USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 2 > Part 6
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Cotton Mather believed ardently in the efficacy of prayer as a means of combatting witchcraft, but certainly in the earlier period he also advocated the extreme penalty for "such as have rendered themselves obnoxious." He regarded him- self as a chosen agent to put an end to the abomination and believed in his capacity to do so. Of the means to this end he was less sure. His influence, owing to his position, his learning and his trenchant pen were doubtless as great as that of any man of his time. Since much of his thought and polemic writing was concerned with the spreading evil of witchcraft, he must be held responsible, in large measure, for the public attitude which rendered the final outbreak possible. His Wonders of the Invisible World appeared during the height of the excitement, and doubtless did much to increase still further the prevailing hysteria.
THE FIRE DIES DOWN (1693)
Following the last execution in September, 1692, and the dissolution of the special court the reaction came quickly and in quite as spectacular a fashion as the outbreak a few months before. No doubt the infatuated community was satiated with its excesses, especially since the repressive measures tended to increase rather than diminish the evil they sought to exterminate. More and more persons were accused, till a hundred or more were in prison, awaiting trial. The crisis came when persons in high positions were implicated. In October, Mrs. Hale, wife of the Rev. John Hale of Beverly, and a member of Mather's family were suspected; the Rev.
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THE FIRE DIES DOWN
Samuel Willard of the Old South Church and even the wife of Governor Phips were "cried out" upon, the latter because of her known sympathy with the accused. Hale, though previ- ously active in the persecutions, naturally rose vigorously in the defence of his wife. Governor Phips, who had been away on the Colony's affairs during the trials, and was from the first lukewarm in his attitude toward the proceedings, dissolved the special Court of Oyer and Terminer, and then put a tem- porary end to the prosecutions. Public opinion was aroused and the afflicted children discredited. Those who had been active in the affair almost without exception later acknowl- edged their error of procedure. Even the jury publicly ex- pressed itself as repentant for its part in the trials and con- victions.
In the Old South Church on Fast Day 1697, Judge Sewall standing in his pew listened to the reading by the pastor of a petition which he had written, in which he candidly acknowl- edged his error, desired to take "the blame and shame of it," and asked "pardon of man" and of God. It was a manly expression of contrition. Ann Putnam, who played a chief part among the accusing children, especially in her testimony against Rebecca Nurse and her two sisters, also made public confession in the Village Church in 1706. Admitting that she had been instrumental in bringing to their death innocent persons, she proceeded :- "Though what was said or done by me against any person I can truly and uprightly say before God and man I did it not out of anger, malice or ill-will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them, but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded of Satan." There seems no reason to doubt the sincerity of this confession. It indicates what no doubt was the fact, that the child was not responsible during the height of the excitement. To be "de- luded of Satan" would be interpreted in more prosaic language today as an hysterical episode, taking its vivid coloring from the wholly pathological emotionalism of the time.
In May 1693 Phips by proclamation discharged all those still awaiting trial, to the number of one hundred and fifty. In comparison with the contemporary attitude of Protest- ant and Catholic on the Continent of Europe toward witches at this time, the Community of Massachusetts was merciful,
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THE WITCHCRAFT EPISODE
for it demanded no testimony under torture, and passed no condemned persons through the fearful suffering of fire. The real basis for holding the community guilty was that neither before nor after the awful year of 1692-1693 were such re- lentless prosecutions and punishments allowed to affect the minds of the people of Massachusetts.
CASE OF MARGARET RULE (1693)
That witchcraft was still active in the colony although its drastic suppression had ceased, is shown by the fact that one other notable case occurred in September 1693. It is noted by Cotton Mather in the Magnalia and derives its chief interest from the part played in it by Robert Calef, who republished Mather's account in 1700, with the correspondence which con- stitutes one of the most entertaining and illuminating chapters in the entire literature of witchcraft.
