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Rachael Carey
Professor Fredrick J Wilson
History 1700
23 April 2015
Salem Witch Trials
Salem Massachusetts, during a long, cold winter in 1692 all chaos breaks loose. Two little
girls began to convulse and scream as though being attacked by unseen demons. After the village
doctors are called and could not seem to find any reason for their ailment he declared them
bewitched. A witch-hunt quickly began and spreads like wildfire. This story piques the interest of
many; the idea of witch craft in colonial America is interesting for the believers of mysticism,
religious zealots and historians. In the end it all comes down to the social politics and boredom
of a small town and a little imagination. A lie that grew bigger than the little girls that started it,
and even took 20 lives.
Salem was divided into a town and a village, the town of Salem was near the ocean thus
it was economically thriving because of their ability to fish and export goods, but the village of
Salem lay inland and relied mostly upon farming for their livelihood. The village and the town of
Salem were very different, the village was more conservative and adhered to the expectations
and policies set by the church more closely. Because of this some of the people in the village
wanted to separate from the town while others closer to the town did not because they relied on
the economy of the harbors. One family that was very much in favor of separating the town from
the village was the Putnams. They owned much of the farmland in the area and had quite a bit of

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money (Ray 2002). The Putnams organized a congregation to separate themselves from Salem
town and brought in a new reverend, Samuel Parris. Reverend Parris got exceptionally good
treatment at first; he was given the deed and title for the parsonage, a house and free firewood as
well as a salary, all of this being paid for by the residents of Salem village. This was not normal
and of course the residents of the village that were relying of the economy of the harbor and
town were not happy about paying for something that they didnt want to begin with. When a
new committee was elected for the village the dispute was brought to them and it was decided
that reverend Parris would no longer receive a salary from the taxes and would have to rely upon
contributions. While this appeased those who lived closer to the town and did not desire to
separate from it, it angered the Putnams, Parris and all of their supporters. (Sutter 2000-2003)
The village of Salem was divided socially and politically, causing disputes and tension. These
disagreements were a perfect setup for the witch trials allowing those who had issues with others
to lay blame upon them with the excuse of witchery. The social hierarchy in Salem plays a large
role in the outcome and who is accused.
Reverend Parris had a family that consisted of his daughter Betty, niece Abigail, his ill
wife and he also had a slave that he had brought back from Barbados named Tituba. Parris was a
strict man and forbade the children to play games or do anything that would be considered idle,
so they would read in the winter when they were bored and stuck indoors. It was popular to read
books about prophecy and wasnt uncommon for people to get together and see if what they read
was true, they would try to tell fortunes and use eggs to foresee the future. Abigail, Betty, Tituba
and a few others would do just this, they would come together and experiment and listen to
Tituba tell stories. (Sutter 2000-2003) This was not something all that out of the ordinary, but the
reaction from these girls is. Abigail and Betty are the two little girls that initiate this craze. Soon

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all of their friends and many of the young girls from the village started to act the same way the
others were. They would shake, scream and run around like a mad person. When they could find
no cause it was decided that it was witchcraft. As far as the townspeople were concerned these
young girls had to be bewitched by somebody. The long winter boredom as well as filling
themselves full of stories and magic was where the real bewitching had come. These young girls
had bewitched themselves.
Women are often considered to be more gentle, innocent and moral then men, but in 1692
they were also thought of as unable to make the best decisions and more likely to be swayed by
people, ideas or men. They were the lesser of the two genders, meant to be housewives and
mothers, to do the bidding of the men and keep quiet. When a woman spoke out in public, was
not married or found herself homeless she was usually exiled by her community. Almost all of
the people that were accused of witchery were woman. While not all of the women that were
accused were considered outcasts or deviants, the first three that were accused were considered
as such in one way or another. The first three accused were Tituba, Sarah Good, a beggar who
would go through the village asking for alms and would get very upset when turned away, and
Sarah Osborn, an angry older woman, who had qualms with the Putnams and had not been to
church in a year (Carroll 2001). These women set the stage for the rest of the trials to come. Both
Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn insisted that they were innocent; Tituba confessed. Tituba not only
confessed, she also spent three days talking about all sorts of terrible things she said she saw. She
claimed that she had seen both Sarah Goods and Sarah Osborns name in a book as well as many
others that she could not read. Nobody really knows why Tituba confessed and lied, perhaps she
felt guilty for taking part in the experiments and telling them stories, or perhaps she felt that if
she confessed somehow mercy would be shown to her. It leaves the thought; maybe if Tituba had

