Today in Salem: It’s the Sabbath, and the Rev Samuel Parris is preaching from the Song of Solomon about the love between friends, made even sweeter when they reconcile after their differences. The analogy is not lost on his congregation, but the wounds of the last few months are too deep to heal so easily.
In jail, the pregnant Elizabeth Proctor feels her baby roll and twist. Like his father, she thinks. Always moving. She imagines him as a diligent child, a strong young man, then a godly husband and father. She grieves profoundly, though. She will not live to see him as anything more than a days-old infant. How many times will she put the baby to breast before she faces the noose?
In the State House, Governor Phips is avoiding the judges, all of whom are peppering him with questions. Court is due to resume in ten days, but the judges have sniffed out his ambivalence. If he allows the Court to proceed unchecked, then he will have defied the ministers and many influential citizens. Reining in the Court, though, defies the judges. It’s simply not possible to please everyone, and whatever he does will be held against him. And so he dithers.
Today in Salem: Rev Samuel Parris is pacing in front of the meeting house and praying for guidance. Six weeks ago the beloved Rebecca Nurse was hanged, and her family essentially disappeared from church. Two weeks ago, he and a committee of men were appointed to ask them why.
They’ve made the rounds and heard them out, and now the question is what to do about it? Rebecca’s son actually has been to church, but not every week, he admits. Her daughter has an infant, and has been tending a sick husband for the entire time. And her sister, the outspoken Sarah Cloyce, is still in jail. Still, Sarah’s husband ought to be in church – although he’s been visiting her so much that he’s hardly home.
Attendance at church is mandatory, and those who miss it are fined, or whipped if they can’t pay. He could argue with the excuses, but Rev Parris decides to wait and see if things improve.
Today in Salem: Rev Parris’s dog is under the table, resting his head on his front paws and lying on Parris’s feet. The dog is the only spot of calm in the room, though, as Parris tries to transcribe the court’s proceedings.
It’s impossible, though. Parris’s own niece, Abigail Williams, is shrieking and convulsing and crying so dramatically that Parris can’t concentrate. She’s 11 years old, and yet somehow she’s louder than the teenage girls. The only person who’s even louder is the slave John Indian. Yesterday the schoolmaster had threatened him fiercely, and John had promised that his fits wouldn’t happen again. But now he’s back, more forcefully than before, and it takes 4 men to control him.
The harsh John Proctor was arrested yesterday during his wife’s examination, and less than 24 hours later the magistrates have brought him here for his own. But he’s hardly spoken when John Indian shouts that Proctor’s specter is on the dog’s back. The girls contort and gasp, pointing as the specter moves from the dog to the magistrate’s lap.
The judges have barely questioned Proctor, but they don’t need to. His specter is obviously tormenting people, right here and now. They send him back to jail to wait for a trial.
By now the Salem jail is so crowded that several prisoners are sent to Boston. Among them: the gospel woman Martha Corey. Her husband, the cantankerous Giles Corey, promises to visit her next week. And he will, but not in the way he thinks.
LEARN MORE: Why did Rev Parris have a dog with him in court? Did people in early colonial America have pets?
The Pilgrims on the Mayflower brought with them two dogs: a mastiff and an English spaniel, who not only survived the journey, but feasted during the first Thanksgiving. But they probably weren’t coddled the way pets are today. Still, Massachusetts published the first laws in America preventing cruelty toward animals, saying that “No man shall exercise any Tirranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man’s use.”
The mastiff continued to be the most popular dog during colonial times. Often, the family dog was tied up outside a front door and used as a guard dog. But many family dogs were treated more companionably and went everywhere with their owners, even to church.
Cats also arrived on the Mayflower (and every ship thereafter), and were expected to earn their keep by hunting pests and vermin. They came and went as they liked and were treated more like working animals than pets. Today, cats are the second most popular pet in the United States … behind dogs, with mastiffs being the 33rd most popular breed.
Today in Salem: It’s the Sabbath, and Rev Parris is reading Mary Warren’s note to the confused congregation. Thanking God for deliverance is one thing. But from affliction? Why would God deliver her from being able to see and point out evil?
From the corner of her eye, Mary can see Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard touching each other’s hands, hissing as they whisper and look at her sideways. They are fellow servants, also afflicted, and Mary spends the rest of the interminable sermon looking down and clutching her Bible.
When it’s finally over, she tries to hurry away, but the parsonage neighbors stop her.
“How is this possible?” they ask. “Why?”
Mary looks to the side, but there’s no escaping it. “The girls are acting in deception,” she says, but the neighbors just stare at her in silence. Does that mean the girls are deceiving people? Or are they themselves being deceived by the Devil?
