A BRIEF CHRONOLOGY

• 1629: Salem is settled.

• 1641: English law makes witchcraft a capital crime.

• 1684: England declares that the colonies may not self-govern.

• 1688: Following an argument with laundress Goody Glover, Martha Goodwin, 13, begins exhibiting bizarre behavior. Days later her younger brother and two sisters exhibit similar behavior. Glover is arrested and tried for bewitching the Goodwin children. Reverend Cotton Mather meets twice with Glover following her arrest in an attempt to persuade her to repent her witchcraft. Glover is hanged. Mather takes Martha Goodwin into his house. Her bizarre behavior continues and worsens.

• 1688: Mather publishes Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions

• November, 1689: Samuel Parris is named the new minister of Salem. Parris moves to Salem from Boston, where Memorable Providence was published.

• October 16, 1691: Villagers vow to drive Parris out of Salem and stop contributing to his salary.

• January 20, 1692: Eleven-year old Abigail Williams and nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris begin behaving much as the Goodwin children acted four years earlier. Soon Ann Putnam Jr. and other Salem girls begin acting similarly.

• Mid-February, 1692: Doctor Griggs, who attends to the "afflicted" girls, suggests that witchcraft may be the cause of their strange behavior.

• February 25, 1692: Tituba, at the request of neighbor Mary Sibley, bakes a "witch cake" and feeds it to a dog. According to an English folk remedy, feeding a dog this kind of cake, which contained the urine of the afflicted, would counteract the spell put on Elizabeth and Abigail. The reason the cake is fed to a dog is because the dog is believed a "familiar" of the Devil.

• Late-February, 1692: Pressured by ministers and townspeople to say who caused her odd behavior, Elizabeth identifies Tituba. The girls later accuse Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne of witchcraft.

• February 29, 1692: Arrest warrants are issued for Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

• March 1, 1692: Magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin examine Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne for "witches teats." Tituba confesses to practicing witchcraft and confirms Good and Osborne are her co- conspirators.

• March 11, 1692: Ann Putnam Jr. shows symptoms of affliction by witchcraft. Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Mary Warren later allege affliction as well.

• March 12, 1692: Ann Putnam Jr. accuses Martha Cory of witchcraft.

• March 19. 1692: Abigail Williams denounces Rebecca Nurse as a witch.

• March 21, 1692: Magistrates Hathorne and Corwin examine Martha Cory.

• March 23, 1692: Salem Marshal Deputy Samuel Brabrook arrests four-year-old Dorcas Good.

• March 24, 1692: Corwin and Hathorne examine Rebecca Nurse.

• March 26, 1692: Hathorne and Corwin interrogate Dorcas.

• March 28, 1692: Elizabeth Proctor is accused of witchcraft.

• April 3, 1692: Sarah Cloyce, after defending her sister, Rebecca Nurse, is accused of witchcraft.

• April 11, 1692: Hathorne and Corwin examine Sarah Cloyce and Elizabeth Proctor. On the same day Elizabeth's husband, John, who protested the examination of his wife, becomes the first man accused of witchcraft and is incarcerated.

• Early April, 1692: The Proctors' servant and accuser, Mary Warren, admits lying and accuses the other accusing girls of lying.

• April 13, 1692: Ann Putnam Jr. accuses Giles Cory of witchcraft and alleges that a man who died at Cory's house also haunts her.

• April 19, 1692: Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Giles Cory and Mary Warren are examined. Deliverance Hobbs confesses to practicing witchcraft. Mary Warren reverses her statement made in early April and rejoins the accusers.

• April 22, 1692: Mary Easty, another of Rebecca Nurse's sisters who defended her, is examined by Hathorne and Corwin. Hathorne and Corwin also examine Nehemiah Abbott, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Mary Black, Sarah Wildes, and Mary English.

• April 30, 1692: Several girls accuse former Salem minister George Burroughs of witchcraft.

• May 2, 1692: Hathorne and Corwin examine Sarah Morey, Lyndia Dustin, Susannah Martin and Dorcas Hoar.

• May 4, 1692: George Burroughs is arrested in Maine.

• May 7, 1692: George Burroughs is returned to Salem and placed in jail.

• May 9, 1692: Corwin and Hathorne examine Burroughs and Sarah Churchill. Burroughs is moved to a Boston jail.

• May 10, 1692: Corwin and Hathorne examine George Jacobs, Sr. and his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs. Sarah Osborne dies in prison.

• May 14, 1692: Increase Mather and Sir William Phipps, the newly elected governor of the colony, arrive in Boston. They bring with them a charter ending the 1684 prohibition of self-governance within the colony.

