Enter Salem, 1692: A Writer's Research Reflection

     These past several weeks, I've been digging deep into a dark chapter of the past for a story.

     I learned about the Salem witch trials in school, of course. What U.S. history book is there that doesn't at the very least mention it? I could find hints of it mentioned in the books I liked to read and even movies that I saw. But I never looked deeper into it when I was younger and my obsessions with periods of history lay elsewhere for a long while.

     Cut to the present day. It was maybe one or two months ago when I saw a video essay discussing the frightening relevance of the Salem witch trials to the present (The Salem Witch Trials: A Warning for America by Mindshift). I only got hints of the paranoia and unbending authority of the Puritans in that time, but what I learned was enough to make me sit up and pay attention.

     And it also inspired the writer in me.

     Last spring when I was writing tons of flash fiction, I incidentally started writing a story that took place in Salem, with a woman people suspected of being a witch and a fantastical element thrown in. I abandoned it, both because I had other things to write and because I was overwhelmed by the kind of historical research I'd have to do to bring that story to life. But the essence of that story still lingered in me, and it returned to me as my interest in the witch trials grew. 

     At that point, it was inevitable that I'd fall down the research rabbit hole.

     I found lots of resources online, of course. Many of them were helpful in putting together a better picture of who the Puritans were, what their lives were like, and what made them stand out in history. Some of these resources include A Method for Prayer by Matthew Henry and A Token for Children by James Janeway. The Salem Witch Museum gave me a better idea of what the community of Salem was like, as well as a frame of reference for the structures that existed at the time. And, of course, accessing the sermons of Reverend Samuel Parris gave me an idea of both what was discussed in Puritan services and see just how great the fear of witchcraft was.

     I also took to literature for both Puritan culture and the specific time of the Salem witch trials. One was Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials by Stephanie Hemphill (a YA book that also happens to be a novel-in-verse). From the Dear America series, I Walk in Dread by Lisa Rowe Fraustino. And currently, I'm in the process of reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

     My first fictional foray into Salem, though, came through the well-known play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I went through the entirety of my theater studies (years ago) without ever having read it. But I did once I knew I'd be writing a Salem story and as soon as I finished reading it, I looked for a performance to watch. While I could only access a video and not attend a live performance, I still felt the dread of the times and anger at the injustices at play. It's not completely accurate from a historic perspective, but it's still a good starting point for exploring the witch trials in fiction (this production by Chatham High School was the performance I saw).

     But easily the most valuable resource I've had for the research process has been The Salem Witch Trials: A Day by Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach. It does exactly what the title suggests and takes you through the tragic and horrible events - from January 1692 to March 1693 - one day at a time. It also includes some really helpful maps of the impacted areas that give you a truer picture If any of you have been following my Instagram story updates, you'll have seen some of the passages and quotes from that book that I've taken note of (you'll also have seen my thoughts on the truth behind the accusations, but more on that later).

     Here's a handful of my notes and quotes I've copied down:

     MAR 24, 1692 - during Rebecca Nurse's trial, the afflicted screamed so loudly that people could hear them from a long way off beyond Salem Village

     - speaker (Deodat) Lawson suspected church defectors being part of Satan's plans to overthrow the Puritans...he did say "Give no place to the Devil by rash censuring of others without sufficient grounds, or false accusing any willingly"

     "We are either saints or devils. This you and I may be, and yet Devils for all that." - Rev. Samuel Parris

     - Abigail and Mary (two of the afflicted) mention seeing the "witches" partaking in communion with an angel in Abigail's uncle's pasture. He was described thus: "A fine grave man and when he came, he made all the witches to tremble"

     APR 22, 1692 - the trial of William Hobbs (John Hathorne as judge)

     Hobbs: I hope I worship God only...In my heart

     Hathorne: But God requires outward worship

     "I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you blood to drink." - Sarah Good

