Salem Witch Crisis: Summary

The Salem witchcraft crisis began during the winter of 1691- 1692, in Salem
Village, Massachusetts, when Betty Parris, the nineyear-old daughter of the villages
minister, Samuel Parris, and his niece, Abigail Williams, fell strangely ill. The girls
complained of pinching, prickling sensations, knifelike pains, and the feeling of being
choked. In the weeks that followed, three more girls showed similar symptoms.
Reverend Parris and several doctors began to suspect that witchcraft was
responsible for the girls behavior. They pressed the girls to name the witches who were
tormenting them. The girls named three women, who were then arrested. The third
accused was Parriss Indian slave, Tituba. Under examination, Tituba confessed to being
a witch, and testified that four women and a man were causing the girls illness.
The girls continued to accuse people of witchcraft, including some respectable
church members. The new accused witches joined Tituba and the other two women in
jail.
The accused faced a difficult situation. If they confessed to witchcraft, they could
escape death but would have to provide details of their crimes and the names of other
participants. On the other hand, it was very difficult to prove ones innocence. The
Puritans believed that witches knew magic and could send spirits to torture people.
However, the visions of torture could only be seen by the victims. The afflicted girls and
women were often kept in the courtroom as evidence while the accused were examined.
If they screamed and claimed that the accused witch was torturing them, the judge would
have to believe their visions, even if the accused witch was not doing anything visible to
the girls.
Between June and October, twenty people were convicted of witchcraft and killed
and more than a hundred suspected witches remained in jail.

Salem Evidence A: Discourse on Witchcraft

(Modified)
In the speech below, Cotten Mather, an influential leader of the
Puritans, argues
for the existence of witchcraft:

I will prove that Witchcraft exists. Those who deny it exists argue
that they
never saw any witches, therefore there are none. That would be
as if you
or I said: We never met any robbers, therefore there are none.
I have two pieces of evidence that witchcraft exists: First, the
Scripture
mentions witchcraft. Secondly, many people have experienced
the horrors

of witchcraft.
Source: Cotton Mather, Memorable Providences relating to Witchcrafts and

Possessions,
from A Discourse on Witchcraft, (Boston, 1689), pp. 4-9. Cotton Mather was
one of the
most influential religious leaders in America at the time.

Salem Evidence B: Testimony of Abigail Hobbs

(Modified)
Below is the testimony of a teenager accused of witchcraft, Abigail
Hobbs, on
April 19, 1692.
Judge: Abigail Hobbs, you are brought before Authority to answer to
various acts
of witchcraft. What say you? Are you guilty, or not? Speak the truth.
Abigail Hobbs: I will speak the truth. I have seen sights and been
scared. I have
been very wicked. I hope I shall be better, if God will help me.
Judge: What sights did you see?
Abigail Hobbs: I have seen the Devil.
Judge: How often, many times?
Abigail Hobbs: But once.
Judge: What would he have you do?
Abigail Hobbs: Why, he would have me be a witch.
Judge: Would he have you make a covenant with him?
Abigail Hobbs: Yes.

Salem Evidence C: Chart of Family Farms

Average Size of Family Farms in Salem Village,
1640-1700

Salem Evidence D: Map of Salem Village

The map below depicts Salem Village (on the left/west) and Salem
Town (on the
right/east). Most people in Salem Village were farmers, whereas most
people in
Salem Town were merchants and townspeople. The residents of Salem
Village
had to pay taxes to Salem Town. The map shows that most of the
people who
made accusations were from Salem Village.

Salem Evidence E: Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?