• May 18, 1692: Mary Easty is released from prison. Following protest by her accusers, she is again arrested. Roger Toothaker is also arrested on charges of witchcraft.

• May 27, 1692: Phipps issues a commission for a Court of Oyer and Terminer and appoints as judges John Hathorne, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Bartholomew Gedney, Peter Sergeant, Samuel Sewall, Wait Still Winthrop, and Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton.

• May 31, 1692: Hathorne, Corwin and Gednew examine Martha Carrier, John Alden, Wilmott Redd, Elizabeth Howe and Phillip English. English and Alden later escape prison and do not return to Salem until after the trials end.

• June 2, 1692: Bridget Bishop is the first to be tried and convicted of witchcraft. She is sentenced to die.

• June 8, 1692: Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Booth shows symptoms of affliction by witchcraft.

• June 10, 1692: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill. Following the hanging Nathaniel Saltonstall resigns from the court and is replaced by Corwin.

• June 15, 1692: Cotton Mather writes a letter requesting the court not use spectral evidence as a standard and urging that the trials be speedy. The Court of Oyer and Terminer pays more attention to the request for speed and less attention to the criticism of spectral evidence.

• June 16, 1692: Roger Toothaker dies in prison.

• June 29-30, 1692: Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wildes, Sarah Good, and Elizabeth Howe are tried, pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang.

• July 19, 1692: Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good and Sarah Wildes are hanged at Gallows Hill.

• August 5, 1692: George Jacobs Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Willard and John and Elizabeth Proctor are pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang.

• August 19, 1692: George Jacobs Sr., Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, John Willard and John Proctor are hanged on Gallows Hill. Elizabeth Proctor is not hanged because she is pregnant.

• August 20, 1692: Margaret Jacobs recants the testimony that led to the execution of her grandfather George Jacobs Sr. and Burroughs.

• September 9, 1692: Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Dorcas Hoar and Mary Bradbury are pronounced guilty and sentenced to hang.

• Mid-September, 1692: Giles Cory is indicted.

• September 17, 1692: Margaret Scott, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, Mary Parker, Abigail Faulkner, Rebecca Earnes, Mary Lacy, Ann Foster and Abigail Hobbs are tried and sentenced to hang.

• September 19, 1692: Sheriffs administer Peine Forte Et Dure (pressing) to Giles Cory after he refuses to enter a plea to the charges of witchcraft against him. After two days under the weight, Cory dies.

• September 22, 1692: Martha Cory, Margaret Scott, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Willmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker are hanged. Hoar escapes execution by confessing.

• October 3, 1692: The Reverend Increase Mather, President of Harvard College and father to Cotton Mather, denounces the use of spectral evidence.

• October 8, 1692: Governor Phipps orders that spectral evidence no longer be admitted in witchcraft trials.

• October 29, 1692: Phipps prohibits further arrests, releases many accused witches, and dissolves the Court of Oyer and Terminer.

• November 25, 1692: The General Court establishes a Superior Court to try remaining witches.

• January 3, 1693: Judge Stoughton orders execution of all suspected witches who were exempted by their pregnancy. Phipps denied enforcement of the order causing Stoughton to leave the bench.

• January 1693: 49 of the 52 surviving people brought into court on witchcraft charges are released because their arrests were based on spectral evidence.

• 1693: Tituba is released from jail and sold to a new master.

• May 1693: Phipps pardons those still in prison on witchcraft charges.

• January 14, 1697: The General Court orders a day of fasting and soul-searching for the tragedy at Salem. Moved, Samuel Sewall publicly confesses error and guilt.

• 1697: Minister Samuel Parris is ousted as minister in Salem and replaced by Joseph Green.

• 1702: The General Court declares the 1692 trials unlawful.

• 1706: Ann Putnam Jr., one of the leading accusers, publicly apologizes for her actions in 1692. She is the only “accuser” to apologize.

• 1711: The colony passes a legislative bill restoring the rights and good names of those accused of witchcraft and grants 600 pounds in restitution to their heirs.

• 1752: Salem Village is renamed Danvers.

• 1957: Massachusetts formally apologizes for the events of 1692.

• 1992: On the 300th anniversary of the trials, a witchcraft memorial designed by James Cutler is dedicated in Salem.

