Salem 17th century

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/kazin-writer.html

The Witchcraft Hysteria that Swept Through Massachusetts, 1692

• More than 400 person underwent the horror of being accused of practicing witchcraft.

• Of these, 19 were hanged, and one man pressed to death for refusal to enter a plea at his trial.

• When the hysteria settled, approximately 150 persons were in various jails in Massachusetts.

• By order of the governor in May 1693, these people were released when their jail and court costs were paid.

• At least 3 women died as a result of overcrowded and unhealthy conditions in prison.

When we say the word Salem, Massachusetts…what do you think

of?

Salem

• The word alone evokes persistent images in the minds of 21st century Americans:– The misogynistic persecution of women– The hysterical girls telling tales of being tormented

by specters– Falsely accused “witches” bravely refusing to

confess

Salem or “New Jerusalem”

• The word “Salem,” an ancient form of Jerusalem, means peace, but for most Americans today the name Salem evokes the site of the infamous with trials.

• No witches were dramatically burned at the stake in America, but the events in 1692 in Salem, MA, continue to haunt Americans with images of hysterical accusations, fear, and panic.

• The actual number of executions in Salem was small compared to the causalities of Europe and the European witch-hunts, but the proceedings of the courts that condemned 20 women and men to death prove to be a system that presumed guilty until proved innocent.

• Few other events in colonial American history have so fascinated modern residents of the United States; few other incidents in the 17th century Anglo-American colonies have been so intensively studied by historians.

• Yet the issue remains a complicated one…

• And so it all begins….

Witch Hunts in Europe

• In many ways the story of the Salem witch-hunt began in Europe.

• Historian Brian P. Levack (http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/history/faculty/levackbp )

explains that the great European witch-hunts stretched from 1450-1750, involved thousands of victims, and were a result of “new ideas about witches and a series of fundamental changes in the criminal law” as well as “both religious change and social tension.”

• What made possible full-scale witch hunts was not just belief in witches who practiced black magic to work harm on others, but the connection made by the educated Christian elite linking magic to devil worship.

• According to Lavack, “The emergence of the belief that witches were not merely magicians but Devil-worshippers changed the nature of the crime of witchcraft. It made witches not simply felons, similar to murderers and thieves, but heretics and apostates, intrinsically evil individuals who had rejected their Christian faith and had decided instead to serve God’s enemy, the Devil.”

Anxieties that face a changing world

• The critical changes in criminal procedure at the time involved a movement to the inquisitorial system, where judges initiated proceedings, and the new ability of the court to order torture to gain both confessions and the name of other witches.

• Religious and social changes during the early 16th century intensified with the period of the Reformations…

Women…and the men that feared them….

• Women’s position within a society made them particularly vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. Considered intellectually inferior and sexually insatiable, women’s roles as cooks, healers, and midwives made them particularly suspect.

• In addition, sexually experienced women were a special threat to men’s sense of superiority.

• Levack notes that there was a general sense of anxiety about inflation, famine and plague, religious dissent, popular rebellions, the spread of poverty, and the emergence of capitalism.

Community Anxieties:• The Massachusetts colonists had been in an almost-constant

state of turmoil since they first settled here, and their troubles were greatly increased when Charles II became King of England (1660 – known in history and literature as the Restoration).

• Although he allowed the colony to retain its charter, he overturned the ban imposed by the Massachusetts authorities against reading the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, also decreeing that all freeholders having estates valued at more than 40 pounds sterling and who were of good moral character were from that time allowed to vote in any election in the colony, regardless of which church they chose to attend.

• In 1664, he appointed 4 Commissioners to go to the American colonies (Massachusetts, in particular) to study their laws, authorizing them to rescind any they consider to be of a seditious nature or that in any way tended to undermine his authority.

• MA – had just recently rid itself of its Quakers and Baptists, and when these people learned that the colony would have to grant them complete freedom of worship, several of them returned.