Margaret Rule lived in the North End of Boston. Little is known of her, except that she was young and of somewhat obscure parentage. Whatever the vagaries of her life may have been, at the time of her affliction, "she was become seriously concerned for the everlasting salvation of her soul, and careful to avoid the snares of evil company." On the tenth of September, she began to have fits of diabolic character, for which a woman of doubtful reputation in the neighborhood was supposed to be responsible. The story proceeds that Mar- garet was visited by eight spectres, who brought her the Devil's book to be signed, which refusing to do, she was forthwith tormented for a period of six weeks and forced to keep to her bed. The master of these specters also appeared, "a short and a black man," who directed that she be tortured "by pinch- ing with invisible hands," and pricked with pins, thereby throwing her into "exorbitant" convulsions, which called forth the sympathetic observation from Mather; "They that could behold the doleful condition of the poor family without sensi- ble compassion, might have intrals indeed, but I am sure they could have no true bowels in them." The girl fasted for days, but suffered no ill effects. She was forced to drink "something invisible," a whitish powder appeared on her cheek, she seemed
I
From the portrait in The Massachusetts Historical Society
SAMUEL SEWALL
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MARGARET RULE
to be scalded as if by brimstone; sulphur, thrown upon her, raised blisters on her skin which however were quickly cured.
Mather, of course, considered all this indubitable evidence of diabolic agency; "I think I may without vanity pretend to have read not a few of the best Systems of Physick, that have been yet seen in these American regions, but I must con- fess that I have never yet learned the name of the Natural Distemper, whereto these odd symptoms do belong." She de- veloped also clairvoyance, unexplained noises were made in her room, ascribable only to spectres; she was raised to the ceil- ing and held there by her tormenters; an invisible animal not unlike a rat was felt about her person, but escaped capture. Increase Mather prayed, his son, who was the chief master of ceremonies endeavored by exhortation and the laying on of hands to exorcise the evil spirits. It was altogether an extraordinarily farcical exhibition of ignorance and credulity. Finally (according to the afflicted) a white spirit appeared and so effectual was his intervention that her tormenters after being struck and kicked by their black master "like an over- seer of so many negroes" flew out of the room defeated, where- upon, though "weak and faint and overwhelmed with va- pours," Margaret forthwith recovered.
During the six weeks of her confinement to bed, many visited her, no doubt, largely through curiosity. Among them was Robert Calef, actuated by a more worthy motive. He had definitely taken up the cudgels against witchcraft as it had come to be interpreted, and here was his opportunity to cross swords with Cotton Mather, its chief protagonist. He there- fore wrote a letter to Mather in which he described in straight- forward style what he had observed on the occasions of his visits to the afflicted girl. It differed in essential particulars from the Mather version, and even implied that the worthy minister had been guilty of immodesty in his physical treat- ment of her, had misstated facts and, in general, Calef repre- sented the whole affair as a performance strongly suggesting imposture and fraud. Mather was highly indignant, declined to reply to this and various letters which followed, and even had Calef apprehended for slander.
The whole episode throws an unfavorable light on Mather. He showed himself a poor controversialist ; he was vituperative
-
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THE WITCHCRAFT EPISODE
and sought to defend himself by appeal to his position as a minister and his life-long work of saving souls and helping the afflicted. His egotism was never more in evidence. Calef on the other hand was calm, outwardly respectful, but scath- ing in his denunciation of the whole witchcraft doctrine as promulgated by his opponent. It was a bold stroke, and not without danger. Popular opinion was still strongly against him, his book was refused publication and sale in Boston and finally was burned by Increase Mather in the Harvard College yard, but in spite of vigorous opposition, with some clandes- tine assistance from Brattle and a few others, he succeeded in pricking the bubble, and its complete collapse was merely a matter of time. Mather's authority as the expounder and in- terpreter of witchcraft was broken and at the hands of an obscure person, who so far as known had hitherto played no part in the drama.
As for the case itself, it is of importance not only because of the violent controversy it aroused but also because it demon- strated in clearest fashion the fatuous credulity of the time. To our modern view Margaret Rule was a very typical hys- teric, exhibiting what one so often sees in such persons, an almost incredible adroitness in playing upon the emotions of onlookers. She is worthy of detailed study from a purely psychopathological standpoint, even to the "miracle" of her levitation which so deeply impressed the ministers and equally excited the scepticism of Calef. It cannot be too often stated that such hysterical manifestations were almost inevitable under the conditions then existing.