© University of Missouri-Kansas City.  Retrieved August 30, 2016. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASAL_CH.HTM

SALEM WITCH TRIALS WEB RESOURCES:

• A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TRIALS (Smithsonian Magazine website): http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/?no-ist

• LIST OF PEOPLE ASSOCIATED WITH THE TRIALS (with links to biographies of the principal persons):  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_of_the_Salem_witch_trials

• IMPORTANT PERSONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE TRIALS (University of Virginia): http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people?group.num=all

• CHRONOLOGY:  http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASAL_CH.HTM

• HOW TO TEST FOR A WITCH (History Channel):  http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-bizarre-witch-trial-tests

• THE SWIMMING OF WITCHES (from the website for The Foxearth and District Local History Society in East, Anglia, UK):  http://www.foxearth.org.uk/SwimmingOfWitches.html

• DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT COTTON MATHER (The Mather Society): http://matherproject.org/node/1

• SALEM VILLAGE vs. SALEM TOWN (Tulane University project): http://www.tulane.edu/~salem/Salem%20and%20Village.html

• PURITANS AND MASSACHUSSETTS BAY COLONY (History of Massachusetts website): http://historyofmassachusetts.org/history-of-the-massachusetts-bay-colony/

• DOCUMENT AND TRANSCRIPT PROJECT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA (numerous links to documents, library holdings, and government transcripts; one of the more exhaustive sites for Salem Witch Trial research):  http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html

• ERGOT POISONING:  https://www.damninteresting.com/bad-rye-and-the-salem-witches/

• ERGOT POISONING:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/witches-curse-interview/1502/

• A WEBSITE THAT HAS MANY LINKS TO MATERIALS RELEVANT TO SALEM, PURITANISM, AND COLONIAL HISTORY PRIOR TO 1700: https://www.costumecraze.com/r/salem-witch-trial-resource-guide

HIGHLIGHT-SUMMARY OF PRESENTATION

BACKGROUND:

• Witch-hunts became more and more common as Christianity collided with pagan cultures.

• Between the 1300’s and early 1600’s in France, Germany, Italy, and England between 40 and 50 THOUSAND suspected witches were executed--hanging and burned at the stake.

• 1231:  Pope Gregory the 9^th institutes the Inquisition.  Prime targets included suspected witches.

• 1484:  Pope Innocent the 8^th declares witchcraft (and ancient wiccan/pagan religions) a heresy.  If accused, you can’t be buried in sacred ground/cemetery.

• 1486:  MALLEUS MALEFICARUM (The Hammer of the Witches) contains guidelines on how to discern a witch.

  • Devil’s Mark (also called Devil’s Teat):  Whole body of man or woman was shaved including genital areas.  Marks (often just warts or “beauty marks”) would be pierced by needles or pins.  If there was no pain or blood, it meant you were a witch.
  • Swimming a witch:  Since water is pure, it rejects evil.  Subjects were tied to chairs or had weights in their pockets. If you floated you were a witch; if you sank, you were innocent.
  • Torture.

• In England (after 1534 Act of Supremacy):  Since the king was the head of state as well as head of the church, being a witch was not only heresy, but also an act of treason.

• Accusing someone of being a witch was a good way to get rid of neighbors, relatives, or unwanted citizens.

SALEM:

• 1629:  Charles the 1^st grants Puritans charter to create a colony in Massachusetts as a THEOCRACY.  Not everyone who moved to Mass was a Puritan--tensions arose: different colonists had different motives (freedom, a new start, etc.)

• For Puritans Satan, witches, and demons were very real.  And forests were truly a place of evil (This continues in literature and art well into the Modern Era--Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Wizard of Oz, etc.)

• 1648:  Charles Town is the site of the first witch trial.  Margaret Jones, a midwife and healer (nurse) was said to have a malignant touch, was reported to be a fortune teller, and supposedly had a witch’s teat.  She was hanged.

• 1688: A woman named Goodwife Ann Glover of Boston was hanged for being a witch (the last person executed in Boston for witchcraft)--she supposedly possessed four Boston children.  Cotton Mather, the son of Increase Mather, was the lead Investigator. 

• 1689: Cotton Mather writes MEMORABLE PROVIDENCES, RELATING TO WITCHCRAFTS AND POSSESSIONS.  This text proves influential in Salem three years later.

• 1702: Cotton Mather publishes AN ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND. It details the religious development of Massachusetts and other nearby colonies from 1620 to 1698. Notable parts of the book include Mather's descriptions of the Salem Witch Trials, in which he criticizes some of the methods of the court and attempts to distance himself from the event.

• 1692:  Salem Village was a farming community of about 500 people.  It was 6 miles from the much more affluent Salem Town, which was a thriving seaport.  The village often struggled and most of the citizens were deeply afraid of the forest surrounding it:  Indian raids and the Devil.

