The Salem Witch Trials An Introduction to Hysteria

The Background In 1689, Reverend Samuel Parris became village minister in Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts)

More Background He was unpopular from the start. By early 1692, his family was nearly starving -- the Village had cut him off financially.

The Evil Hand January, 1692: Parris’s daughter Betty (age 9) and niece Abigail (age 12) began acting strangely. They had fits, blasphemed (cursed God) heavily, etc. Prayers could not stop their behavior. The Village doctor said they were suffering “The Evil Hand.”

The First Cry of “Witch” A neighbor had Parris’s slave make a witch cake -- made from the girls’ urine & fed to the family dog. This cake, local magic lore said, would cause the girls to confess the names of the witches.

“Witch!” They identify: Sarah Good (a homeless woman), Tituba (Parris’s slave), and Sarah Osburn (a socially unpopular woman) What do these women have in common?

Clarification of Terms To the Puritans, the word witch had a very specific meaning: one who associated with or is in a league with Satan.

Tituba’s Confession The slave, Tituba, confessed that Parris had beaten her and made her confess. She said that she did consort with the devil, who appeared to her “sometimes like a hog and sometimes like a great dog.”

The Accusations Continue Accusations of witchcraft spread like wildfire. People began saying that they, too, had been harmed or afflicted by witches. Many of the accused were social problematic -- people who went against the normal social order.

A New Turn Over the spring of 1692, many highly respected women of Salem Village began to be accused.

The Witch Court In May 1692, the Governor of Massachusetts established a special witchcraft Court. This court began to hear witchcraft cases.

“Evidence” Various forms of evidence were accepted in the court: –confessions & accusations –“witchmarks” –reactions of those afflicted to the accused –spectral evidence -- the Devil could take the form of an innocent person

The Examination of a Witch

Bridget Bishop Bridget Bishop is convicted of witchcraft in early June. On June 10, 1692, Bishop was hanged to death for witchcraft.

Totals By the end of the trials, 19 people were hanged for witchcraft. At least 5 more died of poor conditions in prison. One man was tortured to death for refusing to stand trial. (He was pressed with stones until dead.)

In summary In the words of Martha Carrier, one of the accused: –“It is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits.” In what ways were the people of Salem Village “out of their wits?”