American History: Salem Witch Trials 1692

One of the most widespread misunderstandings about the Salem episode is the belief that the condemned victims were burned-at-the-stake. While this form of execution was commonly practiced in continental Europe in cases of witchcraft and heresy, it was much less common in England. This is especially true after the reign of Mary "Bloody Mary" Tudor who attempted to bring Roman Catholicism back to her nation by a ruthless persecution of Protestants in the mid-1500's.

In 17th century New England, however, there is no existing record of anyone being burned-at-the-stake. Those individuals found guilty and executed for witchcraft were hanged.

One would like to think that this method of execution was used in an effort to provide a more humane form of death than being burned alive. In actuality, the customary method of hanging in the 1600's was the so-called "short-drop", and it was excruciating.

In this method the victim would be forced to ascend a ladder under a projecting branch of a tree. A rope and noose would be tied to the branch overhead then the noose placed around the neck of the condemned standing upon a rung of the ladder. The ladder would then be turned or pulled out from below, leaving the victim suspended from the branch by the rope.

In this method of public execution, the condemned died of gradual strangulation over a period of several minutes. It was often used to execute persons guilty of murder, grand larceny, piracy and other serious anti-social behavior.

In this way each of the nineteen victims of the Salem episode died a slow and agonizing death. Unfortunately, they lived over a hundred years before the development of the more rapid and humane "long-drop"---an execution method incorporating a gallows with trap door designed to quickly drop the victim several feet, snapping the neck of the condemned person.

The Salem witchcraft trials are perhaps the most well known and yet misunderstood series of events in American history. They are not unique to colonial New England since literally dozens of witchcraft cases took place in Massachusetts and Connecticut prior to 1692. They are not unique to Puritanism, nor should the Puritans as a group be castigated for the then pervasive belief in witchcraft which was common among the people of Europe--rich or poor, educated or ignorant, Protestant, Catholic, noble or commoner, from earliest times down to the advent of the Enlightenment.

The Salem trials have been wrongfully used by some historians, and by more than a few less academic writers, as a means to discredit the New England Puritans and their 17th Century effort to establish a reformed, theocratic commonwealth in the New World. Not discounting the great travesty of justice the Salem episode represents, frankly, it might have been much worse. Consider that of the over two-hundred individuals who were "cried out against" by the so-called, "afflicted children", only twenty-three convictions are brought in. Nineteen persons are convicted and ultimately hanged and one very brave and somewhat uncooperative individual--Gile Corey--is subjected to death by the torture of forte peine et dure ("pressing")---a medieval practice allowed by English Common Law, and not devised by some pathological Puritan court officer.

In fact, the great majority of cases involving witchcraft in Puritan New England beginning in the 1640's and ending in the 1690's resulted in verdicts of innocence or dismissal, not conviction and execution. This compares quite favorably to the multiple thousands of cases of alleged witchcraft in Europe, the majority of which resulted in conviction and death for those accused between 1400 and 1700. This tragic point is, I believe, often conveniently overlooked by those who wish to characterize the Puritans of New England as a group of unusually intolerant, fanatics bent upon harming all those who did not confrom to their highly regimented and, to most contemporary observers, distastefully religious way-of-life.

It is their way of saying to their readers in effect, "See! This is what comes of a society determined to be devoted to a standard of faith based upon the teachings of Christ...fanaticism, judgmentalism, hypocrisy and persecution!"

In actuality, the 17th Cenury was, by-in-large an intolerant and violent time in which to live regardless of one's religious beliefs and personal perspective. Everyone--Protestant and Catholic--sought a place where they might live without fear of persecution. It is time that contemporary historians and writers attempt to understand the Salem witchcraft episode as it fits within the larger context of European culture and society, and not as some aberrant, localized manifestation of Puritan Calvinist theology.