Salem Witch Trials

In January 1692, in the predominantly Puritan village of Salem in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and Abigail Williams, the young daughter and niece, respectively, of minister Samuel Parris, began acting strangely. Their bizarre symptoms included convulsions, hallucinations and fits of screaming. Faced with symptoms he could not link to any known disease, the local doctor gave the diagnosis of "bewitched." That diagnosis set off a string of accusations of witchcraft throughout Salem, leading to the trial of more than 200 colonists (some estimates put that number at 300) and the deaths of more than 24 people.

Those accused of witchcraft had two options: They could confess and be "saved" or go to trial. With the court's acceptance of spectral evidence (in which the afflicted claimed to have seen the specter of the person accused of doing harm), and the fact that there were no defense lawyers to defend the accused at the time, those who went to trial were likely to be found guilty and executed.

Between June and September 1692, 19 women and men who refused to confess to the crime of witchcraft were found guilty and hanged on Gallows Hill, just outside Salem. In addition, one person was sentenced to death by crushing, and at least four died in prison. Many more were accused of witchcraft and languished in prison until a general pardon was issued in May 1693.

Salem was not the first colonial village in which people had been accused of being witches. Claims of witchcraft were common in Europe, and the colonists brought their belief in witches to the New World. There had been several accusations of witchcraft in the colonies prior to 1692 but Salem was unique in the scope of the accusations; nowhere else in the colonies had so many been accused in such a short time. And no one was immune; people as young as four were imprisoned, and even prominent citizens, such as the wife of Massachusetts Governor William Phips, were accused.

The frenzy in Salem subsided later that year. In the wake of the trials, people tried to answer the question, Why did they happen? How could the combination of events and beliefs at that time have gotten so out of control that neighbors turned against each other and created an epidemic of fear and confusion? Were the trials fueled merely by the Puritans' belief in witchcraft, or were there other, more secular factors at work?

On the one hand, some concluded that the witch trials were motivated by the beliefs of the Puritans; God was always in the forefront of their minds and the struggle between good and evil went on daily. Supporters of that theory noted that Puritans believed strongly in the Devil, and believed that his work was carried out through witchcraft. Bringing suspected witches to trial was necessary to stop the Devil from destroying the community, the Puritans believed.

Furthermore, those who believed that the trials were motivated by the Puritans' religion said that the colonists at the time were primed to accept a diagnosis of "witchcraft" made by doctors who could find no other explanation for the patients' odd behavior. They pointed out that Cotton Mather, a respected Boston minister and leading figure behind the witch trials, had written a widely read book on witchcraft, Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689), in which he told the story of four children of the Goodwin family who were bewitched by their Irish laundress, Mary (Goody) Glover. Parris and Williams presented symptoms similar to those presented by the Goodwin children in Mather's book, they noted, as well as by others in the area who came to be diagnosed as bewitched. [See Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (Excerpts) (primary document)]

However, others argued that the witchcraft trials were the result of more than a simple belief in witchcraft. For instance, they said, rivalries between the wealthy of Salem Town and the subsistence farmers of Salem Village fostered grudges that would have made it easy for witchcraft accusations to have been traded. Others suggested that the girls who made the first accusations were merely bored adolescents whose heads were filled with tales of witchcraft from popular books of the time, and who accused others of witchcraft for the fun of it.

Others claimed that the courts were essentially stacked against the defendants, so that the accused could only be found guilty. For instance, they pointed out, the accused did not have legal counsel, and were not allowed to call witnesses to testify in their defense. Furthermore, they noted, the chief justice's training was in theology, not law.

A History of Witchcraft Trials in the American Colonies

Puritans were Protestants living in England who became increasingly discontented with the Church of England because it had become enmeshed in political struggles. Radicalized, the Puritans fought for moral reform in the church they loved, and railed against the traditional trappings and formalities of the Anglican Church. It was their idea to restore the church to its purest form—with the Bible being God's law and containing His divine plan for humanity. They interpreted that plan in its strictest, most literal sense. Puritans also believed that individuals could communicate directly with God. That did not suit the Anglican Church hierarchy, which made it increasingly difficult for Puritan merchants to do business with it.