The other afflicted girls are standing to the side with their arms crossed, watching Mary in silence. The specters have told them many times to touch the Devil’s book and they’ll be free of torment. And here’s Mary Warren, touching God’s book, claiming she’s free – and that they are lying.
Today in Salem: Thomas Putnam watches silently as his servant, the war refugee Mercy Lewis, is spitting, over and over, refusing to eat or drink anything from the Devil’s Supper, now in its second day. Thomas’s daughter Ann is quiet for once, and now they are both listening, waiting for Mercy to say the name of her spectral tormenter. Thomas has signed three of the six complaints against the accused witches, and he’s ready to do it again if need be.
Suddenly Mercy relaxes. Later she will tell her master that she’d seen Christ, surrounded by brilliant white light, with multitudes singing and praising his name. She is calmer than she’s been in a long time.
At the parsonage, Rev Parris is not calm, not at all. Once again his payday has come and gone, and once again nothing is offered. It’s now been nine months since he was paid. His supporters, led by Thomas Putnam, have provided food and firewood when they can. But the committee that oversees taxes has consistently refused to collect those taxes from the other people in the Village.
Most Puritans would ask God how they had sinned that God would allow them to be abused this way. Rev Parris is not most Puritans, though. He knows he’s right, and he will root out his enemies one at a time until they are vanquished.
Today in Salem: The minister brings the candle closer and asks the teenage girl to show him her wrist. There, in the flickering light, he can see fresh teeth marks. Now he motions to Nathaniel Ingersoll, the tavern’s owner, to come look.
Ingersoll leans down so close that the minister has to pull the candle back. But they agree: she’s been bitten, just now when she’d screamed. It’s Mary Walcott’s first spectral injury, and now she joins her friends in being afflicted. She is 17, the militia captain’s daughter, and cousin to the girls’ leader Ann Putnam.
Across the street at the parsonage, Rev Parris and his wife are looking at each other with fresh alarm as their niece, the 11-year-old tomboy Abigail Williams, flaps her arms furiously and shouts “whish, whish, whish,” as if she’s flying through the house. She screams at the specter of the beloved Rebecca Nurse, then flings herself into the fireplace and throws burning sticks into the room.
Meanwhile, after days of accusations against the gospel woman Martha Corey, the magistrates order the sheriff to bring her to Ingersoll’s Ordinary for a hearing in two days. This will be the second time the Village has gathered to examine an accused witch.
WHO was Nathaniel Ingersoll?
Age about 60. One of two deacons in the church, and a Lieutenant in the militia. Nathaniel was known to be unfailingly honest, fair, and generous. He donated land for the Meeting House. After his father’s death, Nathaniel, 11, went to live with his father’s friend Governor Endecott on a 300-acre country estate, where he apprenticed for several years. There he learned to run his own farm and home, and when he was only 19 he married a young woman and moved on to his own land. The Ingersolls had one daughter, who died young. But their neighbor had several sons, and offered to let the Ingersolls adopt one of them and raise him as their own.
The Endecott Pear Tree is America’s oldest cultivated tree, planted between 1632-1649.
The Ingersoll Ordinary is still standing, though much of the building has been renovated or added to since. The original part of the building was built around 1670. Case files: Nathaniel Ingersoll
Side note: Governor John Endecott was the longest-serving Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: he was the 1st, 10th, 13th, 15th, and 17th governor. He planted a pear tree sometime between 1632 and 1649, which is still standing. It’s America’s oldest cultivated tree.
WHO was Mary Walcott?
Age 17, she was one of the “core accusers.” Compared to the others, she was unusual in that she had a stable home life. She was not a servant, nor an orphan, and hadn’t been traumatized by the wars in Maine.
She was, however, cousin to Ann Putnam, the girls’ leader. Ann was 12, and her family servant was 18. Mary, age 17, undoubtedly spent a good amount of time with them, and witnessed or heard about their torments.
Mary may have been the first girl to fake affliction. In mid-March, when only one hearing had taken place, a minister was invited to Salem Village to witness the afflictions for himself. One of the first people he met was Mary Walcott, who, during a pleasant conversation, suddenly screamed that she’d been bitten by a specter. Sure enough, the minister could see teeth marks on Mary’s arm.
After the trials, Mary married twice and had at least 10 known children. She died in her mid-70s.