• When they returned, they soon learned that once the Commissioners left, Massachusetts began to persecute religious dissenters, whipping, branding, and jailing them.

Indian Relations

Indian relations had begun to deteriorate…in a large part to how the Puritans treated the Indians.

MA population kept growing…more land is needed…

The serious lack of communication between these two diverse civilization inevitably led to the outbreak of King Philip’s War, 1675 (lasted 14 months)

The Province of Maine• The following year, the Province of Maine was taken from MA and given

to Sir Ferinando Gorges, the grandson of the man to whim it had originally been granted.

• MA immediately bought it back from Gorges fro 1200 pounds silver.

• Charles II, who wanted to give this fast territory to one of his relatives, offered to buy it back from MA, but the General Court ignored and even refused to acknowledge that it had been made.

• Instead, it quickly appointed a Gov. to rule the province and sent him there with an escort of 2 ships and 60 armed men.

• This set the wheels in motion for the Dominion of New England, 1684

The Massachusetts Charter Revoked, 1684

• A huge blow to the Puritan ministers whose political and ecclesiastical powers were drastically abridged by the loss.

• James II, brother who succeeded Charles II, appointed Joseph Dudley as President of New England.

• He proved to be only an interim appointee and was soon replaced by Sir Edmund Andros

The Episcopalians

• The King and Andros were Episcopalians…

• They allowed Episcopalians to hold services…in Boston…in private homes without an ordained minister…

• In May, 1686, the Rev. John Ratcliffe, and Episcopalian clergyman, came to live in Boston, and by the end of that year there were between 300-400 people in his congregation.

• None of the Puritan ministers would share their churches w/ the Episcopalians, and when Andros arrived to take over the government, he gave then a part of the town House to use as a church…

• And by 1688, the Episcopalians and the Puritans shared the same meeting house…

• Eventually, the Episcopalians purchased land and built their own church…exactly why the Puritans left England to begin with…

Andros is the Devil…

• Puritans hate him…

• One of his first acts was to appoint one of his men to censor the press…

• He then levied a series of confiscatory taxes on the people…

• Then he ordered that those who wished to do business with his government would have to come to Boston to do so…

• This worked a hardship on many widows and orphans who were waiting for estates to be probated, and he imposed an even greater burden on them by rising probate fees to the highest level since the colony was founded…

• To gain control of all of New England for himself he ruled that the colonists no longer owned the lands they lived on except as tenants at will, declaring that all lands belonged to the Crown from the time the charter was voided.

• He stifled most of the opposition to the ruling by abolishing the General Court, thereby giving himself absolute authority ever all legal matters in the territories under his jurisdiction…

The Dominion of New England

• During his second year…New York (1664) was added to the territory…

• And he allowed the Maine Indians to attack the settlements

The Declaration of Indulgence, 1687

• James II – granted complete freedom of worship to all his subjects…

• News of this was greeted with as much joy by the Puritans as it was with displeasure by Andros, who had hoped to someday drive the Puritan church out of New England…

• Having learned that the Boston churches had set aside a Day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the news, Andros posted soldiers at the door of every church in town to prevent anyone from entering them on the appointed day…

• Realizing this loss of autonomy…the loss of their charter…the Puritans sent Increase Mather, pastor of the North Church to England to meet w/ King James II….in search of a new charter…Mather arrived in London on May 25, 1687…James did nothing about granting a new charter, and Mather remained in England for 5 more years….through the Glorious Revolution (1688) where William and Mary remove James II, issue the English Bill of Rights (1689), and grant Mather a new charter…

• Mather returned to Boston, May 14, 1692… with a charter that gave the colonists far less then they had hoped…

The Great Fire of 1691

• A great fire broke out in Boston…leveled much of the town…

• New of an earthquake destroyed 90 percent of Port Royal, Jamaica – estimated loss of 2,000 lives…many were Puritans (friends, family, etc.)…

• Drought and locusts in MA…

• Outbreaks of smallpox w/ an alarming high mortality rate…

• The strong belief that the devil punished those who were not “select”…

• When the first accusations were made against the suspected witches, they felt that they could now fight back against the power responsible for their [previous suffering, and this resulted in an outburst of passion that soon turned to hysteria…

The basic facts…

The basic facts can be briefly summarized: • The witchcraft crisis began in mid-January 1691/2 – Old Salem or

Salem Village – when 2 little girls living in the household of the Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village (now Danvers), MA, began to suffer from fits that they and their elders soon attributed to witch-craft.