Feeling that reform was impossible, the Puritans fled England for the New World and set up individual colonies mostly in present-day New England. The first Puritans settled in Salem in 1629.

Salem was not the first place to undergo a wave of witchcraft trials. In fact, belief in witchcraft predated the colonies by centuries. In the early 10th century, the Roman Catholic Church, in the Canon Episcopi, had declared that belief in witchcraft was heresy. But by the 13th century, Pope Gregory IX had authorized the killing of witches. And in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull declaring that witches did indeed exist, making it heresy to believe otherwise. Witch trials and executions would become common over the following centuries.

The belief in witchcraft was shared by the Puritans, who brought it with them to the American colonies. Witchcraft was defined, at that time, as the malevolent use of sorcery or magic against persons or the community. The power of that sorcery was believed to come from a witch who had made a pact with the Devil. Belief in witchcraft commonly led to accusations against supposed witches. According to historian Frederick William Poole, writing in 1869 in the North American Review, "From 1652 to the time of the great outbreak in Salem the courts of Essex County in Massachusetts were constantly investigating alleged cases of witchcraft."

One such case involved Martha Goodwin, 13, daughter of Boston mason John Goodwin. In 1688, she began exhibiting strange behavior, crying out and complaining of odd pains. Her brother and two sisters soon showed similar symptoms. They were undoubtedly ill but did not exhibit symptoms of any known disease. With no explanation for their condition, the children were assumed to be victims of witchcraft. The children pointed to Glover, a laundress and Irish Catholic who worked for the Goodwin family. Glover was arrested and tried for the crime of witchcraft.

While Glover was imprisoned, she was visited by the minister of the Old North Church in Boston, Mather, who tried to persuade her to renounce her pact with the Devil. But Glover asserted her innocence and was hanged on November 16, 1688. That year, Mather wrote Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, documenting the entire ordeal.

Clearly, the belief in witchcraft was well-established in Puritan life. But although reports of "witchcraft" occurred sporadically throughout the era, it was not until the Salem witch hunt that such accusations would be made on such a large scale.

The months preceding the witchcraft accusations were difficult ones for Salem residents. Conflicts with the Indians were common, the village had been struck by an outbreak of smallpox, and the winter was particularly harsh. In addition, the villagers had grown displeased with their minister, Parris, who was seeking greater compensation for performing his duties; in October 1691, they attempted to withhold his salary. In response, Parris preached about a conspiracy against him and the church led by Satan.

Against that backdrop, in January 1692 Williams and Elizabeth Parris began to act strangely, exhibiting symptoms similar to those of the Goodwin children. Their bizarre behavior included dashing about, falling down in contorted poses, diving under furniture, experiencing hallucinations and feeling like they were being pinched or bitten. When the village doctor, William Griggs, could not come up with a medical diagnosis, he turned to the only other resource he had in 1692: his Puritan religion. That religion told him that all things unexplainable were either from God or the Devil. He said that in his opinion the children were bewitched.

When other young women began to exhibit the same strange symptoms, the nearby ministers joined Samuel Parris and prayed for them. The doctor, neighboring ministers and gentlemen of the village, baffled by the bizarre symptoms and already familiar with Cotton Mather's book Memorable Providences and other accounts of witchcraft, came to what they thought was a logical conclusion—the girls had been afflicted by "an evil hand."

The Salem Witch Hunt and the Accused

The number of young women afflicted in Salem increased during the following weeks. Most were playmates of Parris. By late February, she was pressured to identify her tormenter and she accused Tituba, the Parris's West Indian house slave. Parris and Abigail Williams also accused Salem residents Sarah Good, who had become homeless a decade earlier when she could not repay her debts and made her living begging door to door, and Sarah Osborne, who was elderly and did not go to church because she was bedridden, of being witches. On February 29, 1692, arrest warrants were issued for the accused witches, and the witch hunts began.