Side notes: Mary’s father was the captain of the village militia. Her aunt was the neighbor who’d suggested a witch-cake to Tituba. Case files: Mary Walcott
Today in Salem: Rev Parris uses a quill to scratch out a letter to his cousin in Boston. I should have done this sooner, he thinks. His daughter Betty is only 9, and it’s final: he needs to send her as far away, as quickly as possible, from the witchcraft hysteria. Perhaps his cousin will take her in.
Little Betty has been suffering from fits and seizures for weeks, cried and shook her way through the hearings for Tituba and the twoSarahs, and was again tormented two nights ago. And today, more of the same. Several ministers have spent all day at the parsonage, fasting and praying. Every time one of the ministers said “Amen,” Betty and her cousin Abigail twisted and jerked, barely under control. The girls know that the word “Amen” means “truth.” Obviously the devil knows it, too.
Rev Parris drips hot wax on the note and presses his seal into it. God’s will be done, he thinks, and hopes he’s doing the right thing. But he’d rather not see his daughter at all, than see her at home in so much distress.
Today in Salem: Rev Parris’s hands are red and swollen from beating his slave Tituba. Parris is done, done with waiting and praying. Little Betty and her cousin the tomboy Abigail are growing worse, not better, and now he’s beaten a confession out of Tituba. Yes. Yes, she’s a witch, she cries. Not just that, but so are the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Saran Osborne, plus two other witches she doesn’t recognize.
Parris relays the confession to a church deacon, who enlists three other men to ride to town and file complaints against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Warrants are immediately issued for their arrest, with orders to appear tomorrow morning for a hearing.
Tonight, according to the girls, the beggar Sarah Good’s specter torments the 17-year-old servant Elizabeth Hubbard. The specter of the sickly Sarah Osborne manifests as a human-headed bird and torments Betty, age 9, and Abigail, age 11. And the specters of Osborne and Tituba try to cut off 12-year-old Ann Putnam’s head.
LEARN MORE: How could Rev Parris beat his slave? Wasn’t slavery just during the Civil War?
No. The first enslaved Africans were brought to America more than 150 years before the witchcraft trials, and nearly 300 years before the U.S. Civil War.
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 was the first legal code established in New England. It outlawed slavery but legalized the slave trade at the same time.
About 50 years before the trials, the Puritans outlawed slavery with two exceptions: prisoners of war (most often Native Americans), and strangers who were sold to them or sold themselves. So, ironically, the very law that outlawed slavery also legalized the slave trade between America, the West Indies, and Africa.
In Salem at the time, we know of at least five enslaved people: In the Parris household were Tituba and John Indian with their daughter Violet, who’s age and birthplace are unknown. Two other women, Mary Black and Candy, both named in the trials, were enslaved by other families.
While Rev Parris “owned” Tituba because of legal loopholes, beating her was immoral and outside the law. In fact, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather later promised that if owners mistreated their slaves, “the Sword of Justice” would sweep through the colony.
Today in Salem: Rev Parris thunders as if he’s behind the pulpit. Except he’s not behind the pulpit. He’s in his own kitchen, raging at Tituba, Betty, and Abigail and waving his fist in the air. You’ve opened the door to the Devil, he rages. You’ve used magic to counter-magic, and now God’s wrath will be unleashed!
Several other ministers are standing behind Rev Parris, holding their hats and looking first at Tituba, then at Betty and Abigail as the girls sob and contort their arms and legs into impossible positions. The girls have already choked out the story of the witch-cake, and now they gasp for breath, as if they’re being strangled. “It wasn’t us!” they cry. “It’s Tituba! She’s a witch!”
When Parris demands an explanation, Tituba looks at the floor and confesses to making the witch-cake. “But I am not a witch,” she says. Her owner in Barbados was a witch, she says. That’s where she’d learned how to use counter-magic. “But I am not the cause of evil. I am no witch.”
After yesterday’s visit from the doctor, Rev Parris had invited other ministers to see the girls for themselves and render their opinion. Now they’ve seen the full unraveling, and they step outside with Parris. They agree that the hand of Satan is on the children, but they still aren’t sure if it’s a witch that’s involved. “Be careful,” they say. “Don’t do anything. Just wait and see.”
LEARN MORE: What is counter-magic? Was it good or bad?
The Book of Magical Charms is a handwritten book from the 17th century. It contains charms for things like healing a toothache, recovering a lost voice, and talking to spirits.
Counter-magic can be thought of as “good magic,” or superstitious behavior that prevents or protects against evil. People today practice counter-magic without even realizing it. When you hang a dreamcatcher, throw salt over your shoulder, burn sage, or whisper to a child “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” — you’re keeping evil forces at bay with counter-magic.