• In the months that followed, growing numbers of accusers claimed to be tortured by the apparitions of witches, and to see the ghosts of dead people charging the witches with killing them.

• Other accusers – most commonly neighbors of the suspects-came forward as well, to describe how they and their animals had been bewitched by the malefic acts of the accused.

• Around mid-September the crisis began to wane, and it limped to a close on November 5 with the filing of complaints against the last three witches to be formally charged.

• Legal proceedings extended from Feb. 29, 1961/62 (the first official complaints), to late May 1693 (the final trials of suspects).

• Those months encompassed legal action against at least 144 people (38 of them male), most of whom were jailed for long periods; 54 confessions of witchcraft; the hangings of 14 women and 5 men; the pressing to death of another man by heavy stones; and the deaths in custody of 3 women and a man, along with several infants

• Throughout the crisis, the most active accusers were a group of young Salem Village and Andover women ranging in age from 11-20, several of them servants.

• Accordingly, as in no other event in American history until the rise of the women’s rights movements in the 19th century, women took center stage at Salem: they were the major instigators and victims of a remarkable public spectacle.

• Scholars have developed a variety of interpretations of the crisis. Some have detected natural causes for the girls’ visions of ghostly specters: ergot poisoning or, most recently, an encephalitis epidemic.

• One has argued that at least some of the accused really were practicing witchcraft, giving some of the charges merit.

• Several historians contend that the girls were faking their fits from the start, others that they were hysterical, angry, or delinquent adolescents.

Salem Possessed

• This influential book by Boyer and Nissenbaum attributes the crisis to long-standing political, economic, and religious discord among the men of Salem Village, denying the significance of women’s prominence as both accused and accuser.

The Salem Witch Trials: Mysterious Journeys

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE08i5gtG3s

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VrmXYZjb6s&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOg95SLpzA0&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_nTd0ayiA&feature=related

Salem Village

• In the winter of 1691/92, a thinly populated rural precient bordering the crowed, bustling seaport of Salem Town, simmered with contention, much of it revolving around the church.

• Its pastor, the Rev Samuel Parris, had become the focal point for considerable discontent, which his actions in the coming months would magnify rather than dampen.

Reverend Samuel Parris

• http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASA_PAR.HTM

• Land grants in the mid to late 1630s had initiated movement into the area that eventually became known as Salem Village, which was located north and west of the town center.

• Salem, the first permanent settlement in Massachusetts Bay Colony, was founded in 1626 on a peninsula commanding a superb natural harbor, and the town quickly became the focal point of the area around Cape Ann.

• Immigrants flowed in during the 1630s, and furs and fish flowed out.

• The newcomers moved inland to found new towns and to settle in Salem’s own inland known as: “the Farms”.

• Map of Salem: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salemmap.HTM

• As the decades pass…friction increased between Salem Town and Salem Village…

The Town V. The Village• Residents of Salem Town wanted the tax

revenues contributed by residents of the Farms; for their part, the Farmers, though usually outvoted by the more numerous Town residents, sought to avoid civic obligations in the Town.

• Like other residents of outlying areas of colonial New England settlements, they complained of the long weekly journey to the town center to attend church…they argued they wanted to establish their own church.

Salem Town v. Salem Village

• http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/Witch.html• MA Bay Colony was founded 1626

• Salem is named for “New Jerusalem”

• By the early 1670s the Farmers of the Village fought for autonomy – wishing for their own meetinghouse and minister.

