WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND

By Robert Calef.

SALEM and witchcraft have so long been associated in the general mind that some surprise attends the statement that women were stoned as witches in ancient Rome. During the Middle Ages the usual punishment of witches was burning.

For two centuries the destruction wrought by the witch superstition was terrible. In France alone the number of victims has been estimated at 300,000. An English law against witchcraft was rigorously enforced throughout the seventeenth century. At the same time prosecutions for witchcraft occurred in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia and elsewhere in the colonies, though the only extensive panic was the one at Salem, in 1692, inflamed by the extravagant opinions of Cotton Mather.

Robert Calef was a Boston merchant of fair education, who lived through the Salem frenzy and wrote a book in defiance of the Mathers that gave the final blow to the witchcraft delusion in New England.

MR. PARRIS had been some years a minister in Salem Village, when this sad calamity, as a deluge, overflowed them, spreading itself far and near. He was a gentleman of liberal education; and, not meeting with any great encouragement, or advantage, in merchandising, to which for some time he applied himself, betook himself to the work of the ministry; this village being then vacant, he met with so much encouragement, as to settle in that capacity among them.

After he had been there about two years, he obtained a grant from a part of the town, that the house and land he occupied, and which had been allotted by the whole people to the ministry, should be and remain to him, etc., as his own estate in fee simple. This occasioned great divisions both between the inhabitants themselves, and between a considerable part of them and their said minister ; which divisions were but as a beginning, or proeludium, to what immediately followed.

It was the latter end of February, 1691, when divers young persons belonging to Mr. Parris's family, and one or more of the neighborhood, began to act after a strange and unusual manner, viz., as by getting into holes, and creeping under chairs and stools, and to use sundry odd postures and antic gestures, uttering foolish, ridiculous speeches, which neither they themselves nor any others could make sense of. The physicians that were called could assign no reason for this ; but it seems one of them, having recourse to the old shift, told them he was afraid they were bewitched. Upon such suggestions, they that were concerned applied themselves to fasting and prayer, which was attended not only in their own private families, but with calling in the help of others. March the 11th, Mr. Parris invited several neighboring ministers to join with him in keeping a solemn day of prayer at his own house. The time of the exercise, those persons were for the most part silent ; but after any one prayer was ended, they would act and speak strangely and ridiculously; yet were such as had been well educated, and of good behavior; the one, a girl of 11 or 12 years old, would sometimes seem to be in a convulsion fit, her limbs being twisted several ways, and very stiff, but presently her fit would be over.

Those ill affected or afflicted persons named several that they said they saw, when in their fits, afflicting them.

The first complained of was the said Indian woman, named Tituba: she confessed that the devil urged her to sign a book, which he presented to her, and also to work mischief to the children, etc. She was afterwards committed to prison, and lay there till sold for her fees. The account she since gives of it is, that her master did beat her, and otherways abuse her, to make her confess and accuse (such as he called) her sister-witches; and that whatsoever she said by way of confessing, or accusing others, was the effect of such usage : her master refused to pay her fees, unless she would stand to what she had said.

The children complained likewise of two other women, to be the authors of their hurt, viz., Sarah Good, who had long been counted a melancholy or distracted woman ; and one Osborn, an old bed-ridden woman; which two were persons so ill thought of, that the accusation was the more readily believed; and, after examination before two Salem magistrates, were committed. March the 19th, Mr. Lawson (who had been formerly a preacher at the said village) came thither, and hath since set forth, in print, an account of what then passed; about which time, as he saith, they complained of goodwife Cory, and goodwife Nurse, members of churches at the Village and at Salem, many others being by that time accused.

August 5. The court again sitting, six more were tried on the same account, viz., Mr. George Burroughs, some time minister of Wells, John Proctor, and Elizabeth Proctor his wife, with John Willard, of Salem Village, George Jacobs, Sr., of Salem, and Martha Carrier, of Andover; these were all brought in guilty, and condemned; and were all executed, August 19, except Proctor's wife, who pleaded pregnancy.

Mr. Burroughs was carried in a cart with the others, through the streets of Salem to execution. When he was upon the ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his innocency, with such solemn and serious expressions, as were to the admiration of all present: his prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord's prayer) was so well worded, and uttered with such composedness, and such (at least seeming) fervency of spirit, as was very affecting and drew tears from many, so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. The accusers said the black man stood and dictated to him.

As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he [Burroughs] was no ordained minister, and partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the devil has often been transformed into an angel of light; and this did somewhat appease the people and the executions went on. When he was cut down, he was dragged by the halter to a hole, or grave, between the rocks, about two foot deep, his shirt and breeches being pulled off, and an old pair of trousers of one executed put on his lower parts; he was so put in, together with Willard and Carrier, that one of his hands and his chin, and a foot of one of them, were left uncovered.

And now nineteen persons having been hanged, and one pressed to death, and eight more condemned, in all twenty-eight, of which above a third part were members of some of the churches in New England, and more than half of them of a good conversation in general, and not one cleared; about fifty having confessed themselves to be witches, of which not one executed; above an hundred and fifty in prison, and above two hundred more accused; the special commission of oyer and terminer comes to a period, which has no other foundation than the governor's commission; and had proceeded in the manner of swearing witnesses, viz., by holding up the hand (and by receiving evidences in writing), according to the ancient usage of this country; as also having their indictments in English.

In the trials, when any were indicted for afflicting, pining and wasting the bodies of particular persons by witchcraft, it was usual to hear evidence of matter foreign, and of perhaps twenty or thirty years standing, about oversetting carts, the death of cattle, unkindness to relations, or unexpected accidents befalling after some quarrel. Whether this was admitted by the law of England, or by what other law, wants to be determined; the executions seemed mixed, in pressing to death for not pleading, which most agrees with the laws of England, and sentencing women to be hanged for witchcraft, according to the former practice of this country, and not by burning, as is said to have been the law of England. And though the confessing witches were many, yet not one of them that confessed their own guilt, and abode by their confession, was put to death.