Salem Witch Trials: How The Hysteria Went Terribly Awry

Episode Notes

Transcript

John Hathorne:

Sarah Good. What evil spirit have you familiarity with?

Sarah Good:

None.

John Hathorne:

Have you made no contracts with the devil?

Sarah Good:

No.

John Hathorne:

Why do you hurt these children?

Sarah Good:

I do not hurt them. I scorn it.

John Hathorne:

Why did you go away muttering from Mr. Paris’ house?

Sarah Good:

I did not mutter but thanked him for what he gave my child.

John Hathorne:

Have you no contract with the devil?

Sarah Good:

No.

J. Craig Williams:

Imagine it’s the year 1692 and you are a fine upstanding member of the Salem Village community in Massachusetts. Well respected by all that is until you are unexpectedly accused of a supernatural crime that is punishable by death.

After you’re arrested, you’ll be thrown in jail or you may languish for four or five months before you go to trial. You’ll get only the food your family brings to you on occasion. Oh, you want to know about your constitutional rights? Well, remember, it’s the year 1692. We don’t have a constitution yet in the Massachusetts colony. In other words, you do not have the right to remain silent and everything you say can and will be used against you. You do not have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. The authorities don’t care if you don’t understand your rights or for that matter, whether you have any rights. They just want to convict and hang you.

To top it off, the judges of the court are simple town merchants with no legal training and who are appointed to the position by an equally uneducated governor. When the judges have questions about the evidence, they turn to ministers for advice, not judges or lawyers, religious ministers. These witch trial judges were more concerned about hanging you since you were already presumed guilty. When you finally get to attend your trial, you won’t be allowed to cross examine the witnesses who testify against you, the members of the community who now scorn you will offer comments to attack your character, interpreting your prior kind acts as the real reason they lost cattle or why their family members got sick and died. The children will testify that your ghost came to them in the night further convincing the judges of your guilt. Once convicted, you will have no right of appeal on Gallows Hill. You’ll be mocked by the crowd. As soon as you’re dead. Your body will be thrown into an open pit barely dressed many years later after everyone realizes you really were innocent. Your family may receive a pittance as a payment for your death, but even then it will take your descendants nearly 300 years to clear your name of guilt.

John Hathorne:

Why do you thus torment these poor children?

Sarah Good:

I do not torment them.

Stephen Sewell:

Her answers were in a very wicked spiteful manner, reflecting and retorting against the authority with face and abusive words and many lies she was taken in.

John Hathorne:

How do you know you are not a witch?

Bridgett Bishop:

I do not know what you say. I know nothing of it.

J. Craig Williams:

Please pull up a chair and have a seat at the counsel table. You’re going to sit right next to the lawyers while they cross examine witnesses, bite off objections from opposing counsel and deal with anxious defendants facing big fines, long jail terms, and even death sentences. You’ll also have a front row seat in the jury box as you listen to the testimonies straight from the witnesses, and then after hearing the final verdict, you can decide whether the rulings were correct or not. Hi everyone. My name is J. Craig Williams and welcome to In Dispute. In this podcast miniseries, we will look back at 10 famous court cases that stand out for their historical importance, their contrasts with today’s modern criminal trials and their unusual outcomes. When we think of criminal trials today, there are certain elements we expect to see, rules of evidence, the right to defense counsel, even judges with legal training. All of these seem like basic requirements for a functioning Courtroom, but these expectations haven’t always existed and we don’t even have to look too far into our own past to see how terribly RA legal system can go without them. Today we’re going to delve into one particularly horrific instance in American history that you may already know a little bit about, but be prepared to be surprised.

In 16 92, 72 years after the pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in their quest to escape religious persecution, another type of trial arose all hell broke loose in the Massachusetts Bay colony and in particular in the seaport of Salem and the more inland and agricultural Salem village that we now know as Denver’s Massachusetts. These trials included claims of satanic rituals, ghosts, and seemingly afflicted children who stirred puritanical imaginations suspicions deepened by petty rifts between powerful families and rival church congregations. Townspeople turned against each other and accusations of witchcraft flew around the colony resulting in the deaths of 25 innocent people, all due to the hysteria over witches. To inquire into the torrent of citizen complaints and the number of prisoners in jail, Massachusetts Bay colony Governor William Pips appointed a man with no legal training to preside over the trials. The man appointed as Judge William Stoughton was both a town merchant and lieutenant governor of the colony during the trials.

