In February 1692, a witch hunt began in Salem Village, a Puritan community in Essex County, Massachusetts. The investigations and trials would not end until May 1693, and ultimately produced nineteen executions. Although belief in witchcraft was a common way of explaining unusual behavior, the trials were unique in several regards. They were unusual in size and scope with almost 200 accusations of witchcraft and numerous subsequent confessions. The hunt spread to other communities in the Massachusetts Bay area, indiscriminately targeting the poor and those of high standing alike. About one in ten of the accused were convicted. At least forty-eight people claimed to be possessed, and at least fifty individuals admitted to practicing witchcraft.
It all began in January 1692, when nine-year-old Betty, the daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris, the village pastor, and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams suddenly slipped into trances, uttered nonsensical phrases, collapsed into shrieking, and experienced epileptic fits. Like other neighbor girls, they had practiced occultism, despite believing that God would punish them for using white magic. Their slave Tituba had taught them, as well as their twelve-year-old friend Ann Putnam, who belonged to one of the village’s prominent clans, conjuring tricks and fortune telling. Sensitive Betty had long been suffering from unforeseen fits, but they unexpectedly worsened. Like a contagion, Abigail caught the affliction and passed it on to Ann, who then gave it to her mother.
Salem Village, in present-day Massachusetts, erupted in a community-wide conflict in 1692–1693 as a result of multiple cases of alleged witchcraft. Before the hysteria ended, 48 victims claimed to be targets of witchcraft activity, and nearly 200 were named as accused witches. Bridget Bishop was one of 20 who were ultimately convicted and executed. (Bettmann/Corbis)
According to Puritan belief, Parris was the head of the family and therefore responsible for the physical and spiritual well-being of his family. Puritans also believed that personal misfortunes were punishment from God. Apparently, Parris had sinned and now was experiencing the righteous wrath of God. As Dr. Griggs, the local physician, could not find any explanation for the outbursts, he concluded that the devil must have caused them. When the symptoms intensified, despite intense prayers and fasting, Parris blamed witches for his misery. Very few distrusted his accusation, as Puritans believed that Satan could tempt spiritually weak people, especially women, into carrying out wicked deeds against their neighbors in exchange for power. Infants and young children were considered to be particularly vulnerable to the spells.
The first arrests were made in February. Pressed through leading questions, the afflicted finally named three witches: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. The girls probably named the slave Tituba because of the witch cake she had reportedly baked with their urine to feed the household dog, which she had hoped would then go straight to the witch that was harming the children. But the dog had only become sick. Unlike Tituba, Sarah Good was a homeless, thirty-eight-year-old pregnant woman of dubious reputation, and Sarah Osborne was a sick, elderly woman who did not attend church and who had been twice married. Tituba, who named Good and Osborne as well, confessed to meeting with the devil. She described his appearance and claimed he had promised her wonderful things. She also stated she had become a specter, a ghostly image, in an attempt to murder the children.
Researchers still search for possible reasons to explain the bizarre witch panic. One plausible explanation could be tensions between the sexes. By the 1650s, the Massachusetts Bay Colony consisted of more women than men. Those women owned property and operated farms and businesses in competition with their male neighbors, which led to many disputes. People believed that the devil could easily bribe any woman who lusted after knowledge, power, and wealth. In the Salem witch trials, two-thirds of the witnesses for prosecution were men. For example, a man whose property bordered Bridget Bishop first accused her of witchcraft. Bishop subsequently became the first victim hanged during the trials.
Most of the villagers were farmers, whose isolation made them suspicious of the outside world. Power was shared among the political and clerical elites who organized society with little external interference. When merchant capitalism began to encroach on village life, it challenged Puritan moralism and split the villagers into two groups. One group remained nostalgic about the past and sought to preserve the social order unchanged, while the other group wanted to open up to the outside world. Gradually and inevitably, traditional society was affected by the spread of capitalism, leaving some families economically behind.
In Salem Village, most farm families attended church twice a week, exchanged goods, and socialized with neighbors. Such close communalism often led to conflicts between neighbors. But there were no town meetings in the village to solve those conflicts, nor were there any public officials to maintain order. Salem Village was only part of a larger town also called Salem. The village had often quarreled with the town over land, as well as the organization of the church and ecclesiastical policy. The villagers would travel to Salem to attend church until they finally established a parish in their village, which was taken over by Reverend Parris after a failed business career.
