Today in Salem: The tavern keeper is fast with his quill, so eager to sign the petition that the quill catches on the paper and the ink splotches at the first stroke. This witchcraft hysteria is just that, he thinks. Hysteria. At best, those “afflicted” girls are misguided. At worst, they’re liars and trollops, drunk on attention and throwing accusations around like it’s a game. Now they’ve caught the beloved Rebecca Nurse in their net. So when one of his customers asks him to sign a petition attesting to Rebecca’s character, he doesn’t hesitate.
Nearby, a venerable old man nods and points at the paper. So the tavern keeper signs his name, too. Then of course there’s the tavern keeper’s wife, who’s incensed by the accusations against Rebecca and insists on writing her own first name. And there’s his 36-year-old daughter, who never married and has been God’s own blessing to him and his wife. He signs her name, too, then blows on the wet ink before handing the petition back to his customer.
In Boston, the prominent minister Cotton Mather is writing and praying about the “horrible enchantments and possessions” that have broken out in Salem. Could some of the prisoners be innocent? Is it possible that their specters are the Devil in disguise?
LEARN MORE: Why were some people against the search for witches? Wasn’t it dangerous to disagree?
Three kinds of records have survived the centuries: church, legal, and personal.
Church sermons paint witchcraft as a tool of Satan. Puritans believed that when bad things happened, it was because they had sinned, and God was allowing Satan to hurt them. Witchcraft was one of Satan’s tools.
Legal records show an intellectual approach to solving problems. Before Salem, calling someone a witch was sometimes just a legal (not moral) problem between arguing neighbors, and disputes could be settled in court. (This is why many of the accused people in Salem had mothers or grandmothers who’d been called witches, with nothing ever coming of it.)
Personal records, like diaries, are very few. From those we do have, it’s clear that while people often looked to the church to understand misfortune, they also knew that the world can be a naturally dangerous place. When bad things happen, it might have nothing to do with whether they’d sinned. Maybe the world is just a hard place.
Salem of 1692 was unusual in that the legal system had completely caved in to the religious one. There was no check or balance. (In fact, that tricky relationship between the church and the courts is the root of the American constitution’s separation of church and state.) Calling someone a witch was suddenly the same thing as accusing them of witchcraft.
300 years later we can see that the collapse was caused by a perfect storm of political upheaval, colonization of native lands, brutally cold weather patterns, and disease epidemics. At the time, though, it was a tremendous shock. Making it worse, children were suddenly holding immense power over adults, overturning the entire social order. Young girls called adults witches, and almost all of them went to jail, with 20 executed. In normal times, children couldn’t speak in church, court, or really anywhere in public. And now they were standing up and shouting during sermons, wailing and collapsing in court, and causing a stir in the taverns.
Was it dangerous to object? Sometimes. Calling an afflicted girl a liar could provoke her into accusing you – and she always won. Now, though, with petitions and letters, people could object in groups. There was safety in numbers.
Tomorrow in Salem: ARRESTED: Widows, a burglar, and a minister