Typical legal proceedings as we know them today, were largely ignored. Judge William Stoughton and several others who instead of acting as judges, questioned defendants like prosecutors and allowed townspeople to interrupt the trials with questions of their own. The judges refused to allow lawyers to represent the defendants and forced defendants to testify. There was no right to remain silent. Much can be said about the historical backdrop of the time, but a few things bear mentioned. First English common law written in the mid 17th century had difficulty making its way across the Atlantic. The early colonists viewed attorneys as unnecessary and more trouble than they were worth. Massachusetts Bay colony charter granted in 1692 by the Crown gave the colonists the right to self-rule, but one notable law among others would be imported The 1641 English law that made witchcraft a crime punishable by death. Just prior to the outbreak of the witch trials in Salem, Reverend Cotton Mather, the minister in Boston’s north church, helped fan the flames of witchcraft with his book Memorable Providences relating to witchcraft and possessions. In that book, he detailed his investigation of a widowed woman suspected of witchcraft

Cotton Mather:

The night after he died. A very credible person watching of the corpse perceived the bed to move and stir more than once, but by no means could find out the cause of it. The second night, some that were preparing for the funeral do say that they heard diverse noises in the room where the co-ops lay as though there had been a great removing and clattering of stools and chairs

J. Craig Williams:

Along with most of New England homes. Reverend Mather’s bestselling book was also on a certain bookshelf in Salem Village belonging to the Reverend Samuel Paris. The townspeople of Salem Village called Paris as their minister in 1689, but they became divided over the decision to deed the parsonage and its two acres to Reverend Paris on the one side. Church members in the powerful Putnam family were in favor of the gift with the nurse family. Against it, both families had engaged in their own disputes with each other over land grants. In the years leading up to the witch trials, Thomas Putnam’s served as clerk of the parish and he was one of the leaders of the faction who brought Samuel Paris to Salem. Having earlier led efforts to oust the prior minister, Reverend George Burrows, the church members removed Reverend Burrows from the parish due to his unconventional religious beliefs. They thought he was a Baptist and coincidentally because he had failed to repay money lent to him by Thomas Putnam

In late January, early February of 1692, the roots of the witchcraft trials first gained their chokehold in the Reverend Paris household. Their 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth, experienced apparently unexplained convulsive fits and a fever. One modern day researcher gathered circumstantial evidence pointing to convulsive Ergotism defined as a disorder resulting from the ingestion of grain contaminated with ergot, which may have initiated the witchcraft delusion. Ergot is a mold known to contaminate rye and that species of mold can turn into LSD and other hallucinogens. Whether the moldy ride triggered the children’s fits remains a matter of great debate Back then, the non-scientific puritans instead blamed witchcraft and they pointed first to the Paris’s family, slave TBA who Reverend Paris had brought with him from Barbados four years earlier. TBA originally came from an AAC village in South America where she was captured as a child and sold into slavery.

Prior to the allegations, TBA had enthralled Elizabeth and her cousin, Abigail Williams with Palm Reading Fortune telling Tales of voodoo and other dark magic largely known to her from her exposure to those cultures before she reached New England, other children began to exhibit the same bizarre behavior as Elizabeth, including her friend, 12-year-old Ann Putnam Jr. The daughter of Thomas Putnam and his wife Ann Putnam Sr. In response to the affliction of their daughter Ann, on February 29th, 1692, the Putnam’s brought charges of witchcraft against tba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, as well as other women in the village. Sarah Good was homeless and a beggar who was known to mumble words under her breath and scold the townspeople if they failed to give her alms. The townspeople believed that Good’s mumbled words were curses directed at them. The Putnam’s charges resulted in a warrant issued by magistrates John Hawthorn and Jonathan Corwin for the arrest of Sarah Good, which charged her with suspicion of witchcraft done to Elizabeth Paris, Abigail Williams and Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard at sundry times.

