Chapter 1.0. Colonial Law and the Salem Witch Trials: Introduction
The most famous of all trials from America’s colonial period are the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Although the precise origins of the problems, or “afflictions,” that a number of teenage girls suffered remain obscure, they began accusing fellow residents of Salem of being witches and of attacking them them using witchcraft. The records left by these trials offer us some of the best evidence that we have about how ordinary people lived and thought. Even though these trials were exceptional in various ways, they also provide many insights into how the law worked in practice.
Popular Witchcraft Beliefs: To understand these trials, it is essential in the first place to recognize that in colonial times most people accepted the reality of what might be called folk magic: that various charms, potions, or curses could, under the right circumstances, affect the outcome of natural processes, by changing the weather, influencing a person’s behavior, or affecting the health of crops, livestock, and people. It was also believed that some people, usually women, were witches who used supernatural powers to harm others.
Learned Witchcraft Beliefs: Educated prosecutors of witchcraft (ministers, judges) were influenced not only by the popular belief in magic, but also by a learned tradition that recognized the reality of what may be called “diabolical witchcraft,” which was a much more extreme idea. According to this view, witches were people that had been tempted into witchcraft by the devil, a temptation to which women were especially susceptible. Witches were believed to fly in the night to witches’ Sabbaths, where they had sex with and sealed their covenants with the devil. This diabolical pact gave the witches a range of magical powers.
Thus the Salem witch trials reflect the explosive mix that occurred when local authorities treated accusations that were really based in folk magic as if they constituted evidence of diabolical witchcraft. The same mix, with far worse results in terms of numbers of people executed (totaling in the tens of thousands), explains the witch trials that had swept over Europe for more than 150 years, but that had mostly ended by the time of the Salem trials.
The rest of this introduction provides a summary of what happened in these trials and describes the social and legal contexts that help to explain their origins, procedures, and aftermath. This material is adapted from the University of Virginia’s excellent website devoted to the Salem Witch Trials. Key ideas, legal terms, or other items are bolded, while key players in this story are underlined.
What Happened: The Salem witchcraft events began in late February 1692 and lasted through April, 1693. All told, at least twenty-five people died: nineteen were executed by hanging, one was tortured to death, and at least five died in jail due to harsh conditions. Over 160 people were accused of witchcraft, most were jailed, and many deprived of property and legal rights. Accused persons lived in the town of Salem and Salem Village (now Danvers) and in two dozen other towns in eastern Massachusetts Bay Colony. Nearly fifty people confessed to witchcraft, most to save themselves from immediate trial. Hundreds of other people in the Bay Colony — neighbors, relatives, jurors, ministers, and magistrates — were caught up in the legal proceedings of the trials. In October 1692, Governor William Phips ended the special witchcraft court in Salem. Accusations soon abated and eventually stopped. In January, the new Superior Court of Judicature began to try the remaining cases and eventually cleared the jails. After Salem trials, no one was convicted of witchcraft in New England. During the Salem trials, more people were accused and executed than in all the previous witchcraft trials in New England.
The Accusations Begin: The first witchcraft accusations occurred in Salem Village, then a parish of the town of Salem, at the end of February 1692. The accusations began with two young girls who lived in the home of the Reverend Samuel Parris. Prior conflicts within the village had caused the departure of three ministers in the past sixteen years. Almost immediately after Rev. Parris’s arrival in 1689, conflicts arose among villagers concerned about the benefits Parris was to receive, including ownership of the parsonage [the minister’s house]. In 1692 a new village committee opposed to Parris was elected. Parris’s salary was not paid for months, and he began to run out of money and firewood. In January, 1692, Parris’s 9 year-old daughter Betty Parris and her 12 year-old cousin Abigail Williams began to behave erratically and exhibit extreme physical contortions. Their actions were similar to that of the Goodwin children in Boston who had fallen into fits and accused a servant woman named Glover of bewitching them. Glover was later convicted and hanged as a witch. The Goodwin case and the children’s’ “afflicted” behavior were described in detail in a widely read book, Memorable Providences, written by Rev. Cotton Mather, a prominent Boston minister, and published in 1689.