     The confession(s) "was no other than what was suggested to us by some gentlemen, they telling us that we were witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, which made us think that this was so. And our understandings, our reason, our faculties, almost gone, we were not capable of judging of our condition; as also the hard measures they used with us rendered us incapable of making our defense, but said anything and everything which they desired, and most of what we said, was but, in effect, a consenting to what they said." - explanation from the accused Mary Osgood, Eunice Fry, Abigail Barker, Deliverance Dane, Sarah Wilson, and Mary Tyler (Andover)

     "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that one innocent person should be condemned." - Increase Mather

     "And what grief of heart it brings to a tender conscience, to have been unwittingly encouraging of the sufferings of the innocent." - Rev. John Hale

     NOV 12, 1692 - Mary Herrick (afflicted) was "visited" by (Mary) Esty's ghost, who cried, "Vengeance, vengeance!" and told Herrick to report the ghostly encounters to the reverends Hale and Gerrish (in order) to put Esty's soul to rest (and to stop Sarah Hale's specter from hurting Herrick)

     SEP 10, 1692 - "Knowing my innocency...and seeing plainly the wiles and subtilty of my accusers (I) cannot but judge charitably of others that are going the same way of myself, if the Lord steps not mightily in. I petition not for my own life, for I know I must die, (but) if it be possible, no more innocent blood may be shed, which undoubtedly cannot be avoided in the way and course you go in. I question not but your honors...would not be guilty of innocent blood for the world. But by my own innocency, I know you are in the wrong way. (To confess false guilt/lie before God) I cannot, I dare not, belie my own soul." - Mary Esty

     The more I researched and the more personal stories I learned about this period, the more sickened I felt. 

     There have been a lot of theories as to what caused all the witchcraft hysteria to happen in the first place. About what was really going on with the afflicted - a group of (mostly) teenage girls. It's obvious to us in the present that no real witchcraft occurred. The Devil was not lying in wait in the forest, consorting with the accused in pastures at night, baptizing them in any rivers and ponds, nor threatening anyone to swear allegiance to him by signing "his book". But the reactions of the afflicted - seizures, fits, seeing/hearing things no one else could, scars or burns, loss of appetite - have been enough to keep people guessing what was really happening.

     I think it is very likely that some of them, being survivors of the Wabanaki attacks in Maine during the Seven Years' War, could have been from PTSD. I also think it's likely that maybe some of them struggled with epilepsy and similar (genuine) afflictions.

     However, unless research provides some new discoveries concerning the reality of Salem at the time...it seems very clear to me that the afflicted were faking everything. 

     There's an incident that happened at a tavern (Ingersoll's) that appears pretty damning. On March 28, 1692, Hannah Ingersoll (tavern-keeper's wife) overheard the afflicted, who were gathered at the tavern. While there, they claimed to "see" the specter of Elizabeth Proctor. Unlike in court, however, there were no theatrics when they proclaimed this, and their manner of speech was casual. One of them even said, "Goody Proctor, old witch, I'll have her hang". When Hannah scolded them for such talk, one of them named Mercy Lewis said that it was all for "sport, we must have some sport."

     There are inconsistencies in the various "accounts" the afflicted give about their torments. When they saw the latest accused of witchcraft in court, they always reacted. They'd scream, they'd swoon, they'd claim to see birds and specters. They'd make it out to seem like the accused cursed them to not speak. Sometimes they'd even say that the Devil was whispering in the accused's ears, telling them what to say. One of the biggest things that stands out to me as evidence of them faking everything involves the "touch test". It was a bit of folk magic (contentious but accepted) where anyone afflicted by a witch would only feel relief if the guilty witch touched them. Every single time the court ordered the touch test, it worked.

     If there really were witches, the touch test should have failed on the innocent. How could it be possible that every single person the afflicted singled out/bore witness to was a witch? And if the afflicted were given visions of the Devil's accomplices and his plans, wouldn't that mean that they themselves would have had some kind of covenant with him? (This last point became a concern as the trials drew on and people began to doubt the claims of witchcraft)

     Many of the accused weren't random selections. When you look at who they were, you keep seeing the same kinds of people. The poor, the elderly, the outcasts, the "improper", disliked in-laws, feud rivals (like the Putnam and the Porter families), those with more land/wealth, those who missed too many sermons, those whose strength of faith wasn't clear to the broader community - over and over again, these were the people who were thrown into prison and placed on trial. 

