So, maybe the witches and bewitched men were scapegoats for a power struggle. Class struggle ? Sectarian church struggle ?
Hmmm , the plot thickens: "fits of wild partying in the local woodland," " outbreaks of obscene babbling" and " Tituba was the Carib Native American slave of Samuel Parris "
None of the magistrates or presiding officers are women.
CB
^^^^^^
Salem witch trials
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
The Salem witch trials of Colonial America resulted in a number of convictions and executions for witchcraft <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft> in 1692 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1692> in Massachusetts <> , the result of a period of factional infighting and Puritan witch hysteria which led to the deaths of at least 25 people and the imprisonment of scores more. Witch trials were held in Europe several hundred years before those in Salem.
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Background
In the town of Salem in 1692, eight young townswomen fell victim to "fits, outbreaks of obscene babbling, and wild partying in the local woodland. (Woolf 2004)" The girls claimed they were bewitched by other members of the community and possessed by the devil.
Among the first accused were Sarah Good, Sarah Osbourne, and Tituba <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tituba> . Good, orphaned as a teenager at the death of her mother (a French <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_people> innkeeper) was the town beggar, noted for her strange "muttering." Osborne was a bedridden elderly woman who had gotten on the wrong side of the Puritans when she cheated her first husband's children out of their inheritance, giving it to her new husband. Tituba was the Carib Native American slave of Samuel Parris ; though she is very often referred to as black in modern historical and fictional interpretations of the trials, there is no evidence that she was anything but Native American.
These women were charged with witchcraft on March 1 and put in prison. Other accusations followed: Dorcas Good (four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good), Rebecca Nurse <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Nurse> (a bedridden grandmother of [allegedly] saintly disposition), Abigail Hobbs, Deliverance Hobbs, Martha Corey, and Elizabeth and John Proctor <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Proctor> . As the number of accusations grew, the jail populations of Salem, Boston, and surrounding areas swelled, and a new problem surfaced: Without a legitimate form of government, there was no way to try these women. None of them were tried until late May, when Governor Phips arrived and instituted a Court of Oyer and Terminer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyer_and_Terminer> (to "hear and determine"). By then, Sarah Osborne had died in jail without a trial, as had Sarah Good's newborn baby girl, and many others were ill; there were perhaps 80 people in jail awaiting trial.
Over the summer, the Court heard cases approximately once per month, at mid-month. Of the accused, only one was released when the girls recanted their identification of him. All cases that were heard ended with the accused being condemned to death for witchcraft; no one was found innocent. Only those who pleaded guilty to witchcraft and supplied other names to the court were spared execution. Elizabeth Proctor <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Proctor> and at least one other woman were given respite "for the belly," because they were pregnant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnant> . Though convicted, they would not be hanged until they had given birth. A series of four executions over the summer saw nineteen people hanged, including a respected minister, a former constable who refused to arrest more accused witches, and at least three people of some wealth. Six of the nineteen were men; most of the rest were impoverished women beyond childbearing age.
Only one execution was not by hanging. Giles Corey <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey> , an 80-year-old farmer from the southeast end of Salem, refused to enter a plea. The law provided for the application of a form of torture called peine fort et dure <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peine_fort_et_dure> , in which the victim was slowly crushed by piling stones on him; after two days of peine fort et dure, Corey died without entering a plea. Though his refusal to plead is often explained as a way of preventing his possessions from being confiscated by the state, this is not true; the possessions of convicted witches were often confiscated, and possessions of persons accused but not convicted were confiscated before a trial, as in the case of Corey's neighbor John Proctor and the wealthy English's of Salem Town . Some historians hypothesize that his personal character, a stubborn and lawsuit-prone old man who knew he was going to be convicted regardless, led to his recalcitrance.
The land suffered along with the people. Crops went untended, cattle uncared for. Often, accused people who had not yet been arrested gathered up their most portable belongings and fled to New York or beyond. Sawmills , their owners missing or distracted, their workers arrested or gawking at the spectacles at the jails or in the meetinghouses, sat idle. Commerce ground to, if not a halt, at least a snail's pace. And there was news of further Indian unrest to the west.
The ending
The witch trials ended in January 1693 , although people already jailed for witchcraft were not all released until the next spring. The royal appointed governor of Massachusetts , Sir William Phips, disturbed when his wife was accused of witchcraft, ended them by appealing to the Boston-area clergy headed by Increase Mather <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increase_Mather> . In October 3 , 1692 , Increase Mather published "Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cases_of_Conscience_Concerning_Ev il_Spirits&action=edit> ." In it, Increase Mather stated "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned." Echoes of this phrase can be found in the United States of America 's innocent-until-proven-guilty judicial system of today.1
This incident was so profound that it helped end the influence of the Puritan faith on the governing of New England .
