American History: Salem Witch Trials 1692

A number of scholars have explored the essential nature of social conflict which may have played a significant role in the Salem witchcraft episode. This is the famous conflict between the Porter and Putnam families of Salem Village. What is strange about this community division is that both of these families shared many common characteristics.

Both families were established in the Salem community during the 1640's and both had come from the same general region of England. (see: Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed, pp. 110-132.)Both families produced five sons in the first generation after settlement. In both cases, only three of these sons survived to adulthood in both families.

Finally, both families moved to Salem Village at the approximately the same time and prospered, acquiring huge amounts of farmland and becoming the prosperous leaders of the Salem Village community.

In spite of these similarities, the Putnams and the Porters were located at opposite ends of the spectrum of Salem Village society, each providing leadership to two rival factions. For the purpose of our study of the witchcraft episode it is important to note that the Putnams were strong supporters of Reverend Samuel Parris and led the pro-Parris faction while the Porters were the leaders of the anti-Parris group in Salem Village.

While the Putnams occupied positions of leadership within the Village church and did whatever was necessary to support Parris through official channels, the Porters led their faction by less obvious methods. They were, what Boyer and Nissenbaum describe as "behind-the-scenes men", rarely taking an open stand against Parris, but always striving to have him removed.

It is not too surprising therefore, that when the witchcraft episode reached the public stage and the community is drawn into the crisis, the Putnam family are prominent in aiding Reverend Parris in his campaign to discover the minions of Satan in the Village community.

In Robert Calef's "More Wonders of the Invisible World"(London, 1700),this contemporary observer noted that "that family of the Putnams,... were the chief prosecutors in this business". In fact, Boyer and Nissenbaum quantify the Putnam involvement,"Ann Putnam, the twelve-year-old daughter of Thomas Putnam,Jr.,was by far the most active of the afflicted girls, and a total of eight members of the family,..., were involved in the prosecution of no less than forty-six witches."

The more secretive and cautious Porters were inclined throughout the episode to oppose those who were promoting the witchcraft trials, but did so understandably, "cautiously and by indirection." (see: Boyer and Nissenbaum, "Salem Possessed", pp.115-16) While they were not able to stem the tide of anti-witchcraft sentiment during the first six months of 1692, by September, the Porters began to help shift public opinion in their favor and against Parris and the Court of Oyer and Terminer. This was aided by pressure brought to bear by other prominent individuals like Thomas Brattle and Robert Calef who force the governor to move the Court away from Salem to Boston by the fall of 1692.

Ultimately, the Porters and their faction, by 1696, will succeed in driving Reverend Parris out of his pulpit and Salem Village entirely. In the post-witchcraft era of Salem Village the new minister, Reverend Joseph Green is largely successful in at least bringing about a truce in the conflict between these two rival factions and their leading families---the Putnams and the Porters.

Prior to the return of newly appointed Massachusetts governor, Sir William Phips and the accompanying new provincial charter, no trials could be held for capital crimes in the colony. For this reason, between February 29 and May 25, 1692, pre-trial examinations were conducted by two, Essex County civil magistrates, Hon. John Hathorne and Hon. Jonathan Corwin.

The purpose of these hearings was to sift through the various accusations being made by the afflicted children and determine if there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial. If a trial was needed, the accused witch would be held in jail until the arrival of the new governor and charter. For this reason there were no convictions or executions between February and May.

Upon the return of Governor Phips, and the formidable Boston cleric, Reverend Increase Mather,on May 14, 1692,
steps were immediately taken by the colonial government to create a special court to try the numerous (over 50) pending witchcraft cases.

On May 25 a Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to determine) was commissioned by Phips. The presiding Chief Justice of this court was Deputy Governor William Stoghton. The six Associate Justices of the Court of Oyer and Terminer were: Samuel Sewell, William Sargent, Waite Winthrop and John Richards, all of Boston. To these were added Bartholomew Gedney of Salem and Nathaniel Saltonstall of Haverhill. By June, 1692, Nathaniel Saltonstall resigned his judicial appointment. His place was quickly filled by Hon. Jonathan Corwin, the same magistrate who had conducted the pretrial examinations prior to the governor's arrival in the colony.

What is interesting about the composition of the bench of the witch trial court is the overwhelming presence on Bostonian justices, with only Bartholomew Gedney, and later, Jonathan Corwin representing Salem.