In March, Salem magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hawthorne examined Tituba, Good and Osborne for "witches teats." It was believed that witches could be identified by the presence of extra teats—possibly in the form of a mole—that the Devil's familiars could suckle. With most of the town present, the three women were examined and asked questions about their complicity in the Devil's work. Following is an excerpt from the transcript of the questioning of Good:

Good continued to assert her innocence. (Good's four-year-old daughter, Dorcas, was also imprisoned for witchcraft.) Tituba, however, under repeated questioning, confessed to the practice of witchcraft. She also implicated Good and Osborne as her co-conspirators, saying that they pressed her to hurt the children. According to the transcript, Tituba testified that "I Ride upon a stick or pole & Good & Osburne behind me, we Ride taking hold of one another, don't know how we go for I Saw no trees nor path, but was presently there." [See Testimony of Accused Witches Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba (primary document), Death Warrant for Accused Witches (primary document)]

When Williams accused Rebecca Nurse, a 71-year old woman with a good reputation, Nurse's sister, Sarah Cloyce, tried to defend her and she was accused of witchcraft as well. Elizabeth Proctor, who ran her family's tavern, was also accused of witchcraft by her servant, who had been recently accused of stealing linens. At the examinations, several members of the community came forward with accounts of butter gone bad or animals born with deformities—all happening after visits by the accused. By now, 12-year old Ann Putnam, who was friends with several of the afflicted children, and 17-year-old Mercy Lewis, a servant of the Putnam's, were also reporting sightings of "witches flying through the winter mist."

When magistrates Hawthorne and Corwin examined Proctor, her husband, John Proctor, protested and became the first male accused of witchcraft in the trials—even though Mary Warren, Proctor's accuser, admitted to lying under oath and accused the other young women of doing the same. The Proctors were examined before Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth and other dignitaries from Boston. A week later Warren, while being examined, retracted her claim of having lied and again joined the accusers. [See Accused Witch John Proctor's Petition for Mercy (primary document)]

By mid-May, 15 more people had been accused of witchcraft and were examined and imprisoned, including Harvard College graduate and former Salem Village minister George Burroughs, who had left Salem following a dispute over his salary. He was arrested at his home in Wells, Maine, and taken to Salem for examination. Burroughs was portrayed by many of the accusers and the accused as the leader of all the witches. One accuser, Lewis, testified that Burroughs "carried me up to an exceeding high mountain and shewed me all the kingdoms of the earth and tould me that he would give them all to me if I would writ in his book."

Also in mid-May, Phips, the newly appointed governor of the colony, arrived in Boston. After assessing the situation in Salem, Phips on May 27 created a specific court to handle the witchcraft trials, a Court of Oyer and Terminer (from the Anglo-French meaning "to hear and to determine").

Phips appointed six judges, and William Stoughton as chief justice. Stoughton had a degree in theology, not law, from Harvard College, and allowed many deviations from the usual courtroom procedure. In addition to allowing spectral evidence, Stoughton's court allowed spectators to interrupt the procedures with personal remarks, hearsay, gossip and unsubstantiated allegations. He also allowed the judges (also without formal legal training) to take the role of prosecutors and interrogate the witnesses.

The first "witch" put on trial, Bridget Bishop, was selected by prosecutor Thomas Newton possibly because he had the strongest case against her. She had been in court before for arguing with her husband, and in 1680 she had been tried and cleared of witchcraft. Bishop's flamboyant lifestyle (she owned two taverns, had been married three times, had flirted with her husbands in public and dressed outrageously by Puritan standards) likely harmed her case. The court found her guilty, and she was tried, convicted and hanged in eight days, proclaiming her innocence all the way to the gallows.

The haste with which Bishop was tried and executed alarmed many. Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall, for example, was so horrified by the proceedings that after Bishop's trial he resigned from the court. He was replaced by magistrate Jonathan Corwin.

At the request of other ministers from the surrounding area, Mather wrote a letter to the court saying that "perhaps" spectral evidence should not be admitted to the trials, but urged at the end of the letter that the court quickly "cleanse the land of witches."

