The Real Salem - Road to the Trials (Part 2)
A dark cloud gathers over Salem Village…
The hanging of Bridget Bishop, the first of what would be many victims, only deepened tensions within the community…
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I’m choosing to sit down for a bit - about 5 feet from the village parsonage - where the first accusations of witchcraft occurred …
Its hard to take in the stillness of the area if you don’t put down your phone and everything and really take in the place…
The dark stones and slightly overgrown grass are in total contrast with the surrounding suburban houses and busy roads…
As I started to pack up my gear, I thought of a question - that I think is worth exploring …
if the first accusations where not made … if Reverend Paris did break the already fragile social contract within Salem village, if the community were more cohesive - could death have been avoided?
Or, was everything already in place for something like the witch trials to occur…
We’re the trials themselves … inevitable ?
“If any man or woman be a witch that is, hath, or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death”
- The 1641 “Body of Liberties” The first legal code established in New England
What did the legal system in 1692 Salem look like?
More specifically, once an accusation of witchcraft was made - how was “due justice” carried out?
Well, in practice, few witches were actually executed in Colonial America prior to the Salem Witch Trials because clear and convincing proof of a crime - including that of witchcraft - was needed for conviction.
However!
In addition, to growing tension between neighbors, a strict puritan-influenced social structure strengthened by Rev Paris and an influx in witchcraft accusations led by the so called “afflicted” (those targeted and tormented by the witches)
The trials followed a temporary suspension of the Massachusetts Colony Charter due to political tensions with England … so In practice … laws that would have provided necessary due process were now argued over and deeply uncertain…
To provide clarity in during this lapse in order, Governor William Phips established the Court of Oyer and Terminer (which translate to “to hear” and “to determine,”)
Which would preside over the growing witchcraft accusations throughout the colony….
Without the strict system of law and order in place under the previous charter, this court would rely upon three kinds of evidence …
Confession by the accused
Testimony by eyewitnesses to any act of witchcraft
Third, and most daringly - the court accepted the use of spectral evidence…
"I saw the apparition of Sarah good who did most greviously afflect me by pinching and pricking me and so she continewed hurting of me tell the first day of March."
- Sarah Good being accused by Elizabeth Hubbard
Spectral evidence, at it’s core, is assertion without physical evidence …
It is evidence - based on visions, hallucinations, dreams of the accused witches Spector or spirit.
It’s a testimony about what the accused person's spirit did, rather than actions of the accused person physically.
With the help of the devil - in order to torment their chosen victims… witches were thought to project these apparitions at will and punch, pinch, bite, choke, or otherwise Harris their enemies ….
The court would then use witness testimony - the spectral evidence - to support a witchcraft conviction.
And tragically, spectral evidence was used widely and liberally…
By the end, 156 were invdited for witchcraft directly following reports of spectral attacks … some of which would happen during the court proceedings - the accuser would wail and complain of this ghostly harassment - invisible - to everyone else …
Invisible, yes -- un-proveable most definitely …. admissible in court?
Irrefutabley….
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Just how fast systems can collapse is easy to forget …
Even with all the context , the growing resentments, the introduction of rev Paris, the war refugees from north of Salem village, dwindling resources, the loss of the colony charter …
All of it, in my mind, still doesn’t explain - how an otherwise relatively reasonable group of people support the use of spectral evidence …
Imagine, you’re sitting in court, accused of punching someone in the face - not because you actually commented the offense, but because, that person accuses your spirit of doing so …
Then you’re found guilty with no physical evidence …
It’s a total miscarriage of Justice and due process … even by the standards of the time - so my question is - how does go from several small accusations made in the spot directly in front of me - to ghosts punching the accusers mid trial - it just melts my brain thinking about it …
“You tax me for a wizard, you may as well tax me for a buzzard I have done no harm.”
George Jacobs Sr. accused and excited for witchcraft
When accused - after receiving a warrant for your arrest, multiple intrusive examinations, and testimonies - you would then be taken to the Salem Courthouse to stand before The Court of Oyer and Terminer ….
Ironically, if you confessed to witchcraft before the court, the you often were spared a hard sentence owing to the puritan belief that they would receive their due punishment from god…. It was those who insisted upon their innocence, that more often met the gallows …
But what do do with those that refused either option?
More weight!! More Weight!!!”
These are the reported words, of Giles Corey, who was slowly crushed to death over the course of three days…
After refusing to plead innocent or guilty for witchcraft - Giles was forced to strip naked by officials while a stone weights were slowly added to a board atop his faltering body ,,,
He wanted death to come quickly, after refusing to interact with a court he felt had already damned him for nothing….
“I’m no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink".
The words of Sarah Good who was quickly convicted and sent to the gallows after several afflicted girls claimed Good’s specter attacked them.
