The Puritans believed that from birth a person was predestined to either go to Heaven or be condemned to Hell. Therefore they were on a constant search for evidence in a person’s behavior to determine what their place may be in the invisible world. The invisible world was where the Puritans believed God and the angels’ including the devil existed and was as real to them as the visible world. Any person behaving in a strange manner or was considered an outcast in their society was believed to be enlisted in the Devil’s service.
The Salem Witch Trials of the 1600’s resulted in countless convictions and executions of accused witches. They believed that women were more prone to practice witchcraft due to their sexist belief that women were inferior and subservient to their men. Children were also at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Their beliefs had been shaped by the Bible, ancestral tradition, and simply paranoia.
Among the first accused was Tituba, an Indian slave previously accused of entertaining her master’s children with stories and teachings of witchcraft after they had been behaving oddly. Her race alone proved to be a factor for her conviction as well. Another suspect was Sarah Good, a homeless beggar who was easily irritated. If she failed to acquire food she went about angrily mumbling. This incomprehensible rambling was believed to be her reciting curses. Also Sarah Osborne, who much like Good was irritable and never attended church, was an easy target because she had married her servant and that was thought to be strange in her society. Basically, anyone who was considered to be outside the norm of the Puritan society was suspected.
But, not even being a member of the church could shelter someone from the accusations. Martha Corey, an active member of the church and a truly outspoken woman, was skeptical of the trials against these women and spoke out against them. She was then accused herself of witchcraft. Even age proved not to be a shield. Dorothy Good, 4-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, was arrested after being manipulated by the magistrates to confess that her mother and she were witches.
Throughout the month of April more were accused and arrested. The main evidence against the accused was “spectral evidence”. This means that the person had given the Devil permission to use their “shape” to torment. So when an afflicted person claimed to “see” this “shape” that was evidence that the person must be in an alliance with the Devil. Ministers urged the court not to convict based on spectral evidence alone. Eventually, after several petitions, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill disallowing convictions to be based just on spectral evidence.
Some people concluded that an illness or death might have been caused by witchcraft. The accuser would then enter a complaint with the magistrates against the alleged witch. If the complaint was considered credible the magistrates would then have the accused arrested and then brought in for a public examination. The examination consisted of an interrogation where the magistrates pressed the suspect to confess. If the local magistrates found the person to be guilty they were then sent to be dealt with by a superior court. Once in front of the superior court, witnesses were summoned to appear before a grand jury. A person could be charged with tormenting with witchcraft or making an unlawful covenant with the Devil. Once they were indicted the person would then go to trial, sometimes in the same day, which would then result in their execution. There had been five executed on June 10, 1692, five on July 19, 1692, five August 19, 1692, and eight September 22, 1692. There were several instances when the convicts were given a reprieve but only if they were with child. They were not hanged until they had given birth and then their reprieve was up. Also there were about five cases where women had been declared guilty but their sentence was never carried out because they died in prison before it reached there execution date.
There was one case where 80-year-old Giles Corey was accused of witchcraft and refused to enter a plea when it came to his trial in September. He was then sentenced to a undergo a form of torture called peine fort et dure, in which he was slowly crushed by piling stones on a board that was laid upon his body. After two days of this horrid torture, Corey died without giving a plea. When a person was convicted of witchcraft, their possessions were confiscated. Sadly, not even in death were the accused allowed respects or peace.
Those that were members of the church were excommunicated and none were given a proper burial. Following their execution, their bodies would be cut down from the tree and thrown into a shallow grave then the crowd would disperse. Some say that after the hanging the families of the recently demised gathered their body and provided a respectable burial.
There were those who were extremely against these insane accusations and fought against them. The Reverend Francis Dane led the opposition and supported the denounced. He petitioned the Governor and General Court disproving the trials due to unwarranted accusations. The last witch trails took place in May of 1693. Those wrongfully accused that remained in jail were not released until they paid their jailers fees.
Many descendants of the falsely convicted still sought closure resulting in numerous petitions. They were filed from 1692 to 1711 demanding monetary consolation to those unfairly accused. In 1712 the pastor who had cast some accused individuals out of church formally cancelled their excommunication. Previously, on October 17, 1711, the General Court passed a bill reversing the judgment against 22 people listed in a 1709 petition. If a person was not listed on a petition they received no pardon and their family no restitution for their loss and shame until a later date. By 1957 descendants demanded that the General Court cleared the names of their family members. What emerged from this was an act that was passed pronouncing the innocence of those accused, but they still failed to mention all the names of those convicted. Following this in 1992 a committee persuaded the Massachusetts House of Representatives to issue a resolution honoring those who had died as a result of the witch trials. However it wasn’t signed until October 31, 2001, nearly 300 years later, finally proclaiming that all were innocent.
To sum it up, in the Puritan times, evidence to accuse someone of being a witch simply was a persons say so. They didn’t need solid proof to convict someone; their paranoia alone was enough proof for them. They had such strong and insane faith in their beliefs that they would kill anyone, without remorse, who seemed to go against or pose a threat to that.