• October 1672 the MA General Court agreed to their request.

• But Salem Town still claimed the right to assess Farmers for ecclesiastical expenses, and the Farms, later Salem Village, did not become the independent town of Danvers until 1752.

The Ministers of Salem Village

• Ironically…it was the meetinghouse and minister that proved to be a major source of discord with Salem Village itself.

• 1. James Bayley – 1672-1680• 2. George Burroughs – 1680-83• 3. Deodat Lawson – 1684-88• 4. Samuel Parris - 1689

Boyer and Nissenbaum

• Argued that the Village was so contentious because of its anomalous status, nether wholly independent or wholly dependent. “Structural defects in its organization rendered the Village almost helpless in coping with whatever disputes might arise.”

The Salem Witchcraft Trials

• http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM

• Primary Source documents: Assignment: For your Historical Journals on the Salem Witch Trials, please review the trial transcripts, examination records, etc., and tell me their significance. Tell me what they teach us, the reader about 17th century Salem.

Salem Witchcraft: The Events and Causes of the Salem Witch Trials

• http://www.salemwitchtrials.com/salemwitchcraft.html

• Primary Source Documents: EXAMINATIONS OF SOME OF THE ACCUSED WITCHES IN SALEM, 1692:

Causes for the Outbreak of Witchcraft

1. Strong belief that Satan is acting in the world. ---------"The invisible world": disease, natural catastrophes, and bad fortune attributed to work of the devil

2. A belief that Satan recruits witches and wizards to work for him. ---------Prior witchcraft cases in New England (and Europe before)

3. A belief that a person afflicted by witchcraft exhibits certain symptoms. ---------Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences ---------Most symptoms can be feigned

4. A time of troubles, making it seem likely that Satan was active. ---------Smallpox ---------Congregational strife in Salem Village ---------Frontier wars with Indians

5. Stimulation of imaginations by Tituba.

6. Convulsive egotism, a disease caused by eating infecting rye that can produce hallucinations, causing strange behavior? (Interesting theory, but unlikely.)

7. Teenage boredom. ---------No television, no CDs, and lots of Bible reading ---------Strict and humorless Parris household

8. Magistrates and judges receptive to accusations of witchcraft. ---------See as way to shift blame for their own wartime failures ---------Admission of spectral evidence

9. Confessing "witches" adding credibility to earlier charges.

10. Old feuds (disputes within congregation, property disputes) between the accusers and the accused spurring charges of witchcraft

The Salem Witch Trials

• 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

• Cotton Mather: Born on Feb. 12th 1663 into a family of renown New England Puritan ministers, including Rev. John Cotton and Rev. Richard Mather, Cotton Mather seemed destined to achieve fame.

• His own father, Rev. Increase Mather, also held a position of prominence as a well-admired political leader, minister of the South Church in Boston, as well as the presidency of Harvard College.

• Excelling in his entrance exams in Latin and Greek, young Cotton began his schooling at Harvard at only 12 years of age.

• After receiving his M.A. at age 18, he felt called to a life of service in the clergy.

• A terrible stutter, however, forced him to delay entering the ministry and the demands of preaching, and instead he entertained the notion of becoming a doctor. Encouragement from a friend eventually pulled him over this speech impediment and back to his calling, although medicine remained a key interest throughout his life.

• Mather preached his first sermon in August of 1680, and went on to be ordained by 1685 at age 22.

Cotton Mather: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=209

• Besides his involvement with the witch trials in Salem during the 1690s, Cotton Mather is remembered as one of the most influential Puritan ministers of his day.

• Never achieving his father's success as a political leader or president of Harvard, Cotton made his mark through his efforts as a master of the pen.

• By the end of his life, he had published over 400 of his works, ranging from the subject of witchcraft to smallpox inoculation.

• His publication, Curiosa Americana(1712-24), demonstrated his abilities as an accomplished scientist, and earned him election to the prestigious Royal Society of London, England.

