camouflaged
symptoms of entirely different sort
• - threats from the invisible world of
demons and spirits