The court apparently ignored Mather's warning about "convicting only on spectral evidence" but took to heart his exhortation to "cleanse the land," and the pace of the trials picked up. Five more women—Good, Susannah Martin (from the nearby town of Amesbury), Sarah Wildes (from Topsfield) and Elizabeth Howe (from Ipswich)—were all tried and convicted. They were hanged on July 19th.

The Puritan community expected to hear confessions at the gallows, which would confirm the righteousness of their actions. When Nurse, an upstanding member of the community, refused to confess, many began to doubt the court's decision to hang her. Some of those who spoke out against the trials were themselves accused of witchcraft.

As the trials continued, George Jacobs Sr., the Proctors, John Willard, Martha Carrier, and Burroughs were all pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang. (Four of Carrier's five children were also imprisoned for witchcraft.) Elizabeth Proctor was spared, however, because she was pregnant. Just before his hanging, Burroughs protested his innocence and correctly recited the "Lord's Prayer," which a witch (or wizard, as male witches were sometimes referred to) was not believed to be able to do. Several onlookers in the crowd called for him to be pardoned, but the hanging proceeded.

Not all of those put to death by the court were hanged. Giles Cory, husband of Martha Cory, expressing contempt for the proceedings, had refused to stand trial. The punishment for not standing trial was being crushed to death under rocks; it took Cory, who was in his eighties, two full days to die.

Believing confession to be the only way avoid execution, some admitted to witchcraft. "They told me if I would not confess I should be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should save my life," said Margaret Jacob, a young woman who, a day before she was to be executed, confessed to witchcraft and also testified against her grandfather, Jacobs Sr. It was a difficult decision: confessing to save your life or dying for a faith that was central to your very existence. In confessing, they also convinced the court that it was on the right track. [See Accused Witch Margaret Jacobs Recants Her Confession of Being a Witch (Excerpt) (primary document)]

On September 22, eight more of the convicted Salem witches were hanged, bringing the total to 19. Cory's execution raised the death toll to 20, and at least four more suspected of witchcraft—and, according to some accounts, as many as 13 more—died in prison.

As news of the trials spread through the region, the educated elite began to call for more reasonable action. Those opposing the trials were not particularly moved by the pleas of women on the gallows or the outrage of their families, but were mainly concerned with the community's descent into chaos.

Prominent Puritan ministers met in College Hall at Harvard on August 1 and asked Increase Mather, a prominent Puritan clergyman and Cotton Mather's father, to write a warning letter to the courts about convicting a person of witchcraft solely on spectral evidence. Increase Mather was the acknowledged leader of the Ministerial Association, as well as a prominent orator and respected author. When he presented his letter to the association on October 3—in which he warned, "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned"—13 of his fellow ministers signed it in a show of support. (Mather reportedly changed his position on spectral evidence amid rumors that his wife would soon be named as a witch). [See Increase Mather's Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits (Excerpt) (primary document)]

The document, titled Cases of Conscience, is generally thought to have helped influence Phips to disallow spectral evidence. However, the fact that Phips's wife had also been accused of witchcraft might also have had some bearing. In fact, the accusation of Phips's wife—who had many prominent friends—is also credited with slowing the accusations; many people thought it was inconceivable that she could be a witch, and there was a sense that things had gone too far.

On October 8, Phips disallowed spectral evidence. Three weeks later, he dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer and declared that no more arrests of accused witches would be made. The Court of Oyer and Terminer was replaced by a Superior Court of Judicature to hear the cases that had not yet gone to trial. With spectral evidence disallowed, 28 of the last 33 accused witches were acquitted. Three of the convicted witches were eventually pardoned, and in May 1693, Phips ordered the release of all remaining suspected or convicted witches still in prison.

Thus, the witchcraft trials were brought to an end. But debate remained—and remains to this day—over how they could have occurred in the first place.

