1. As I stated in the lecture, when we read the accusations against Susanna Martin today, they appear completely nonsensical. For example, one accuser states that the 70-year-old Martin leaped through
This week we will travel to America in order to examine a famous legal case that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. At the time the governance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was strongly influenced by the strict religious codes of the Puritan Ministry, and many of the laws and punishments were based on those laid out in the Old Testament of the Bible.
In 1697, John Hale, a minister of Massachusetts, wrote a small book on some strange incidents that took place in the town of Salem five years earlier:
In the latter end of the year 1691, Mr. Samuel Paris, Pastor of the Church in Salem-Village, had a Daughter of Nine, and a Niece of about Eleven years of Age, sadly Afflicted of they knew not what Distempers; and he made his application to Physicians, yet still they grew worse: And at length one Physician gave his opinion, that they were under an Evil Hand. This the Neighbors quickly took up, and concluded they were bewitched. He had also an Indian Man servant, and his Wife who afterwards confessed, that without the knowledge of their Master or Mistress, they had taken some of the Afflicted person’s Urine, and mixing it with meal had made a Cake, and baked it, to find out the Witch, as they said. After this, the Afflicted persons cried out of the Indian Woman, named Tituba, that she did pinch, prick, and grievously torment them, and that they saw her here and there, where no body else could.
Thus began the infamous Salem witchcraft hysteria of 1692. From the accusations and testimonies of a 9-year-old and 11-year-old girl, the people of Salem and the surrounding communities began to see witches everywhere. Neighbor informed on neighbor, petty quarrels were turned into mutual accusations of sorcery, and by the spring of 1693, hundreds of people had been accused and 20 were executed for witchcraft.
Usually in a class like this, a discussion of the famous Salem witch trials would be an introduction to a reading or viewing of Arthur Miller’s classic play, The Crucible, which took the witch trials and turned them into an allegory for the Communist Scare of the 1950’s.
But in this class, however, we will be reading actual testimony from the trials of 1692.
One of the more interesting aspects about the Salem witch trials is that the Puritans kept very good records, and so the transcripts from the trials are available for anyone to look at. The testimonies you were going to read this week are from the trial of Susanna Martin. Martin was born in 1621 in England, and she moved to Massachusetts when she was 18, where her family thrived. She eventually married and had eight children. However, for Martin, life in Massachusetts was not a peaceful one. She was involved in a number of disputes with her neighbors, and was accused of witchcraft more than once. The second time was during the witchcraft panic of 1692, and this time she was found guilty. She was hanged on July 19th, 1692.
There are a couple of important things to note about the trials. First, they relied on what was known as “spectral evidence.” That is, if someone claimed to see an imp, demon, or the spiritual manifestation of an accused witch, it could be admitted as evidence in court. You will encounter some examples of spectral evidence in the readings for this week. Second, the general method of execution of witches in Salem was hanging—no one was burned at the stake in New England. Third, being accused of a witch was not an automatic death sentence. Of the hundreds of people accused, only 20 were eventually executed. In fact, anyone accused of witchcraft could escape death if he or she simply confessed to the crime. If you confessed and expressed remorse for your witchery, then you would be set free. Only those refused to confess were executed. It is one of the great ironies of the witchcraft trials that the only ones who were killed were those who refused to admit to something they were innocent of. The ones who were the most pious and brave suffered the worst consequences.
When you read the record from Martin's trial, here are a few things to think about: First, read carefully; because this document comes from the late seventeenth century, the spelling is often very different from our modern spelling. Keep in mind that at this portion of the trial, her accusers (her neighbors) are in the room with her, and when she is giving her testimony, they are suffering “fits.” This frequently occurred during the witchcraft trials; whenever the accused witch was present, the accusers would suffer apparent seizures, paralysis, visual hallucinations, and phantom pains. After Martin gives her testimony, the document then relates the testimony of a number of her accusers, who describe a variety of ways that Martin has caused them supernatural harm over the years. When we read these accusations today, they appear completely nonsensical. For example, one accuser states that the 70-year-old Martin leaped through his window in the middle of the night, sat on him so he could not move, and then flew off into the night sky. In the discussion board, I’m going to ask you why so many of Martin’s neighbors would come up with similar accusations. Were they all lying? If so, why? Or could there have been another cause, one based on our modern understanding of psychiatry?
In addition to the court testimony, I am giving you a couple of additional documents to read. The first is a news report indicating that Susanna Martin has been exonerated of the charges of witchcraft. The second document is a discussion of a possible psychological explanation of the Salem witch hysteria, based on some more modern cases of mass delusion. This could help with the discussion this week.