Parris feared outside control of village affairs and provided stability to poorer farmers who felt threatened by increasing mercantilism. In his sermons, Parris preached against infiltration, subversion, and deceit. He spoke of Satan working with the wicked and acting against God’s will, urging people to speak with him before making decisions. Those who opposed him were arrested as witches.
Parris was also subject to a feud between the two principal clans (the Porter and Putnam families), who were fighting over economic matters. While the Putnams supported Parris, the Porters petitioned against him. The Putnams pushed the trials forward and were involved in the prosecution of forty-six witches, while the Porters publicly opposed the trials and defended the accused.
Questioning the trials publicly actually could be lethal. Martha Corey, for instance, the wife of a prosperous farmer and pious church attendant, was accused of witchcraft after expressing doubt about the girls’ testimony of possession. Every time she pinched her fingers during the trial, the girls cried out in pain. When her husband Giles spoke out against the girls, they also accused him of witchcraft. Both Martha and Giles were executed.
The Crucible (1953)
Set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts, The Crucible is Arthur Miller’s tale of the Salem witch trials, in which a group of teen girls falsely accuse members of their community of witchcraft, and John Proctor, an upstanding citizen, is brought down because of lust. Proctor’s sin was adultery, and his journey from a secret guilt veiled by good reputation to a redeemed man wrongly condemned for witchcraft provides a thinly veiled allegory of the “Red Scare” and the subsequent Communist “witch hunts” led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s McCarthy made increasingly provocative allegations of Communist infiltration of the United States government, and the hysteria of the time made such accusations, however baseless, extremely powerful. Miller’s play, first produced in 1953, uses the Salem witch trials as a vehicle through which to criticize the resulting “McCarthyism,” which destroyed people’s lives and careers through horribly damaging but utterly unfounded and ultimately unproven allegations.
C. Fee
Giles Corey reappears in Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible, a partially fictional portrayal of the trials. Today Salem Village is called Danvers. The town of Salem, where the trials had been moved, has become a destination for tourists fascinated with witches. The trials can be revisited and modern-day witches can be hired for their magic spells. Because of the trials, the phrase “a witch hunt” has entered the American language, referring to the systematic, false persecution of an entire group.
Daniela Ribitsch
See also Demonic Possession; Legend Tripping; Superstitions
Further Reading
Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Demos, John. 1982. Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. New York: Oxford University Press.
Karlsen Carol F. 1998. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman. Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: W. W. Norton.
Starkey, Marion L. 1969. The Devil in Massachusetts. A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
Wilson, Lori Lee. 1997. The Salem Witch Trials. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner.
Salem Witch Trials—Primary Document
Cotton Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World (1693)
The Salem witch trials of 1692 built upon and expanded legends of demonic possession in the New World. Prior to the trials, reports of witchcraft activity in Salem Village began to circulate, focusing on three women, Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Soon, numerous accusers came forward and launched charges against hundreds of their neighbors in the Salem area. Authorities responded with special courts that permitted spectral evidence—testimony of visions and phantom pain—that was disallowed in traditional criminal courts. In this document, witnesses offer spectral evidence against Martha Carrier, as recounted in Cotton Mather’s 1693 book about the trials. Carrier was convicted and executed by hanging on August 19, 1692.
The Trial of Martha Carrier, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, August 2, 1692.
I. Martha Carrier was Indicted for the bewitching certain Persons, according to the Form usual in such Cases, pleading Not Guilty, to her Indictment; there were first brought in a considerable number of the bewitched Persons; who not only made the Court sensible of an horrid Witchcraft committed upon them, but also deposed, That it was Martha Carrier, or her Shape, that grievously tormented them, by Biting, Pricking, Pinching and Choaking of them. It was further deposed, That while this Carrier was on her Examination, before the Magistrates, the Poor People were so tortured that every one expected their Death upon the very spot, but that upon the binding of Carrier they were eased. Moreover the Look of Carrier then laid the Afflicted People for dead; and her Touch, if her Eye at the same time were off them, raised them again: Which Things were also now seen upon her Tryal. And it was testified, That upon the mention of some having their Necks twisted almost round, by the Shape of this Carrier, she replyed, Its no matter though their Necks had been twisted quite off.