The Case for the Belief in Witchcraft

What led to the Salem witch trials? According to one theory, the Puritans in Salem were motivated by religious belief in witchcraft, and believed that the accused were witches. Puritan interpretation of the Bible and the common knowledge of the time held that witches and witchcraft were real. According to Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson, who wrote about the witch trials as governor in the 1870s, "Whilst the tragedy was acting, there were but few people who doubted the hand of the Devil, and fewer that dared to own their doubts."

In 1693, in Wonders of the Invisible World, Cotton Mather described the relationship between witchcraft and the devil:

These witches have met in hellish randezvouzes, wherein the confessors do say they have had their diabolical sacraments, imitating the baptism and supper of our Lord. In these hellish meetings, these monsters have associated themselves to do no less a thing than destroy the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ in these parts of the world. First they each of them have their specters, or devils, commissioned by them and representing of them, to be the engines of their malice. By thee wicked specters they seize poor people about the country, with various and bloody torments.... It is the general concession of all men that the invitation of witchcraft is the thing that has now introduced the Devil into the midst of us.

To deny the presence of witches would have been to deny the scriptural foundations of their belief system, supporters of that theory said. They pointed to the King James Version of the Bible, which stated in the book of Exodus, "You shall not permit a witch to live." That strict interpretation of the Bible and a history of belief in witchcraft left the Puritans with little doubt that the Devil was in their midst and it was their Puritan duty to root it out and destroy it, proponents of that theory said. In his 1731 Lectures on Witchcraft, historian Charles Upham described the impact of the first witchcraft trial on the villagers:

It was felt that then, on that spot, the most momentous crisis in the world's history had come. A crime, in comparison with which all other crimes sink out of notice, was being notoriously and defiantly committed in their midst. The great enemy of God and man was let loose among them. What had filled the hearts of mankind for ages, the world over, with dread apprehension, was come to pass; and in that village the great battle, on whose issue the preservation of the kingdom of the Lord on the earth was suspended, had begun. Indeed, no language, no imagery, no conception of ours, can adequately express the feeling of awful and terrible solemnity with which all were overwhelmed.

In fact, some said, given the prevailing view of witchcraft at the time, and the commonness of witch trials in England, what was surprising was not the fact that the Salem witch hunt happened, but that such events did not happen more often. "It has been estimated...that those who perished under the statutes for this absurd crime in England was not less than thirty thousand," Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin, a politician, wrote about witchcraft in New England magazine in 1893, adding, "In view of these facts, is it not well to mitigate our prejudice against the witch hunters of Salem, and to marvel rather that, at a time when the wisest of Old England were holding such a carnival of blood over witchcraft, our New England colonists yielded but once to a superstition upheld by the church and prevalent all over Christendom?"

Many historians blamed Cotton Mather for fueling the colonists' belief in witchcraft, leading to the trials. Mather, they said, saw himself as locked in a struggle with the Devil that could be won only if Puritan beliefs were strictly adhered to. Mather preached that "Satan is marshaling his forces for a final decision," and he focused on the sinister threats of witchcraft in the three years leading up to the Salem trials. By propagating his beliefs, and through his book Wonders of the Invisible World, Mather set the stage for the trials, those historians said.

In History of Harvard University (1836), Josiah Quincy wrote: "[Mather] incurred the responsibility of being [the Salem witch hunt's] chief cause and promoter. In the progress of the superstitious fear, which amounted to frenzy, and could only be satisfied with blood, he neither blenched nor halted; but attended the courts, watched the progress of invisible agency in the prisons, and joined the multitude in witnessing the executions."

Some did not believe in witchcraft, but argued instead that the afflicted were deluded by the Devil into believing they were victims of witchcraft. "There are two or three other things I have observed in and by these afflicted persons, which make me strongly suspect that the Devill imposes upon their brains, and deludes their fancye and imagination; and that the Devill's book (which they say has been offered them) is a mere fancye of theirs, and no reality," Boston scholar Thomas Brattle wrote to a clergyman in 1692. "I am very apt to think, that, did you know the circumstances of the said Confessours, you would not be swayed thereby, any otherwise than to be confirmed, that all is perfect Devilism, and an Hellish design to ruine and destroy this poor land," he added.