AFTERMATH OF THE WITCHCRAFT EPISODE (1694)
Although the height of the storm was over by 1693, it was many years before its effects subsided, and life in Salem was restored to its normal course. When no longer in danger of arrest and imprisonment, the friends and families of those who had been put to death became active in demanding such repara- tion as could be made by money payments and by removing the stigma of witchcraft from the names of the executed as they appeared in the court records. This was, in a measure done but not whole-heartedly and only after repeated petitions,
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AFTERMATH
no doubt in part due to a defensive attitude which the original prosecutors and their sympathizers naturally took to save their own reputations. After much delay and discussion, on Decem- ber 17, 1711 (nearly twenty years after the trials), Gov. Dudley acting under a vote of the General Assembly and the consent of Her Majesty's Council, appropriated the sum of £578 12s. to be paid to "such persons as are living, and to those that legally represent them that are dead." This was done but without discrimination or proportionate to the merits of in- dividual cases.
The First Church in Salem magnanimously decided to re- move from the records the excommunication which had been visited upon Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey ; in the latter in- stance apparently misrepresenting his attitude during his tor- ture. Many of the families who had been the chief sufferers removed to other towns and states; their property, if it had not already been seized, was dissipated. Dissensions and recrimi- nations were inevitable, reputations were blasted and injustice continued, as was natural since the belief in witchcraft although less openly expressed was still extant. Abortive attempts had even been made to revive the active persecutions. This ill feeling was aggravated by the dilatory policy of the government regarding reparation. In fact, the agitation over the situation was not allayed until well toward the middle of the eighteenth century. Complete justice was certainly never done the chief sufferers even in a material sense ; nor has their moral vindication yet been universally acknowledged. That some at least of the executed "witches" were guilty has for ex- ample within a few years been set forth by Barrett Wendell, on the ground that they were designing and malicious "medi- ums."
The subsequent lives of the chief actors in the scenes of 1692, have been faithfully traced by Upham as far as the records permit. Parris was soon again in the midst of difficul- ties with his congregation; and was finally forced to leave the Village of Salem Farms after a long controversy which did more credit to his ingenuity than to his character. He died in 1720, unrepentent to the end, the chief instigator of the persecutions. He was a man of unquestioned intellect, whose
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THE WITCHCRAFT EPISODE
abilities were wasted in controversy, and in unwavering de- votion to the senseless superstition of the time.
Nicholas Noyes, minister of the Salem church repented of his activities in the persecutions and is said to have devoted himself thereafter to good works. Cotton Mather in the case of Margaret Rule made a last and very unworthy effort to establish his prestige as the defender of the faith against witchcraft. His ultimate failure was inevitable but it was greatly hastened by Calef's attack. He was disappointed in his political ambitions, and was not elected to the presidency of Harvard College which he greatly desired.
There is no adequate record of the subsequent lives of the "afflicted" children, excepting Ann Putnam who died at 36, after a life of nervous invalidism, no doubt partly the effect of the tragic experience of her childhood. Two of the girls, Elizabeth Booth and Mary Walcot, appear to have married, the others are reputed to have sunk low in the social scale as well they might after the reaction had come.
Thomas Putnam and his wife who were from the first deeply implicated in the proceedings died in 1699, both it is supposed acknowledging their error. William Stoughton later made some slight concessions to the prevailing attitude of repentance, but his conviction was never shaken that witch- craft was a reality which demanded summary methods of re- pression. With the exception of Judge Sewall's recantation, the record is peculiarly devoid of manly individual statements of regret.
REMONSTRANCES (1692)
That an entire community of otherwise intelligent and courageous men should have raised no protest against the fanatical outbreak has been a source of amazement to suc- ceeding generations. It is, however, gratifying that, feeble as their efforts were, a few men were convinced of the gross injustice of the whole procedure and entirely sceptical of the methods employed. Prominent among these was William Brattle, a wealthy Boston merchant, who addressed a letter to an unknown person in October, 1692. It was, however, not published until many years later, too late to be of the slightest value except as evidence that the fanaticism was not universal.