II. Before the Trial of this Prisoner, several of her own Children had frankly and fully confessed, not only that they were Witches themselves, but that this their Mother had made them so. This Confession they made with great Shews of Repentance, and with much Demonstration of Truth. They related Place, Time, Occasion; they gave an account of Journeys, Meetings and Mischiefs by them performed, and were very credible in what they said. Nevertheless, this Evidence was not produced against the Prisoner at the Bar, inasmuch as there was other Evidence enough to proceed upon.
III. Benjamin Abbot gave his Testimony, That last March was a twelvemonth, this Carrier was very angry with him, upon laying out some Land, near her Husband’s: Her Expressions in this Anger, were, That she would stick as close to Abbot as the Bark stuck to the Tree; and that he should repent of it afore seven Years came to an End, so as Doctor Prescot should never cure him. These Words were heard by others besides Abbot himself; who also heard her say, She would hold his Nose as close to the Grindstone as ever it was held since his Name was Abbot. Presently after this, he was taken with a Swelling in his Foot, and then with a Pain in his Side, and exceedingly tormented. It bred into a Sore, which was launced by Doctor Prescot, and several Gallons of Corruption ran out of it. For six Weeks it continued very bad, and then another Sore bred in the Groin, which was also lanced by Doctor Prescot. Another Sore then bred in his Groin, which was likewise cut, and put him to very great Misery: He was brought unto Death’s Door, and so remained until Carrier was taken, and carried away by the Constable, from which very Day he began to mend, and so grew better every Day, and is well ever since.
Sarah Abbot also, his Wife, testified, That her Husband was not only all this while Afflicted in his Body, but also that strange extraordinary and unaccountable Calamities befel his Cattel; their Death being such as they could guess at no Natural Reason for.
IV. Allin Toothaker testify’d, That Richard, the son of Martha Carrier, having some difference with him, pull’d him down by the Hair of the Head. When he Rose again, he was going to strike at Richard Carrier; but fell down flat on his Back to the ground, and had not power to stir hand or foot, until he told Carrier he yielded; and then he saw the shape of Martha Carrier, go off his breast.
This Toothaker, had Received a wound in the Wars; and he now testify’d, that Martha Carrier told him, He should never be Cured. Just afore the Apprehending of Carrier, he could thrust a knitting Needle into his wound, four inches deep; but presently after her being siezed, he was throughly healed.
He further testify’d, that when Carrier and he some times were at variance, she would clap her hands at him, and say, He should get nothing by it; whereupon he several times lost his Cattle, by strange Deaths, whereof no natural causes could be given.
V. John Rogger also testifyed, That upon the threatning words of this malicious Carrier, his Cattle would be strangely bewitched; as was more particularly then described.
VI. Samuel Preston testify’d, that about two years ago, having some difference with Martha Carrier, he lost a Cow in a strange Preternatural unusual manner; and about a month after this, the said Carrier, having again some difference with him, she told him; He had lately lost a Cow, and it should not be long before he lost another; which accordingly came to pass; for he had a thriving and well-kept Cow, which without any known cause quickly fell down and dy’d.
VII. Phebe Chandler testify’d, that about a Fortnight before the apprehension of Martha Carrier, on a Lords-day, while the Psalm was singing in the Church, this Carrier then took her by the shoulder and shaking her, asked her, where she lived: she made her no Answer, although as Carrier, who lived next door to her Fathers House, could not in reason but know who she was. Quickly after this, as she was at several times crossing the Fields, she heard a voice, that she took to be Martha Carriers, and it seem’d as if it was over her head. The voice told her, she should within two or three days be poisoned. Accordingly, within such a little time, one half of her right hand, became greatly swollen, and very painful; as also part of her Face; whereof she can give no account how it came. It continued very bad for some dayes; and several times since, she has had a great pain in her breast; and been so siezed on her leggs, that she has hardly been able to go. She added, that lately, going well to the House of God, Richard, the son of Martha Carrier, look’d very earnestly upon her, and immediately her hand, which had formerly been poisoned, as is abovesaid, began to pain her greatly, and she had a strange Burning at her stomach; but was then struck deaf, so that she could not hear any of the prayer, or singing, till the two or three last words of the Psalm.
Source: Mather, Cotton. The Wonders of the Invisible World, Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England. Boston: John Dunton, 1693; London: John Russell Smith, 1862.