The Shakespearean reference characterizing the Salem witch trials as the "worst" historical event, certainly might be reasonably argued by some. In a sense, the trials of 1692 were the most outrageous travesty of justice to befall the Puritan community. It involved hundreds of falsely accused individuals and over twenty related deaths by execution, torture and unjust imprisonment.

Were there other events which exceed the Salem trials in their overall social impact and negative effect? Unquestionably, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

The New England Puritan community was devastated on a far greater scale by the tragic and deadly King Philip's War conflict which raged during 1675-1676. During this disasterous event, thousands of native people and colonial settlers were displaced, entire native villages and frontier towns were destroyed and abandoned, and hundreds lost their lives.

As with the trials of 1692, the Puritan ministers reasoned that this event was an outpouring of divine wrath upon a community which had turned its back upon its mission to establish a "city upon a hill" and had broken its covenant with God.

In actuality it represented the last organized effort by an alliance of New England tribes of native people to drive the English colonists back from the frontier and stem the westward expansion of settlers. Besides the ruthless slaughter, the King Philip's War was noted for the inhumane and unjust treatment of prisoners of war. Many colonists were taken to French Canada and sold, while many natives, including the "praying Indians" of Natick and elsewhere,were forcibly confined in detention centers located on islands in Boston Harbor.

To the Puritans, the greatest difference between the threat of the King Philip's War and the Salem witchcraft outbreak was the perceived enemy. In the former crisis, the "enemy" was visible and could be confronted directly and killed by conventional means, while in the latter, the enemy was insidious, invisible and of a spiritual nature. For this reason the Salem trials may have left a more devastating effect upon the collective subconscious of the Puritan community than the threat of King Philip (Metacomet) and his hundreds of warriors.

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.

Contemporary people are often incredulous that any form of belief system could have ever been regarded as so dangerous as to constitute a capital crime. For such persons it is difficult to imagine a society where norms of both social and religious behavior were determined by the laws of the state.

Concerning this point, it is important to remember that during this period, the strength of a society or nation state was closely associated with its uniformity of religious belief. Whatever the faith of a monarch happened to be, Protestant or Catholic, such would also be the faith of the population of his kingdom. This was the norm.

At this time, the solidarity of religious belief of a nation's people was perceived as a strength. Diversity of belief--even among various sub-sects of reformed Protestantism--was viewed as an essential weakness in the fabric of society. The one notable exception to this practice was the Dutch Republic, which had only recently achieved its independence from Roman Catholic, Habsburg Spain. In fact, Holland was the only European nation which was essentially tolerant of religious diversity throughout most of its existence.

In England, until the reign of King James II(1685-1689), the population was expected to belong to and worship as members of the Church of England. Thus English law, prior to 1688, prohibited all other forms of worship except that of the state church.

That is not to say that England did not possess many religious dissidents and non-conformists as well as a significant community of Jews and Roman Catholics. But these minority groups understood that they were always at risk. They were generally regarded as less than loyal subjects since the monarch was the head of the Church of England, and to break away from that Church was to call your loyalty as a subject into question. It was an intolerant age.

Witchcraft, as a crime defined by the law codes of most European nations of this time, was achieved by persons who had deliberately attempted to communicate with Satan. Such communication was attempted to establish a relationship whereby individuals would exchange their soul to Satan for supernatural powers. Such individuals were regarded as a threat to society because they had agreed to perform malefic, harmful, often destructive, anti-social acts at Satan's request.

Naturally, implicit in such legal codes was the generally accepted belief in the existence of God, Satan and other spiritual beings comprising what Reverend Cotton Mather would characterize as "the invisible world".

Beyond this perceived societal danger, the political loyalty of alleged witches was clearly in question because they had, by definition, betrayed all religious institutions including the predominant state church. Thus to the legal minds of the 1500's and 1600's, witchcraft was a form of secular treason, a form of anti-social behavior, always punishable by death under secular legal codes whenever discovered. For this reason, such cases were not tried in ecclesiastical but state courts which enforced secular statutes and their prescribed punishments.

For these reasons the secular legal records of most European states--Spain, France,Switzerland, the Italian and German ststes, Scotland and of course, England-- from the 1400's through the 1600's, are full of cases of thousands of individuals charged with the crime of witchcraft. Salem is a New England manifestation of this horrific and widespread phenomenon, and when compared to Europe, a relatively minor one.