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REMONSTRANCES
In this letter Brattle ridicules the generally accepted ideas of the witches' meetings, and mock sacraments, and argues vigor- ously against the character of the evidence adduced at the trials. He points out that the town of Salem should not be held responsible for the trials, inasmuch as four of the five judges were from Boston; and that favoritism was shown in the condemnation of some of the supposed witches and the escape of others. He mentions persons of high station who disapproved of the proceedings and denounced as an abomi- nation the children's part in the accusations.
One wonders, feeling as strongly as he evidently did, that Brattle's courage failed him when such an expression of righteous indignation might have been effective had it been publicly proclaimed. That he was in sympathy with Calef and probably assisted him in the preparation of his attack on Mather, is accepted ; but the weight of his name was not used in that momentuous passage at arms. It is, however, to his credit that he was a remonstrant in spirit if not in fact.
Of equal interest is a document which came to light about the middle of the last century, now in the keeping of the Essex Institute at Salem, the authorship of which remains in doubt. It was addressed to Jonathan Corwin, during the period of the executions and was found among the Corwin family papers, The writer who signs himself R. P. possibly Robert Paine, foreman of the jury, or Robert Pike of Salisbury, was evidently a man of learning and experience. While accepting the doctrine of the Devil's malicious power, he attacked vigor- ously the theory of spectral evidence and the credibility of the "afflicted children" and clearly demonstrated the fallacy of the procedure in the trials.
Certainly had Brattle's protest and this letter, written at the height of the tragedy, been given wide publicity, popular sentiment would have demanded, at least, a saner conduct of the prosecutions. The Rev. Samuel Willard, Increase Mather, the aged Bradstreet and Thomas Danforth in his later years all somewhat mildly disapproved of the methods employed, but their voices were lost in the general clamor, and availed nothing. There was apparently no one of authority who was able to divorce himself completely from the universal belief in witchcraft; and without such complete intellectual inde-
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THE WITCHCRAFT EPISODE
pendence, it was natural enough that the trials proceeded un- checked. It must always be remembered that what early re- monstrances there were, were invariably directed against the procedure, and not against the fact of witchcraft.
Many persons in the more humble walks of life were bolder in their denunciation and apparently repudiated the entire doctrine. Among the most conspicuous of the these were Joseph Putnam, then twenty-two years old, Martha Corey and John Procter. Putnam in spite of his family connections was a complete and defiant sceptic, he armed himself against attack and arrest, his horses were saddled and ready, and for months he was prepared to escape should danger threaten. He was not apprehended. Martha Corey and Procter were less fortu- nate and both paid for their temerity by death.
Mention has been made of the panic which occurred at Andover. Many had been imprisoned and were awaiting trial, in the meantime being subjected to much hardship and privation. The reaction was quick and effectual. The two ministers of the town, Francis Dane and Thomas Barnard, with upwards of thirty citizens, in October and in the follow- ing months, addressed a petition to the General Court in be- half of their wives and children, boldly scoring the methods which had forced confessions from them and demanding redress. Dane was outspoken and fearless in his attack, and probably escaped personal harm only through his respected position as senior minister of the town. Francis Dane must be considered one of the outstanding figures among the small group of influential remonstrants.
To Robert Calef, however, is due the credit for the final awakening of the public conscience. He attacked the evil at its source, in the person of Cotton Mather, who never entirely recovered from Calef's attack.
DIVERSITY OF MODERN OPINION ON THE EPISODE
Students of witchcraft have reached no unanimity as to the explanation of the phenomena or as to the mental condition of the believers in witches. Prejudice, religious bias and special training are factors even more in evidence now than in the seventeenth century. The Devil still exists for many
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MODERN OPINION
people as an immediate cause of suffering, misfortune and disease. Nevins in his Demon Possession (1892) and Sum- mers in his History of Witchcraft and Demonology (1926) find the original explanation still the most reasonable, that the Devil was actually at work causing the troubles at Salem and elsewhere. At the other extreme stands the hardly more ten- able idea that all the phenomena observed may be attributed to fraud and imposture. This was a favorite hypothesis especially in the eighteenth century. For example, Governor Hutchinson writes: "A little attention must force conviction that the whole was a scene of fraud and imposture begun by young girls, who at first perhaps, thought of nothing more than being pitied and indulged, and continued by adult persons, who were afraid of being accused themselves. The one and the other, rather than confess their fraud suffered the lives of so many innocents to be taken away through the credulity of judges and juries."