• Political differences with England after the English Restoration led to the revocation of the colonial charter in 1684. King James II established the Dominion of New England in 1686 to bring all of the New England colonies under firmer crown control. The dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James, and the colony reverted to rule under the revoked charter until the charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay was issued in 1691, which combined the Massachusetts Bay territories with those of the Plymouth Colony and proprietary holdings on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Sir William Phips arrived in 1692 bearing the charter and formally took charge of the new province.  All of these changes led to much strife among the residents of Salem Village and Salem Town.

• Rigid belief system was a constant source of personal and social anxiety.  Puritans believed in Predestination and the constant existential ambiguity of not knowing whether you were one of the saved or one of the damned led to a society that was constantly on edge. 

• Puritan view of women was often misogynous; a woman, being weaker than a man (physically, mentally, and morally), was seen as more likely to fall to the Devil’s temptations.

• There were bitter land disputes among the families and they often fought with the more liberal Salem Town.

•  Over 500 surviving documents for the period but no actual transcripts of the trial.  There were approximately 160 cases in 1692.

• REV. SAMUEL PARRIS would often spend time with his wife visiting parishioners.  During those times Elizabeth Parris (9 yrs old) and Abigail Williams (11 yr old cousin) would be put in the care of Tituba, a slave from Barbados.  She would tell the girls tall tales and show them voodoo tricks.  At least six (6) other girls (ages 12 to 20) joined the group to hear stories:  Ann Putman, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Wallcott, Elizabeth Booth, Marcy Lewi, and Mary Warren.

• They all felt guilty about listening to these stories because it conflicted with their religious beliefs.  They start to display horrible behavior.  William Briggs (doctor) declared it must be witchcraft. 

• The girls name Tituba, an obvious scapegoat.  She’s a slave, she’s not white, and she’s a woman.  Three strikes.

• PRE-TRIAL INQUEST March 1^st, 1692.  Presiding judges: Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne (great-great grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne)

• Trial allowed SPECTRAL EVIDENCE (which would not normally be accepted).  A specter could be a bird, a demon, the image of the accused person that was tormenting the victims--and could only be seen by the victim (not even the judges).

•  The “afflicted” started to make accusations about others in the community including Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.  Good was physically “ugly,” a beggar, and had low social status.  Osborne was old and bedridden and had married her younger indentured servant John Osborne.  Biggest strike: Neither woman attended church.  Every time Good or Osborne spoke, the girls would go into dramatic convulsions.  Osborne died in prison three weeks before she was officially to be put on trial (June 2, 1692); Good went to trial and was executed.

• Tituba confesses under pressure.  She says a “tall man from Boston” (liberal, sin city) who was clearly the Devil made her serve him.  She weaves fantastic tales including witches on broom sticks.  She says there were nine (9) names in the Devil’s Book:  Tituba, Good, Osborne, and six other names she couldn’t see clearly.  This sent shudders through the community.

• Who were the other six people?  TOTAL paranoia!  Neighbor against neighbor.

• People from good families started to be accused by the girls and by their neighbors.  Example:  Rebecca Nurse.  70 years old and practically deaf. Poorer families in the west village accused wealthier families from the east village (where Nurse was from).  Nurse is executed in July 1692.

• Within weeks, over 100 men and women from Salem to Boston were arrested.

• OFFICIAL TRIAL BEGINS ON JUNE 2, 1692. Court of Oyer and Terminer (To Hear and Determine) 

• Bridget Bishop is the first victim--hanged on June 10^th.

• Sad story: Dorothy (sometimes incorrectly called Dorcas) Good (4-year-old daughter of Sarah Good) was accused and confessed to be near her mother in prison. Special shackles had to be created for her small hands and feet. She was released after her mother’s execution.

• Sad story:    Sarah Good was pregnant during her trial. Mercy was born and died in prison some time prior to her mother's execution.

• Rev. George Burroughs was arrested on charges of witchcraft on April 30, 1692, based on the accusation of some personal enemies from his former congregation who had sued him for debt. At his trial, which took place in May, he was found guilty based on evidence that included his extraordinary feats of strength, such as lifting a musket by inserting his finger into the barrel (such feats of strength being presumed impossible without diabolical assistance). George Burroughs was executed on Witches Hill, Salem, on 19 August 1692, the only minister who suffered this extreme fate. Although the jury had found no witches' marks on his body, he was nonetheless convicted of witchcraft and conspiracy with the Devil. While standing on a ladder before the crowd, waiting to be hanged, he successfully recited the Lord's Prayer, something that was generally considered by the Court of Oyer and Terminer to be impossible for a witch to do. After he was hanged, Cotton Mather, a minister from Boston, reminded the crowd from atop his horse that Burroughs had been convicted in a court of law, and spoke convincingly enough that four more were executed after Burroughs. HOWEVER, the death of George Burroughs was the beginning of “doubts” especially when he recited the Lord’s Prayer on the scaffold.