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not confessed things may have ended differently. The investigation would fail to find any
evidence and come to a close. Regardless of Titubas elaborate confession she was shown no
mercy, and all of the details that she gave fanned the flames of the fire. (Sutter 2000-2003)
The Puritans that settled in the Massachusetts Bay colony left an environment where
everyday life included witch hunts. Europe was experiencing a peek in witch hunting in the 16th
and early 17th century. There was literature published specifically for the use hunting witches and
what to do with them (Jury 1999). People lived their lives suspicious of everyone they came in
contact with, worried they could be cursed by a witch. If anything unexplainable happened,
perhaps a bad crop yield or sickness in the family, it was usually blamed on witchcraft. When the
Puritans came to the colonies they brought this culture with them. The Salem witch trials were
not the first time somebody in the colonies had been accused of witchcraft. Accusations of
witchery in the American colonies date back to around 1622 (Carlson 2009). Witchery and witch
hunts were very ingrained in the culture and seen as normal. The people of Salem would not
have thought it completely abnormal to accuse somebody of being a witch.
Religion plays a large role in the Salem witch trials. Many people came to the colonies to
escape the Anglican Church and start a Puritan utopia in a new land. Although the Puritans were
a majority of the settlers there were others that had come to the colonies for a fresh start and not
necessarily for religious reasons. The Puritans were extremists in many ways. The church
governed everything in the colonies, not only was it religion but also government. Everyday life
was centered on what the church expected of you, the way you dressed, conducted business, and
expressed yourself. Repression was the way of life; it was expected of you to keep yourself in
check at all times, your clothes should be plain and dark, your attitude and emotions should be
quiet and somber. Those who did not conform strictly to these rules put themselves at risk to be

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targeted and blamed. The puritans believed that Satan was all around them and could influence
the weak. It was a contentious environment filled with judgement.
There was a shared belief that if you were afflicted by witchcraft you would have certain
symptoms. This idea and many others can be seen in the works of Cotton Mather, a puritan
minister with an interest in medicine (Walker 2001). Cotton Mather had done research and
written several books and reports related to witchcraft. He wrote a book called Remarkable
Providences (1684) it is an account of a possession of three children. Scholars suggest that
Mather's dramatic descriptions the devil's activity upon the young Goodwin children may have
led to the first cry of witchcraft among the young girls in Salem Village. (Walker 2001) Cotton
Mathers also wrote a book called Memorable Providences (1689) about an Irish washerwoman
that had been afflicted by witchcraft. It detailed the symptoms of witchcraft and what the fits and
episodes looked like. This was a popular book and was being talked about in New England at the
time of the Salem witch trials. When the young girls of Salem started to have fits, they were the
same as the ones recounted by Cotton Mather.
The people of Salem had been on edge for some time before the witch trials. The Native
Americans and the colonies were still at war, attacking and pillaging small towns not far from
Salem. The Native Americans, not being Christian, were also seen as evil and part of the devil.
The stress of the devil coming near and fighting a war was affecting the entire town. And then
the smallpox came. When Salem had a smallpox outbreak the first thought was witchcraft. The
royal charter that had been issued to the Massachusetts Bay colony had been revoked and
replaced with a less religions one because many of the rules had been broken (Brooks 2011).
Many of the Residents of Salem had rivalries and disputes with each other over small things that
would grow rapidly. The town was stretched thin when refugees came from the north because of