She was hung alongside an elderly Churchgoing grandmother named Rebecca Nurse
“I would rather die than confess a falsehood so filthy.”
The last words of Martha Carrier - convicted after her teenage sons were tortured into confessing to witchcraft - implicating their mother - John Proctor (featured in Arthur millers ‘the crucible”) and reverend George Burroughs - suspected to be the ring leader of the Salem witches were all executed the same day.
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All the stories told about the trials -
People confessing, proclaiming innocence, turning on neighbors, friends or even refusing to even participate in the madness ….
They all seem outlandish and insane, frankly, especially if you ignore context … the reasons behind everything ….
The witch trials enjoy near-mythical status in the American consciousness, but what actually caused the trials in Salem 400 years ago?
3 prominent theories are often brought up:
One - Cold Weather
This theory asserts that most historical witchcraft trials coincide with a 400 year period of lower-than-average temperatures.
Known, by climatologists as “the little ice age”
1692 - the year of the trials - happened the fall in the middle of a particularly cold 50 year spell from 1680 to 1730 -
In the midst of such stunting weather patterns … which led to crop failure and colder seas (yielding less fish) … people start to look for scapegoats … reasons for their misfortune
Who was thought to have the ability to control weather and destroy crops? Witches.
Simple Boredom
This is a time and place that restricted almost all forms of play for children.
You were expected to do your chores, study the Bible and otherwise do as your told - any child facing such a scene would love for other outlets…
To escape the monotony:
Betty Paris and Abigail Williams (two of the very first of the afflicted) became interested in fortune-telling - introduced to them by the aforementioned - tituba, the Paris family slave.
It may be that - their involvement in such forbidden activities - as well as the coinciding guilt for participating in them - that may have contributed to their strange behavior and the accusations that followed.
Finally, perhaps the most pervasive theory of all - The Ergot or Moldy Bread Theory -
Ergot is a fungus that grows on grain, especially rye.
It produces neurotoxins that remain in bread products produced from the infected grain
When eaten, ergot poisoning leads to convulsions, committing, prickling sensations under the skin and vivid hallucinations…. All symptoms associated with the afflicted…
The theory maintains that those afflicted, as well as a substanceial portion of the community - ingested the contaminated grain - which would explain the sudden shift into communal hysteria …
According to this theory, the abrupt end of the witch trials in May 1693 happened, quite simply, because Salem ran out of ergot-contaminated grain.
However, this is the only theory I’ll push against …
To start - entire families would have eaten the same source of rye and would , in turn, have been susceptible to the poisoning.
In the Paris household, a house with four adults and four children - only two became sick and showed symptoms associated with ergot poisoning …
Secondly,
Afflictions and accusations also spread well beyond Salem village and town - in fact, the highest rate of accusations and afflicted occurs 20 miles northwest of Salem -
Throughout this wide area, afflictions were sporadic and spread far beyond singular locations were infected grain would have been stored and ingested …
Lastly, cases of outright fakery exist
An afflicted witness claimed to see a specter but later admitted “she did it for sport, they must have some sport.”
This is by no means, an isolated case …
Still, the ergot theory continues in prevalence and - in some cases - is included in school curriculums as an explanations for the Salem witch trials,,,
Audio recording*
It’s easy to sit here, some 400 years later and condemn all these stories - the trials - as a forgone era of superstition … but the more I look into the causes, the context, and the more I consider human nature
The need to for safety, for acknowledgment - standing in community - the less strange - in fact, the more familiar - this story becomes …
“The General Court of Massachusetts declares its belief that such proceedings, even if lawful under the Province Charter and the law of Massachusetts as it then was, were and are shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community…”
- The Formal apology of Massachusetts - made in 1957
The trials came to an end after Governernor William Phipps’s own wife was accused of witchcraft,
He promptly orders the court of The Court of Oyer and Terminer to disband and replaces it with another - more reasonable- Superior court of judicature - which forbid the use of spectral evidence …
All but ending the tide of accusations, executions and hysteria ….
No further executions took place after September 22, just over three months after the hanging of the hysterias first victim - Bridget Bishop …
In the end 19 victims were hanged near Gallows Hill, one crushed to death, 4 died in jail awaiting trial, and more than 200 accused.
For what?
Although, it’s temping to attribute one cause to the Salam Witch trials - the reality and it’s implications are much more complex …
What happened in Salem Village in 1692 is both strange and familiar, ridiculous and understandable, outlandish and conventional.
More than anything - the story of the trials, with its showings of fear, courage, cruelty, unpredictability, - showcase the deepest parts of human nature in all of us.
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Dark clouds linger above the ruins of the parsonage …
It’s heavy stone foundation, engrained in the ground itself start to glisten under the starting rain…
Despite the passing cars, surrounding houses, new buildings and a nearby swing set …
The location emanates a legacy - that still echos, miles south, in the busy shops, museums, and bars of Salem.