• If you confessed, you would be spared because it would then be up to God to judge and punish you.  55 of the accused took this way out. (The numbers I recite here are somewhat flexible because there is no official trial transcript and though there are 500 documents from the period, some of the documents have been lost.)

• Through all this--from spring through summer--the girls continued to accuse, spreading accusations as far away as Boston and Andover.  They were in the limelight--a position unheard of (certainly unusual) for any woman (let alone child) in Puritan society.  Suddenly MEN are listening to them.  (St. Paul’s edict that “women should be silent in the church” was not being adhered to.)  They were rock star famous.  

• 19 people were executed between June and September of 1692 as a direct result of the girls and people influenced by the example of the girls.

• Of the nearly 200 victims, 24 people died.  19 were hanged, 4 died in prison, and one--GILES COREY--was pressed to death on September 19^th when he refused to say whether he was guilty or not guilty.  (His wife, Martha Corey, was executed three days later on September 22^nd.)

• Many of the others who survived became total pariahs--they were expelled from the church and their names were erased from public records (which is why documenting details about their lives can be so difficult).

• Once that more and more members of the upper class (as opposed to the more “expendable” lower class) are accused, the more the girls’ testimony is doubted.  The last straw was when the wife of Increase Mather (Cotton’s father) and the wife of the colonial governor, William Phipps, were about to be accused. 

• October 3, 1692: The Reverend Increase Mather, President of Harvard College and father to Cotton Mather, denounces the use of spectral evidence.

• October 8, 1692: Governor Phipps orders that spectral evidence no longer be admitted in witchcraft trials.

• October 29, 1692: Phipps prohibits further arrests, releases many accused witches, and dissolves the Court of Oyer and Terminer.

• November 25, 1692: The General Court establishes a Superior Court to try remaining witches.

• January 3, 1693: Judge Stoughton orders execution of all suspected witches who were exempted by their pregnancy. Phipps denied enforcement of the order causing Stoughton to leave the bench.

• January 1693: 49 of the 52 surviving people brought into court on witchcraft charges are released because their arrests were based on spectral evidence.

• 1693: Tituba is released from jail and sold to a new master.  She disappears from the public record.

• January 16, 1697:  Public Day of repentance and forgiveness

• 1702:  Rev. John Hale publishes A MODEST INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF WITCHCRAFT in which he apologizes for the Salem Witch Trials.

• 1706: Ann Putnam (now 26) becomes the ONLY accuser ever to apologize for her actions, saying that “the Devil made her do it.”

• 1711:  The Commonwealth reverses 22 of 31 convictions, exonerating them and restoring their civil rights.  The Commonwealth gives 600 Pounds to the surviving families.

• 1752: Salem Village renames itself Danvers.

• 1957:  Massachusetts finally reverses the conviction on the remaining nine people and formally apologizes to the descendants.

CAUSES:

• Hysteria:  psychological reasons

• The girls were acting for attention (although some believe that they were sincerely convinced of their beliefs.

• Some people used accusations to gain land and profit.  A conviction meant that your land would go up for public auction.

• ERGOT POISONING:  Salem, like many other communities in the past and present, harvested rye as part of their grain crops, and it was a staple in their diet. But it turns out that rye grass is susceptible to a particular fungus called Claviceps purpurea which infects the edible portions of the plant. During the ergot stage of this fungus’ development, a cocktail of interesting alkaloids is present that will cause problems with circulation and neurotransmission when ingested by humans. A behavioral scientist and a full professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York Linnda Caporael was the first to suggest that Ergot of Rye may have contributed to the madness in the Salem trials.  Ergot poisoning, or ergotism, can cause a distressing array of side effects. The initial symptoms are usually gastrointestinal in nature, including nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. Shortly thereafter the sufferer may experience a gamut of symptoms caused by ergot’s influence on the central nervous system. These usually start with relatively benign sensations such as headaches, “pins and needles,” and burning/itching sensations on the skin; but the experience can escalate into spasms, convulsions, unconsciousness, hallucinations, and psychosis. In severe cases, the body tissues experience physical side effects such as loss of peripheral sensation, swelling, blisters, dry gangrene, and sometimes death.

ONE OF THE POSITIVE RESULTS:  A change in colonial law that made it different from English law.  From the Salem Witch Trials forward, the new maxim was INNOCENT until proven GUILTY.