• Although his efforts of encouragement in smallpox inoculation were met with much resistance and nearly killed his own son, he is recognized as having been a progressive medical advocate for his day.

Cotton Mather

• In 1693 Mather wrote The Wonders of the Invisible World, in which he defended the Salem trials in lofty theological (religious) terms, with biblical references to support his view of the Puritan mission in the New World.

• According to Mather, the devil was trying "all sorts of methods to overturn this poor plantation, the Puritan colony.“

• Yet Mather saw this as a special challenge: once the Puritans were rid of the witches in their midst (had trodden "all the vultures of Hell" under their feet), God would bless them with eternal happiness ("halcyon (happy) days").

Cotton Mather’s Involvement• Although Mather was not directly involved in the proceedings of the Salem

witch trials, he wrote a letter to one of the magistrates in the trials, John Richards of Boston, urging caution in the use of spectral evidence. Mather was also the author of the "Return of the Several Ministers," a report sent to the judges of the Salem court.

• This carefully-worded document advised caution in the use of spectral evidence, saying that the devil could indeed assume the shape of an innocent person, and decrying the use of spectral evidence in the trials, their "noise, company, and openness", and the utilization of witch tests such as the recitation of the Lord's Prayer.

• However, the final paragraph of the document appears to undercut this cautionary statement in recommending "the detection of witchcrafts". Thus, in Bernard Rosenthal and Perry Miller's opinions, the courts interpreted the letter as Mather's seal of approval for the trials to go on.

Things to Remember when Reading the Wonders of the Invisible World

• Unlike his father (Increase Mather), in the beginning Cotton Mather rejected the concept of spectral evidence (proof of possession by spirits); instead, he regarded Salem as a battleground between the forces of good and evil.

• Like all Puritans, Mather believed that God had dispatched him on a special mission to the New World: his role was to root out evil and establish the "kingdom of God.“

• http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Bur4Nar.html

• By September 1693 many intellectuals and ministers started to question the use of spectral evidence in the witch trials.

• The belief that accused witches were possessed by the devil, rather than acting freely as a follower of the devil, started to take hold.

• Once people started to feel that the accused were really victims, the basis for the trials started to crumble.

• Mather, who had originally been against the use of spectral evidence but had pushed for the prosecution of some of the accused solely on that charge, worked to distance himself from the shame of the outcome of more than a year of trials and executions.

• In 1700 Robert Calef published More Wonders of the Invisible World, a book mostly devoted to mocking Mather's book (see biography and primary source entries).

• Although Mather defended his views on witchcraft for the rest of his life, he was mostly ignored.

• He is still considered to be at fault for a great deal of the witchcraft hysteria.

• 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.

• 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.

Increase Mather, 1693• “It were better that ten suspected witches should escape, than that

one innocent person should be condemned.”

• Once Massachusetts Governor Sir William Phips ended the trials, the entire episode was forgotten: after 1692…the very word witchcraft almost vanishes from public discourse.

• Not until 1721 were the incidents openly discussed.

• The Puritans were trapped by their own closed society – a society built upon a covenant relationship with God that, like the Old Testament Israelites, was constantly tested by heathen influences.

• Hence, the wiles of the “evil one” were long anticipated.

Why the Hysteria Ended• 1. Doubts grow when respected citizens are convicted and executed.

-------Rebecca Nurse (jury first acquits, then told to reconsider) -------George Burroughs (recites Lord's Prayer perfectly at hanging) -------Giles Corey (81-year-old is pressed to death)

•2. Accusations of witchcraft include the powerful and well-connected. -------Wife of Governor Phips -------Mary & Philip English (and others)

•3. The educated elite of Boston pressure Gov. Phips to exclude spectral evidence. -------Rev. Samuel Willard and others -------Increase Mather points out the Devil could take the shape of an innocent person: "It were better that 10 suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned."

•4. Gov. Phips bars spectral evidence and disbands the Court of Oyer and Terminer