Ergot Theory
It is not widely believed any longer that the girls were actually possessed by the devil nor that their neighbors had anything to do with their symptoms. So what really happened? Some experts believe the accusers were motivated by jealousy or spite and their behavior was an act. Some believe they were afflicted by hysteria <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteria> , a form of mental illness. In 1976, a psychologist named Linnda Caporeal discovered the girls' symptoms (convulsive jerking, stupor, delirium, and hallucinations) precisely mirrored those of poisoning by ergot <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot> [Woolf, 2004]. Ergot is a poisonous fungus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungus> that often grows on cereal grains, especially rye <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye> and wheat <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat> , which were commonly grown around Salem. Ingestion of infected grains can lead, in severe cases, to ergotism [Sologuk, 2005]. The people of Salem did not have any other explanation for the symptoms of ergot poisoning except to call it witchcraft.
There are two types of "ergotism" (the name for the collection of symptoms a human or animal has when it has ingested too much of this fungus): gangrenous and convulsive. As the name implies, gangrenous ergotism is characterized by dry gangrene of the extremities followed by the falling away of the affected portions of the body. The condition occurred in epidemic proportions in the Middle Ages and was known by a number of names, including ignis sacer, the holy fire. There were no reports of gangrene in Salem. Convulsive ergotism is characterized by crawling sensations in the skin, tingling in the fingers, vertigo, tinnitus aurium, headaches, disturbances in sensation, hallucination, painful muscular contractions leading to epileptiform convulsions, vomiting, and diarrhea. The involuntary muscular fibers such as the myocardium and gastric and intestinal muscular coat are stimulated. There are mental disturbances such as mania, melancholia, psychosis, and delirium. All of these symptoms are alluded to in the Salem witchcraft records. Ergot poisoning has also been linked to the witch hunts <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_hunts> which occurred throughout Europe in the 1600s in locations where rye was grown [Woolf, 2004]. Witch hunts that cannot be linked to ergot also occurred in different seasons and in areas where rye does not grow; the root cause of those hunts remains to be explained.
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD> ) is a hallucinogenic drug <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucinogenic_drug> that is derived from ergot today.
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Participants
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Clerical participants and commentators
* The Rev. Cotton Mather <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Mather>
* The Rev. Samuel Parris <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Parris>
* The Rev. Increase Mather <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Increase_Mather> * The Rev. Francis Dane <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Francis_Dane&action=edit> * The Rev. Deodat Lawson <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deodat_Lawson&action=edit> * The Rev. Samuel Willard <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Samuel_Willard&action=edit> * The Rev. John Hale <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hale_%28witch_hunter%29>
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Presiding officials
Presiding officials, Court of Oyer and Terminer
* Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton > , Chief Magistrate * Captain Jonathan Walcott * Sheriff John Walcott
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Associate Magistrates
* John Hathorne <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hathorne>
* Samuel Sewall <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sewall>
* Thomas Danforth <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Danforth>
* Bartholomew Gedney
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bartholomew_Gedney&action=edit>
* John Richards
* Nathaniel Saltonstall
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nathaniel_Saltonstall&action=edit
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* Peter Sargent
* Stephen Sewall, Clerk
* Wait Still Winthrop
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Afflicted <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affliction>
Accused
This is not a complete list; there were anywhere from 150 to 300 accused recorded, and there may have been many more not imprisoned:
* Capt. John Alden Jr. * Daniel Andrew * Capt. Andres Ortega II * Sarah Bassett * Edward Bishop * Sarah Bishop * Mary Black * Dudley Bradstreet * John Bradstreet * Sarah Buckley * Richard Carrier * Candy, a slave from Salem * Mary Clarke * Sarah Easty Cloyce * Sarah Cole * Giles Corey <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey> * Mary Bassett DeRich * Ann Dolliver * Rebecca Eames * Mary English * Philip English * Abigail Faulkner * Ann Foster * Dorcas Hoar * Abigail Hobbs * Deliverance Hobbs * Elizabeth Howe * Mary Ireson * George Jacobs, Jr. * Margaret Jacobs * Elizabeth Johnson * Mary Lacey, Sr. * Mary Lacey (also an afflicted child) * Sarah Osborne * Lady Phips, wife of Governor Phips * Susannah Post * Elizabeth Bassett Proctor * Mary (Woodrow) Sibley, wife of Samuel Sibley * "Tituba" and her husband John Indian * Job Tookey * Hezekiah Usher * Mary Withridge