     Not long after the first accusations of Tituba, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Bridget Bishop, the afflicted and many other Salem villagers started pointed fingers everywhere. As the year went on, the accusations even included people outside of Salem - people from the nearby towns Lynn, Andover, Reading, and Wenham showed up in the afflicted's "visions". And anyone who was related to one of the accused was suspect by association, no matter how young or old they were. A tragic example of this point is Dorothy Good, Sarah Good's daughter. Dorothy was arrested when she was only four years old and kept in a cold prison for almost eight months. She saw her mother being taken out of jail to be executed, and even though she was eventually released, she was psychologically scarred for life.

     When it came to the trials themselves, "trial" is an extremely loose term for the procedures that took place. These played out more like interrogations. No matter who was brought in, the afflicted (who attended the trials) would always react like the accused was magically hurting them. The magistrates asked the afflicted who hurt them. They would then direct their questioning to the accused and though they'd ask the accused whether they pled guilty or innocent, the assumption was the same: anyone brought into trial must be a witch and therefore must have the "truth" forced out of them. And when these men posed questions to the accused, they did not seek answers of innocence - they sought confessions. 

     "What evil spirit have you familiarity with?"

     "Why do you hurt these children?"

     "Why do you tell such wicked lies against witnesses...?"

     "You dare thus to (lie) in all this assembly. You are now before Authority. I expect the truth, you promised it, Speak now and tell..."

     "Give glory to God and confess then."

     "Do not you see how these afflicted do charge you?"

     "Here are more than two that accuse you for witchcraft. What do you say?"

     "You are a (Gospel) woman, will you (lie)?"

     "You charge these children with distraction: it is a note of distraction when persons vary in a minute, but these fix upon you..."

     "Tell us who hurts these (children): We came to be a Terror to evil doers."

     "You say you are no Witch, may be you mean you never Covenanted with the Devil. Did you never deal w'th any familiar?"

     "...you have engaged you will not confess. but God knows."

     Reading through the court transcripts, it's all too clear to see that pleading innocence would only get you prison and death (either by execution or sometimes in jail). 

     But even if you pled guilty and made up a satisfactory confession, you were still in for a world of hurt. The jails where the accused were kept were often cold, packed, and harsh places to live in. These people were forced to pay for the time they spent in jail (and had to rely on others to bail them out). Livestock, food, and other belongings of theirs were taken from their properties, if those properties weren't snatched up outright. And if any of the accused was bailed out or released, they had to contend with their friends and neighbors who might never trust them ever again.

     As autumn arrived in 1692, changes were made to Massachusetts court laws concerning trial procedures. Spectral evidence (like the afflicted provided) was ruled out and only concrete proof could convict someone of a witchcraft charge. After Governor William Phips's wife was accused of witchcraft, he demanded all the accused be released from prison and pardoned. These factors brought about the end of the trials and the end of the hysteria.

     The damage, however, was done.

     In all, 19 people were executed: fourteen women and five men (one of whom was pressed to death with stones). Five more died in prison. And between 150 to 200 people were imprisoned during the course of the trials.

     All those lives were ruined at the hands of the afflicted, the magistrates, and the entire community of Salem Village.

     Every time I think about it, I'm hit with the weight of it all. The terror of not knowing whether you'd be the next one on trial. Whether some small thing you said or did would make people suspect witchcraft. The despair that no one would believe you. The horror of being kept in prison and the helplessness that the death sentence invoked. It's unimaginable. When I read the words of the accused, I do not blame them for their condemnation of their fellow Puritans

     It also struck me just how much worse the unforgiving Puritan life made this. They had to work hard all the time, both to survive and because it was part of their belief in what made a good Christian. There may very well have been genuinely kindhearted people within that society, but that kindness is buried beneath the austerity and self-righteousness everyone else espoused. The most minor offenses were dealt with by corporal punishment and/or public shaming. 

     Their belief in everyone's fate being decided by God made them all desire to be as righteous as they could in the hopes that they'd be one of the ones going to Heaven. The fear and self-loathing that such a mindset created is evident throughout many of their prayers.