Many of the late commentators are inclined to a similar viewpoint, especially with regard to the bewitched children; and the court and the people have been held up to execration by such judicial writers as Bancroft, Lecky, and Upham. Others have discussed somewhat vaguely in pseudo-medical language the possible mental aberration of all concerned and the part which hypnotism may have played in determining the actions of the children.
An interesting and possibly significant phase of the subject lies in the relation of witchcraft in its later development to what now passes under the name of spiritualism. Allan Put- nam has written a volume (Witchcraft of New England Ex- plained by Modern Spiritualism) in which to his own satis- faction he demonstrates that "Salem Witchcraft feats were devised by supermundane brains and enacted under their supervision." The witches in his view were mediums, whose controls, to use the accepted terminology, were disembodied spirits, who worked their will on human beings. The Devil and his satellites are replaced by spirits of the dead who have succeeded in establishing relationships with the living. This thesis Putnam develops in great detail in relation to the per- sons executed at Salem and elsewhere, and regards them as particularly gifted individuals who were able to see where
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THE WITCHCRAFT EPISODE
others were blind, persons who fell victims to their superior knowledge at a time when such insight was anathema.
Barrett Wendell in his paper Were the Salem Witches Guiltless? also finds a possible explanation in the theory of spiritualism; but not being a spiritualist himself, like Putnam, and in fact being utterly antagonistic to that doctrine, which he regards with the deepest abhorrence, he sees reason to suppose that "such phenomena would naturally involve in whoever abandons himself to them, a mental and moral degeneracy which anyone who believes in a personal devil would not hesitate to ascribe to the direct intervention of Satan." He thinks it possible that the "mysterious and dan- gerous phenomena of hypnotism" were at work; and that the whole series of events implied a more or less conscious con- spiracy on the part of designing persons, and that some of those who suffered death may have deserved their fate.
Although it is evident that no completely satisfying under- standing of the witchcraft episode is yet possible, much light may be expected as psychological theory grows more searching and exact. In spite of the few remaining supporters of super- natural agency, spiritualism and the like, we may with some assurance say that the events in great part find an explanation in the natural though obscure workings of the human mind as now generally accepted. The sudden change in the attitude of the judges and the people at large when the reaction came is certainly not without precedent in the life of today. The law of the herd, mass suggestion or call it what one will, is always in evidence at times of great popular excitement. The situa- tion at Salem was not more pathological in this respect than the emotions excited, for example, by the late war, however different the sphere of their expression. The conduct of the condemned witches, their conviction of personal innocence, their confessions under stress of fear and their accusations are entirely understandable when one considers the motives which controlled them. Using a medical terminology their acts may be regarded as symptoms, resulting from emotional conflict based on the self-preservative instinct. To profess innocence secured for those who were executed indemnity in another life if not in this; to confess might save their lives in this world; to accuse others was an attempt to shift responsibility,
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EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES
thereby rendering their own lot less hazardous. These are all natural reactions, not purposive in the ordinary sense, but rather unconscious or in modern parlance, sub-conscious motivations. If a similar principle be applied to the "afflicted children" we must see in them not wilful mischief workers, but rather persons swayed by emotions over which they had very limited control, influenced by suggestion, gratified by their power, dominated by fear, and carried along irresistibly on the stream of popular credulity and fanaticism. The elders were far more to blame than the children; but even they were affected by a social aberration to which the term "delusion" has not inaptly been applied. Under these conditions spectral evidence came into being-a reality to the children, and, what is more difficult to understand, to the gullible judges as well. While it is not open to doubt that the recognized human frail- ties and vices played a conspicuous part in instigating the persecutions one can no longer accept the uncritical doctrine of Hutchinson, that, "the whole was a scene of fraud and im- posture." On the contrary it presents a phase of popular hysteria, which may only be elucidated by painstaking psycho- pathological study.
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