The First Charges Made: The Rev. Parris and other local ministers were unable to remedy the girls’ behavior through prayer. Doctor William Griggs, a village physician, was consulted, and he pronounced the girls to be suffering from the “Evil Hand.” Several young friends of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams also exhibited similar behavior. They were all children of influential families in the Village and supporters of Rev. Parris… A neighbor, Mary Sibley, secretly resorted to a well-known magical procedure. She told Parris’s slave, John Indian, to make a witch’s cake, using some of the girls’ urine, and to feed it to a dog to discover the names of the witches afflicting them. Subsequently, the girls began to name people in the Village. The first to be accused were easy targets of social prejudice: Sarah Good, a homeless mother and beggar, Tituba, the Indian slave of the Rev. Parris; and Sarah Osburn, a woman whose marriage and inheritance dispute attracted disfavor. Tituba, the first to be examined by the magistrates, admitted that she had been beaten by Rev. Parris and told to confess. She confessed volubly and in great detail to an alliance with the Devil, and she named Osburn and Good as witches. Sarah Good also accused Sarah Osburn before the magistrates. Tituba’s confession and Good’s confirmation of Osburn’s involvement convinced the ministers and magistrates of a local conspiracy with the Devil. Bolder accusations followed…. All were jailed on charges of witchcraft and shackled with iron fetters.
Court Proceedings Begin: The newly appointed governor Sir William Phips returned from England in the middle of May. He arrived with a new royal charter and was empowered to govern. With dozens of accused witches filling the jails and with more accusations threatening to overwhelm the local courts, Governor Phips established a special court of Oyer and Terminer (“to hear and determine”) to try the backlog of cases… [This] court… was headed by Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton… Stoughton supported the validity of spectral evidence used by the girls and young women in their accusations. A “specter” was the image of a person visible only to the witchcraft victim whom the specter was said to have attacked in some way. The use of spectral evidence was common in New England witchcraft trials, but never played a decisive role. The Rev. Cotton Mather, writing on behalf of several Boston ministers, advised caution in relying on such evidence but at the same time urged the court to undertake “the speedy and vigorous prosecution” of anyone guilty of witchcraft. In the Salem trials, spectral evidence was used to initiate legal complaints, for example by alleging harmful pinching or choking, in order to bring people into court on charges of witchcraft.
The Confessions: As the documents reveal, the magistrates were successful in obtaining dozens of confessions of witchcraft, which meant testifying to having made a covenant with the Devil. The records show that 47 people confessed to witchcraft, and many did so when it was apparent that confession would put off a trial. This was an unprecedented exception to the law pertaining to capital offenses. Much persuasion and some torture was used to make people confess to a covenant with the Devil. All those who confessed were saved, whereas those who maintained their innocence were executed. This, again, was unprecedented legal procedure. When some confessors recanted their false confessions, for reasons of conscience, serious doubts about the confessions of others were raised, and the legal process called into question.
The Trials Wind Down: In early October, the Rev. Increase Mather, minister of North Church and President of Harvard College, together with other ministers in Boston…, prevailed upon Governor Phips to stop the proceedings of the special court in Salem and to disallow the use of spectral evidence. Public opinion was also changing… Without the admission of spectral evidence and without the court room performances of the “afflicted” girls, convictions of witchcraft soon came to an end. In January, Phips appointed the Superior Court of Judicature to try the backlog of cases and begin clearing the jails… Phips wrote a letter of explanation to the Crown saying that he stopped the trials because “I saw many innocent persons might otherwise perish.” Phips cited his absence from Boston while fighting Indians and the zealousness of Stoughton for allowing the Salem trials to get out of hand.
Aftermath
Despite strong opposition, Samuel Parris clung to his position as the pastor of Salem Village…, [but] was forced to leave the village in 1696. In 1697 a Day of Repentance was declared in Boston. On that day Samuel Sewall, a prominent magistrate on the court of Oyer and Terminer, rose from his seat in South Church to confess the “blame and shame” of the witch trials… Twelve jurors who also served on that court confessed to “the guilt of innocent blood.” Years later, in 1706 Ann Putnam, Jr, one of the most active accusers, stood in her pew before the Salem Village church while the Rev. Joseph Green read her confession of “delusion” by the devil.
In 1711, the courts of Massachusetts Bay began to make monetary restitution to the families of those who were jailed. The names of some of those condemned and executed were cleared; and the process of clearing names of the condemned from the court records continues today.