     "O may angels glorify Him incessantly, and, if possible, prostrate themselves lower before the blessed King of heaven! I long to bear a part with them in ceaseless praise; but when I have done all I can to eternity I shall not be able to offer more than a small fraction of the homage that the glorious God deserves...."

     "Help me to live to You for ever, to make You my last and only end, so that I may never more in one instance love my sinful self."

     "I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself; I have no green shoot in me nor fruit, but thorns and thistles; I am a fading leaf that the wind drives away; I live bare and barren as a winter tree, unprofitable, fit to be hewn down and burnt. Lord, do You have mercy on me?"

     "...the least sin deserves infinite punishment because done against an infinite God..."

     "Defend me from assailing foes, from evil circumstances, from myself. My adversaries are part and parcel of my nature; they cling to me as my very skin; I cannot escape their contact...my enemy is within the citadel...."

     "I step out into a wicked world; I carry about with me an evil heart. I know that without You I can do nothing, that everything with which I shall be concerned, however harmless in itself, may prove an occasion of sin or folly, unless I am kept by Your power."

     "Lord Jesus, I sin. Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never be content with myself, never think I can reach a point of perfection. Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self. Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for You and not for self...Deliver me from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gap; that with self-loathing, deep contrition, earnest heart searching I may come to You..."

     "Grant that my proneness to evil, deadness to good, resistance to Your Spirit's motions, may never provoke You to abandon me. May my hard heart awake Your pity, not Your wrath..."

     "In prayer I see myself as nothing..."

                                  Excerpts from prayers featured in The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett

     And, on top of all this, there was the vivid belief in witchcraft. Magic is a tricky thing with the Puritans, because though they forbade it, there were instances where it was indulged in. Cunning folk - people who did good magic (known as "white magic"), divination, and anti-magic to counter magical afflictions - were part of their society. They weren't always completely trusted, but they did garner a certain respect. Witches, however, were seen as evil without question. Supposedly, they only got their powers from the Devil and used these powers only to inflict harm/temptation upon innocents. 

     With the Puritans fearing no one else as much as the Devil, it was small wonder that the idea of witches in their own village and throughout all New England terrified them. And when no doctors could explain the fits and seizures of their children, it didn't take long for them to jump to the conclusion that witchcraft was behind it all.

     

     With all this in mind, I'm still in the process of brainstorming my own story. While I'll be working a lot on figuring out the plot for this, I'm also keep my research close to heart. This story will have one or two fantastical elements to it, but I don't want that to upstage or devalue the very real horrors of the trials. Some of the people I've read about will show up in my protagonist's life. Real locations will be mentioned. The reality of Puritan life, especially for a woman, will be an important theme. Since I am writing about such a dark moment in time, I want to honor the past to the best of my abilities.

     One of the more awful parts of my research was learning how long it took for the wrongdoings of Salem to be acknowledged. The families of the executed weren't given any justice by either Salem or Massachusetts. Very few of the afflicted apologized for what they'd done. It wasn't until 1957 the state issued any of apologies for the trials, and it was as late as 2022 when the final exoneration (for Elizabeth Johnson Jr.) was given by state officials...330 years after the trials. Given that this is America, I can't say that this is all that surprising. This is not at all the only dark chapter in America that has been hidden or buried. Still, the state and the country turned their backs on history long enough that a Walgreens got built in front of the very site (Proctor's Ledge) where eighteen people were tied up and hung to death in front of their community, who would gather and watch (a memorial would eventually be built behind the store in 2017).

     The one word, the one emotion I keep circling back to with all this is dread. It was what I felt when I saw The Crucible. What I felt when I read both the real and the fictional stories about the trials. What I felt every time I imagined what it must have been like living in that time. How could you possibly hope to defend yourself when everyone was convinced you were guilty? How could you hold onto any hope that you might live? How could you dwell amongst neighbors who had accused you and called you a witch (and who would most likely shun you)? 

     How do you survive such times of darkness and hysteria when everyone sees the Devil in you?

 ~ Madeleine