Historia

Salem in 1692 (Pt. I)

Chris Schlect

he year 1692 saw an outbreak of witchcraft in and around the village of Salem, Massachusetts. The outbreak soon became hysteria, which lasted until Puritan standards of justice were reaffirmed in the situation months later. All told, over 160 individuals were charged with "covenanting with evil spirits," a capital crime in the colony; nineteen were convicted and hanged, four died while in jail, and still another was crushed to death when he refused to enter a plea. This much is part of the historical record. But most of what is said about this series of events has little to do with historical record.

The Salem "witch trials" rival the first Thanksgiving as the best-known happening in America's colonial history. And as with the first Thanksgiving, few people really know what went on. The mythology surrounding the events in Salem developed in the last century, due largely to the influence of Charles W. Upham's interpretation of what happened. Most of us learned from our old schoolbooks that the Puritan clergy and most notably Cotton Mather were fundamentally behind the Salem hysteria. Many people envision torch-bearing townsmen, led by a stern Puritan minister, marching into the home of a sweet young woman, seizing her and subjecting her to silly superstitious tests to determine whether she is a witch (if she sinks in water she is innocent; she is guilty if she floats). The wealth of primary source material exposes these ideas as myths, and many historians have pointed this out. But most who have an opinion about Salem haven't studied it.

Perhaps the primary reason why people today disparage the Salem witch trials is that they believe there to be no such thing as witchcraft. This rationalistic assumption leads to the conclusion that a number of people were executed over nothing. Of course, such modern rationalism rejects seventeenth-century spiritualism merely on the grounds that it is neither modern nor rationalistic. Such an outlook is a philosophical pre-commitment; it is not the product of studying history or science (for historical records report of witchcraft, and science can no more disprove witchcraft than prove it).

To disapprove of the Salem trials on rationalistic grounds is to disapprove of the entire seventeenth century. At that time belief in witchcraft was commonplace; few denied the reality of the black arts. Most historians recognize this, agreeing with Kitteredge when he writes,

Our forefathers believed in witchcraft, not because they were Puritans, not because they were Colonials, not because they were New Englanders, but because they were men of their own time and not of ours. [1]

Unfortunately, Kitteredge and others suggest that with respect to belief in witchcraft, the Puritans just went along with what was accepted in their day. But we all know that the Puritans were anything but followers of fashion (unlike the notorious, unjudicious witch hunters in Europe). The New England Puritans believed in the existence of witches because of the teaching of Scripture.

Not only was there widespread belief in witchcraft by those who feared it, but there were also those who did indeed believe themselves to be practitioners of the black arts. Several of the cases in Salem testify to this, as do many others. For example, an old woman in Boston named Goodwife Glover described in some detail her use of dolls in tormenting others. Cotton Mather reported,

[Upon her confession of guilt, order was given to search the old woman's house, from whence there were brought into the court several small images, or puppets, or babies, made of rags and stuffed with goat's hair and other such ingredients. When these were produced the vile woman acknowledged that her way to torment the objects of her malice by wetting of her finger with her spittle and stroking of those little images. [2]

Later the situation in Salem did degenerate into hysteria. The magistrates in Salem came to receive dubious accusations and unverifiable evidence. But this hysteria was mild compared to what was happening elsewhere. The editors of the court transcripts from Salem have noted,

What is most striking about the history of witchcraft prosecutions in colonial New England before 1692 (as well as the handful of cases in the central and southern colonies) is, in fact, the small number of people actually executed. Although witchcraft had been made a capital offense under English law by a statute enacted in 1542 (and replaced by a more stringent one in 1604), and although New England freely meted out the death penalty for a variety of other crimes, only some fifteen persons went to the gallows for witchcraft in America from the first settlement down to 1692. (At no time, contrary to the widespread misapprehension, were any witches burned in America.) This is all the more noteworthy since these very years saw a sharp upsurge in witchcraft trials and executions in England. . . [3]

My next installment will outline the events in Salem.