In the 17th century, any kind of magic was demonic. That’s what the Puritan ministers believed anyway. Lay people weren’t so sure. In the 20 years before the trials in Salem, witchcraft cases were usually dismissed by the courts for lack of evidence. This left people feeling defenseless against people they knew were witches. Something had to be done, even if it was just to protect themselves. Witch bottles were filled with urine, nails, wine, or other objects and hidden under hearths. Poppets were tucked under floorboards. Horseshoes were nailed to walls.
Those objects are sometimes uncovered in today’s archaeological digs, and can be surprisingly similar to the objects we use today – more than 300 years later.
Today in Salem: Reverend Samuel Parris can smell her before he sees her, the acrid scent of pipe smoke followed by the pungency of a sweating and long-unwashed body. It’s dusk on the Sabbath, with an entire day of sermons behind him, and all Rev Parris wants is his supper. Instead the homeless beggar Sarah Good is knocking on his door, smoking her pipe and shivering in the February cold, a baby squirming in her arms and a little girl hiding behind her petticoat. She is begging, again, having knocked on nearly every door in Salem Village.
Parris hesitates. He doesn’t have much to give, having not been paid in seven months. And Sarah hardly inspires sympathy. She has a legendary temper and nothing but scorn for those who help her. Even her husband complains about her ill-mannered nature, and she’s worn out any charitable feelings people may have once felt.
Still. The children are innocent, and what kind of minister would he be to turn them away? He gives a coin to the little girl, but Sarah doesn’t even look at the money. She just whirls around and stalks off, muttering under her breath, words he hears but can’t quite understand.
LEARN MORE: What was it like to be homeless then?
During the time of the Salem Witchcraft trials, homeless people were known as “vagrants” or “vagabonds.” They didn’t live outdoors; instead, they stayed with relatives or friends and moved from place to place. If the local government had budgeted for it, sometimes the poor were given money or jobs. (In Boston, as much as 25% of the city’s budget went to relief for the poor.)
In the case of Sarah Good, it doesn’t appear that her family was given any government support. Neither did they have support from friends or even relatives: Sarah was so mean-spirited and ill-tempered that she was quickly turned out everywhere she went. Eventually she and her husband, a laborer, were able to find a home away from the village. Still, they never recovered from poverty, and thus Sarah was reduced to begging.
WHO was Sarah Good?
Sarah was 39, a near vagrant who smoked a pipe & had a temper. One of the first to be accused. Mother of 4yo Dorcas Good, who was also accused and put in prison.
Sarah was born to a well-to-do innkeeper who drowned himself when Sarah was 17. He’d left a sizeable estate of 500 pounds to be shared among his 3 daughters, but when her mother remarried, Sarah’s stepfather kept the money to himself and left her with virtually nothing.
Sarah first married an indentured servant who died and left her with massive debts. When she married again, she and her new husband, William Good, inherited that debt. The government seized some of their land to pay it, leaving only a small portion, with William doing odd jobs around the Village. A recent smallpox epidemic had made that nearly impossible, though, and he and Sarah – with their children – fell into poverty.
Over time Sarah became impoverished and bitter, friendless, a near vagrant who was almost universally disliked. She was quarrelsome and loud, smoked a pipe, refused to go to church “for want of clothes.” It was true that she had only two dresses, ten years old, and her children had even less. Still, she showed no interest in leading a virtuous life, which made her suspect. Case files: Sarah Good
WHO was Samuel Parris?
Samuel Parris was the 39-year-old Puritan minister of Salem Village, the father and uncle of two afflicted girls, and the slave-master of one confessor. The witchcraft hysteria began in his family.
Samuel Parris
Parris was born in London and attended Harvard College in Boston, then left to run a sugar plantation he’d inherited in Barbados. Several years later he returned to Boston with his slaves Tituba and her husband “John Indian.” He dabbled in business, but soon decided to enter the ministry.
Parris was considering leaving business for the ministry and had begun filling in for area ministers when Salem Village invited him to lead their church. But he negotiated their offer like a business contract instead of an invitation, and held out for a full year, insisting on a binding contract and adding clauses for things like price freezes, future pay raises, and ownership of land. Finally, when the committee met to sign the final agreement, Parris didn’t show up.
With that mutual misunderstanding, Parris took up his appointment and began preaching at the Village church. What followed was two years of acrimonious disagreement punctuated by weekly sermons of thinly veiled barbs against the congregation. Finally, they stopped paying him. It was a brutally cold winter, and the lack of firewood and low supplies of food were a hardship, but Parris doubled down in his sermons. Three months later, the witchcraft hysteria began in his home. Case files: Samuel Parris
