SALEM WITCHCRAFT TRIALS 1692

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SALEM WITCHCRAFT TRIALS (1692)
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Complainants

• Children young women under 25 years

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VERSUS

• Older women (less powerful, less protected, poor,
  outspoken, vulnerable, out of their role,
  dubious reputations)
• Fit 17th century stereotype of witches

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Maleficium

• Spells to cause illness or loss of property to
  their victims
• Can be characterized by the familiar spirit,
  witchs mark and/or animal shapes

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Explanations

• Misogynywidows who had no male protector (women
  were the weaker sex) therefore, more vulnerable
  to attacks by the Devil more likely to engage
  in Black Arts

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Demographics

• Salem Village
• (poor, Puritan farmers)
• vs
• Salem Town
• (seaport, wealthier church members)

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Issues of power and authority

• Salem Village was agricultural wanted own
  meeting house wanted incorporation
• BUT Salem Town would not let them

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Property disputes
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Tension in the Village

• Rev. Samuel Parris ministry
• Proximity
• those north east of town were more
  sympathetic to the Town than to the Village

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• Competition between families for power
• authority

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• Faking/natural hallucinogen/imagination
• Most historians have found that the children
  were, for the most part, being genuine.

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• HOWEVER, there were some contrived actions
  possible prearranged collusion.

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Contributing Factors

• Gossip
• One local newspaperinformation was spread
  through family neighbor networksinstrument of
  power for those who were basically powerless

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• Intellectual milieu
• In a Pre-Enlightenment
• Pre-Scientific Revolution world
• Witchcraft sorcery were a way to explain
  natural phenomena (common in early modern Europe
  America).

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• Impact of war
• Indians/Dutch, Indians/French,
  Indians/settlers
• King Philips War (1670s)
• King Williams War (1688)

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• Many settlers exposed to war were war refugees.
• Family members killed in wars.
• Did not feel protected or safe.
• Anxiety or posttraumatic stress symptoms.
• Essex Countytemporary safe haven for war
  refugees.

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Women were more likely to be accused executed.
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Problems with the Trial

• 1. Children under 14 could not testify under
  oath in court in capital felony cases.
• 2. First three examining judges were not college
  educated they undermined English tradition of
  judicial restraintassumed accused were guilty.

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• 3. Trials did not take place in June when they
  should have been scheduled.
• 4. Judges did not separate the afflicted
  for questioning to compare different accounts.

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• 5. All of the accused who were executed insisted
  that they were innocent.
• 6. Those who confessed to witchcraft were not
  hanged.

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• 7. English trial manuals required two witnesses
  to the witchcraft incident in the absence of a
  believable confessionThis was normal practice.

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• Within five years of the trials, one judge 12
  jurors formally apologized for their roles in
  the affair.
• Within 20 years the Massachusetts government
  acknowledged its responsibility in what by then
  were viewed as unjust proceedings.

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• The little girls who initiated the crisis
  probably would not have persisted without the
  participation of older teenagers especially the
  afflicted confessing adults.

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Results

• 54 confessions of witchcraft
• 14 women hanged
• Five men hanged
• One man pressed to death
• Three women died in custody along with several
  infants
• One man died in custody