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King Williamss war in Canada. Salem was an incubator for mass hysteria; all it needed was
something to set it off.
Rye was a staple food in Salem, many grew this grain and everyone ate it. Rye also can
get infected with a common fungus, Ergot. Ergot contains some very potent chemicals; these
chemicals make up what we now call LSD (acid). Popular in in the 1960s because of its mind
altering affects, LSD affects the nervous system and can cause convulsions, vomiting, and
hallucinations. Ergot breeds well in swampy areas much like the west end of Salem village.
Possibly the people of Salem could have been eating the infected rye and experiencing the effects
of the ergot, this is one theory that people seem to find attractive. It is possible, but in reality it is
not very likely that the people of Salem were hallucinating on LSD and mistaking it for witchery.
Ergotism (ergot poisoning) causes gangrenous symptoms as well as convulsive symptoms.
People that get infected with ergotism can lose sensation of their skin, the fingers and toes start
to peel and death of tissue. Ergotism can be fairly severe with many side effects other than
hallucinations. (Lienhard 1997)
The use of spectral evidence in the Salem witch trials is where is started and ended.
Spectral evidence, defined by US Legal Spectral evidence refers to a witness testimony that the
accused person's spirit or spectral shape appeared to him/her witness in a dream at the time the
accused person's physical body was at another location. It was accepted in the courts during the
Salem Witch Trials. The evidence was accepted on the basis that the devil and his minions were
powerful enough to send their spirits, or specters, to pure, religious people in order to lead them
astray.

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In spectral evidence, the admission of victims' conjectures is governed only by the limits of their
fears and imaginations, whether or not objectively proven facts are forthcoming to justify them.
[State v. Dustin, 122 N.H. 544, 551 (N.H. (Legal n.d.) Near the end of September they banned
the use of spectral evidence from the court, the beginning of the end of the Salem witch trials.
Many people had become suspicious of the accusers and were speaking out against them and the
trials. Regardless of the weak evidence over 200 people were accused and 19 were hung and one
man was crushed to death.
In the end the people of Salem Massachusetts came to the realization that it wasnt right
what they were doing. In 1697 the people of Salem held a day of fasting, referred to as the
official day of humiliation in honor of the victims. In 1711 some of the heirs were given
restitution. Although this does not make up for the terrible things done in the trials, it is at least
some acknowledgment that what was done was wrong. (Brooks 2011)
Mass hysteria can happen more often than we think. After the 9/11 attacks on the twin
towers, the threat of anthrax was high. Thousands of elementary aged children develop a rash; it
would last a few hours to a couple weeks and then just vanish without a reason. Everyone in the
country was on high alert and paying extra close attention to everything. When stress and
emotions are so high, our minds can do odd things. The people of Salem were reacting the only
way they knew how. Today, the thought of accusing your neighbor of being a witch because your
cat died seems a bit farfetched, to the people of Salem it was their terrorist. It all comes down to
a bunch of bored teenage girls, a terrible winter, threats to their safety, and culture that enabled it
to grow. The Salem witch trials dont really seem that different to what happens in our society
today. Ignorance, social hierarchy, personal qualms and religion, these cause problems all over

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the world, it is hard to step back and look at the big picture and take in all the facts when you are
so deep in to the situation. Salem is a perfect example of this.

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Works Cited
Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. History of Massachusetts. August 18, 2011.
http://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-salem-witch-trials/ (accessed April 13,
2015).
Carlson, Marc. Historical Witches and Witchtrials in North America. 2009.
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/witchtrial/na.html (accessed
April 12, 2015).
Carroll, Meghan. Salem Witch Trials, Profiles. 2001.
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people/osborne.html (accessed April 12, 2015).
Jury, Wicasta Lovelace & Christie. The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and
James Sprenger. 1999. http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/ (accessed 3 29,
2015).
Legal, US. USLegal.com. n.d. http://definitions.uslegal.com/s/spectral-evidence/
(accessed April 16, 2015).
Lienhard, John H. Rye Ergot and Witches. 1997.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1037.htm (accessed April 13, 2015).
Ray, Benjamin. Salem Transcription Project. 2002. http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/
(accessed March 30, 2015).
Sutter, Tim. Salem Witch Trials. 2000-2003.
http://www.salemwitchtrials.com/salemwitchcraft.html (accessed 3 31, 2015).
Walker, Rachel. Salem Witch Trials: Cottn Mather. 2001.
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people/c_mather.html (accessed April 13, 2015).

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