The Case for More Mundane Explanations

While some held to the theory that Puritan beliefs were behind the Salem witch hunt, others came up with other reasons. Some pointed to Salem's socioeconomic problems as the cause of the events. They noted that there was a rift between the wealthy port town of Salem and its poorer rural neighbor, Salem Village. There was a further division in Salem Village itself—between colonists who lived nearer to Salem Town and prospered as merchants, blacksmiths and innkeepers, and the subsistence farmers who lived on the far edge of the village. The rural Salem farmer might have believed the more prosperous villagers to be a threat to the way of life the Puritans left England to preserve, they speculated. Some of those farmers thought that prosperity was the Devil's work.

Supporters of this theory stated that the witchcraft accusations stemmed from petty jealousies within the divided community. "With persons actuated simply by malice, the easiest method of annoying a neighbor, or of ridding a community of a pestilent old woman, was by setting on foot a charge of witchcraft against them," historian Poole wrote.

Others pointed to the nature of the girls who had made the claim; while some said they were echoing the jealousies of the adults, others speculated that it was a case of imaginative girls who were simply bored. Reading was a popular pastime when harsh New England weather kept people inside, they pointed out. And at that time, they noted, English books about witches and witchcraft were popular. In the 1770s, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson wrote The Witchcraft Delusion of 1692. In it, he described the theory that the girls had been influenced by several books about witchcraft written in Europe and available in the colonies: [See Massachusetts Governor Hutchinson's "The Salem Witchcraft Delusion of 1692" (Excerpts) (primary document)]

All these books were in New England; and the conformity between the behavior of Goodwin's children and most of the supposed bewitched at Salem and the behavior of those in England is so exact as to leave no room to doubt the stories had been read by New England persons themselves, or had been told to them by others who had read them. Indeed, this conformity, instead of giving suspicion, was urged in confirmation of the truth of both: the Old England demons and the New being so much alike.

Overall, Hutchinson concluded, "I hope an impartial narrative of the supposed witchcraft at Salem will convince the New-England reader that there was no thing preternatural in the whole affair; but all proceeded from the most amazing wickedness of the accusers." In fact, even at the time, some began to question the nature of the charges against the supposed witches. "It cannot be imagined that in a place of so much knowledge, so many in so small a compass of land should abominably leap into the Devil's lap at once," Reverend John Hale wrote. [See Reverend Hale's Modest Enquiry into Why the Witchcraft Trials Went so Far (Excerpt) (primary document)]

The legal system was also a factor in the sheer volume of people convicted and hanged in Salem in 1692, argued those who believed in more worldly causes for the trials. Once the accused entered the legal system, they noted, they had very few of the protections that modern defendants take for granted. For instance, they said, the accused had no legal counsel, as all lawyers back then were strictly prosecutors, and they could not have people testify in their behalf under oath and did not have formal avenues of appeal.

After Governor Phips used his executive authority to commission the Court of Oyer and Terminer—with spectral evidence deemed permissible—the court surely became stacked against the accused, they said. Undoubtedly, Mather's widely read book on witchcraft and his interest in "cleansing [Salem's] land of witches" played a large part in the court's decisions as well, they said.

Adherents to that theory pointed out that Chief Justice Stoughton had no legal education—he held a degree in theology, not law. That may be why Stoughton allowed many deviations from the usual courtroom procedure, they said. In addition to allowing spectral evidence, the court allowed spectators to interrupt the proceedings rather blatantly. He also allowed the judges—also without formal legal training—to act as prosecutors and interrogate the witnesses, they pointed out.