Convulsive ergotism may have been a physiological basis for the Salem
witchcraft crisis in 1692.
From Science Vol. 192 (2 April 1976) by Linnda R. Caporael

Rye was the most reliable of the Old World grains and by the 1640's oat was a
well-established New England crop. Spring sowing was the rule; the bitter winters made
fall sowing less successful. Seed time for the rye was April and the harvesting took place
in August. However, the grain was stored in barns and often waited months before being
threshed when the weather turned cold. The timing of Salem events fits this cycle.
Threshing probably occurred shortly before Thanksgiving, the only holiday the Puritans
observed. The children's symptoms appeared in December 1691. Late the next fall,
1692, the witchcraft crisis ended abruptly and there is no further mention of the girls or
anyone else in Salem being afflicted.
Certain climatic conditions, that is, warm, rainy springs and summers, promote
heavier than usual fungus infestation. The pattern of the weather in 1691 and 1692 is
apparent from brief comments in Samuel Sewall's diary. Early rains and warm weather in
the spring progressed to a hot and stormy summer in 1691. There was a drought the next
year, 1692, thus no contamination of the grain that year would be expected.
"Rye," continues Stearns, "which grows in low, wet ground yields [ergot] in greatest
abundance." Now, one of the most notorious of the accusing children in Salem was
Thomas Putnam's 12-year-old daughter, Ann. Her mother also displayed symptoms of
the affliction and psychological historians have credited the senior Ann with attempting
to resolve her own neurotic complaints through her daughter. Two other afflicted girls
also lived in the Putnam residence. Putnam had inherited one of the largest landholdings
in the village. His father's will indicates that a large measure of the land, which was
located in the western sector of Salem Village, consisted of swampy meadows that were
valued farmland to the colonists. Accordingly, the western acreage of Salem Village,
may have been an area of contamination. This contention is further substantiated by the
pattern of residence of the accusers, the accused, and the defenders of the accused living
within the boundaries of Salem Village. Excluding the afflicted girls, 30 of 32 adult
accusers lived in the western section and 12 of the 14 accused witches lived in the eastern
section, as did 24 of the 29 defender.. The general pattern of residence, in combination
with the well-documented factionalism of the eastern and western sectors, contributed to
the progress of the witchcraft crisis.
The initially afflicted girls show a slightly different residence pattern. Careful
examination reveals plausible explanations for contamination in six of the eight cases.
Three of the girls, as mentioned above, lived in the Putnam residence. If this were
the source of ergotism, their exposure to ergotized grain would be natural. Two afflicted
girls, the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, lived in the parsonage almost exactly in
the center of the village. Their exposure to contaminated grain from western land is also
explicable. Two-thirds of Parris's salary was paid in provisions; the villagers were taxed
proportionately to their landholding (4). Since Putnam was one of the largest landholders
and an avid supporter of Parris in the minister's community disagreements, an ample
store of ergotized grain would be anticipated in Parris's larder. Putnam was also Parris's
closest neighbor with afflicted children in residence.
The three remaining afflicted girls lived outside the village boundaries to the east.
One, Elizabeth Hubbard, was a servant in the home of Dr. Griggs. It seems plausible that
the doctor, like Parris, had Putnam grain, since Griggs was a professional man, not a
farmer. As the only doctor in town, he probably had many occasions to treat Ann Putnam

Sr., a woman known to have much ill health. Griggs may have traded his services for
provisions or bought food from the Putnams.
The afflicted girls' behavior seemed to be no secret in early spring. Apparently it
was the great consternation that some villagers felt that induced Mary Sibley to direct the
making of the witch cake of rye meal and the urine of the afflicted. This concoction was
fed to a dog, ostensibly in the belief that the dog's subsequent behavior would indicate the
action of any malefic magic. The fate of the dog is unknown; it is quite plausible that it
did have convulsions, indicating to the observers that there was witchcraft involved in the
girls' afflictions. Thus, the experiments with the witch cake, rather than any magic tricks
of Tituba, initiated succeeding events.
The importance of the witch cake incident has generally been overlooked. Parris's
denouncement of his neighbor's action is recorded in his church records. He clearly
stated that, until the making of the cake, there was no suspicion of witchcraft and no
reports of torturing apparitions. Once a community member had gone "to the Devil for
help against the Devil," as Parris put it, the climate for the trials had been established.
The afflicted girls, who had made no previous mention of witchcraft, seized upon a cause
for their behavior--as did the rest of the community. The girls named three persons as
witches and their afflictions thereby became a matter for the legal authorities rather than
the medical authorities or the families of the girls.