Debate over Salem Witch Trials Continues

It may seem nearly impossible explain the actions that led to the deaths of at least 24 people for the crime of witchcraft at a time when the Age of Reason was dawning and the scientific worldview was beginning to take hold. But it is important to remember that from the Puritan point of view, hanging witches was eminently reasonable. Indeed, most believed it was crucial to the survival of their community. Unable to understand extremely frightening symptoms and lacking the medical knowledge or proper medication to help their children, the people of Salem were grasping at straws. The Salem witch "crisis" put the Puritans' ability to survive in doubt.

On the other hand, it seems that had one small piece of the puzzle been removed, or had something been looked at slightly differently, things could have been different. How could the disparate circumstances in Salem combine to produce such results? There are those who argue that the Salem Trials of 1692 are a "perfect storm" of events and attitudes; although the odds were firmly stacked against such a unique confluence of circumstances, they nevertheless all came together in Salem, causing the deaths of innocent people while simultaneously tearing a town apart.

Had the Puritans not been so willing to see witchcraft in every unexplained misfortune, had the division between Salem Village and the more prosperous Salem Town not been tailor-made for pointing fingers, had the winter not been so harsh and an outbreak of smallpox so virulent, and had Mather not written his book or stirred up the furor he did, the Salem witch trials might not have gotten out of control. Other towns in the colonies hanged witches, but never on the scope of the proceedings of Salem.

Debate over the witch hunt continues to the present day, and more-scientific explanations have been posited. Some argue that the girls' strange symptoms were genuine, but that the cause of the symptoms was medical, not supernatural. Linda Caporals, for example, proposed in a 1976 article in Science that rye fungus, or ergot, caused the hallucinations and convulsions the girls experienced and might have caused their extremities to become gangrenous, which would explain why they looked bitten.

Laurie Winn Carlson, meanwhile, in her book A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials (1999), makes a case for an unrecognized epidemic of encephalitis. Some of the symptoms reported in Salem are similar to the symptoms of encephalitis. Other towns back then, however, reported the same symptoms, but did not get quite as carried away as Salem in their pursuit of witches.

Whatever the reason for the witchcraft trials, it soon became quite clear among those involved that many innocent people had been wronged. The members of the jury signed a written apology for its role in the trials, stating "we fear we have been instrumental, with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood." Those who had accused others of witchcraft also apologized. And in 1711, the Massachusetts Bay Colony approved legislation restoring the good names of all who had been accused or convicted, and giving their families monetary compensation. However, the apologies did not erase the lasting impact made by the trials. [See Jury Apology in the Salem Witch Trials (primary document)]

Discussion Questions & Activities

1) What factors do you think were most responsible for the witchcraft hysteria in Salem in 1692?

2) Why do you think the Salem witch trials, and the causes of the "witch hunt," continue to be of such great interest more than three centuries later?

3) Read Issues & Controversies in American History article "McCarthyism." Do you see any similarities between the witchcraft trials of 1692 and anticommunist hearings of the 1950s?

4) Could anything have been done at the time to ensure that those accused of witchcraft received a fair trial?

5) Read Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," about the Salem witch trials. How does Miller portray the accused and their accusers? How accurate do you think those portrayals are—do you think Miller took literary license with them?

Bibliography

Aronson, Marc. Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 2005.

Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006 (reprint).

Carlson, Laurie Winn. A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trails. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.

Hale, John. A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft. Boston, Mass. : Town House, 1702.

Hutchinson, Thomas. The Witchcraft Delusion of 1692 in History of Massachusetts Bay. Boston, Mass.: Frederick William Poole, 1870.

Mather, Cotton. Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions. Boston, Mass.: 1689

Mather, Increase. Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits. Boston, Mass.: 1693.

Poole, Frederick William. "Cotton Mather and Salem Witchcraft." North American Review, April 1869, 337.

Roache, Marilynne. Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community under Siege. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004.

Robinson, Enders. The Devil Discovered: Salem Witchcraft 1692. New York: Hippocrene Books Inc., 1991.

Upham, Charles. Salem Witchcraft: With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects. Vols. I-III. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1978 (originally published 1867).

Salem Witch Trials
Motivated by the Puritans' Belief in Witchcraft or More Mundane Factors?

By Cat Allard

Introduction