Within these two months, Hawthorne and Corwin were justices of the peace, but neither were trained in the law. Although they may have been successful merchants in Salem, they won their appointments to their positions in part due to their political connections. In response to the charges of witchcraft against her, TPU was jailed, but she later confessed perhaps to avoid further beatings. She admitted the devil urged her to sign a book and also worked mischief with the children, admissions tantamount to being a witch. A suspicion already widely held by her confession. TBA avoided death because the puritans believed she would be judged by God and their mortal judgment was therefore unnecessary. TBA remained in jail for some 13 months because Paris refused to pay her jail fees. Sarah Good was the first alleged witch examined during the course of the witch trials. Justices of the Peace Hawthorne and Corwin originally set her examination to be at a tavern in Salem Village, but when a hundred or so onlookers showed up, they moved the trials to the larger meeting house where they examined Tiba, Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good. On March 1st and fifth, 1692, the court records documented the examination of Sarah Good as conducted by John Hawthorne.

John Hathorne:

Sarah Good, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?

Sarah Good:

None.

John Hathorne:

Have you made no contracts with the devil?

Sarah Good:

No.

John Hathorne:

Why do you hurt these children?

Sarah Good:

I do not hurt them. I scorn it.

John Hathorne:

Why did you go away muttering from Mr. Paris’s house?

Sarah Good:

I did not mutter but thanked him for what he gave my child.

John Hathorne:

Have you no contract with the devil?

Sarah Good:

No.

J. Craig Williams:

Steven Sewell, the court’s clerk noted

Stephen Sewell:

Hawthorne desired the children to look upon her and see if this were the person that hurt them, and so they all did look upon her and said that this was one of the persons that did torment them. Presently, they were all tormented

John Hathorne:

Surrogate. Do you not see now what you have done? Why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you thus torment these poor children?

Sarah Good:

I do not torment them.

Stephen Sewell:

Her answers were in a very wicked spiteful manner, reflecting and retorting against the authority with base and abusive words and many lies she was taken in. It was hearsay that her husband, William Good had said that she was either a witch or would be won. Very quickly, the worshipful, Mr. Hawthorne asked him his reason why he said so of her whether he had ever seen anything by her. He answered, no, not in this nature, but it was her bad carriage to him and indeed said he, I may say with tears that she is an enemy to all good.

J. Craig Williams:

Not only did her husband testify against her, but the magistrates also examined Sarah Good’s daughter Dorothy Good. Five-year-old Dorothy herself would also be accused of witchcraft by parishioners Mercy Lewis, Mary Wilcott and Anne Putnam Jr. All virtually using the same words,

John Hathorne:

The deposition

Judge:

Of Mercy aged about 19 years who eth and sayeth that on the 2nd of April, 1692, the apparition of Dorothy Good, Sarah Good’s daughter came to me and did afflict me, urging me to write in her book, and several times since Dorothy Good hath afflicted me, biting, pinching, and choking me, urging me to write in her book.

J. Craig Williams:

Thankfully, and although she was jailed for more than eight months, five-year-old Dorothy was neither indicted nor tried. On March 7th, Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good together with young Dorothy and TBA were sent to a Boston prison. Dorothy was released when someone posted a 50 pound bond by allowing the testimony about an apparition. Justices Hawthorne and Corwin had admitted what was known then as spectral evidence, which was highly controversial at the time and completely inadmissible. Now supposedly the belief in 1692 was that a witch gave the devil permission to use their shape to afflict another. The justices of the peace decided that the devil could not use a witch’s shape without permission, and those beliefs were enough to convict mistress good and others of witchcraft supported by this spectral evidence. Hawthorne and Corwin continued their investigation of the others accused of witchcraft. Hawthorne’s questions approached an Inquisitional style and showed little respect for the accused or the belief that the accused deserve any presumption of innocence.

Quite contrary to the constitutional amendments we have today, the reality in today’s Courtroom is that you’re not presumed innocent. Instead, you have to prove your innocence to both the judge and the jury, but at least today’s judges and attorneys are trained in the law to ensure defendants received fair trials, which is a stark contrast to the Salem witch trials. As with most aspects of the law, however, there are exceptions today in most rural and sparsely populated areas. We still have justices of the peace and magistrates who are not trained in the law and like Hawthorne and Corwin won their appointments through personal political connections. Unlike the Salem Witch trials, most proceedings today are conducted with modern day constitutional protections most of the time anyway. As witch hunt fever began in the spring of 1692, the magistrate trials caused some 62 accused witches to clog the jails in response to the imprisonment of so many On May 27th, 1692, Massachusetts Bay Colon and Governor William PPPs convened a court of Oyer and Terminator, which means to hear and decide that court assembled in Salem Village and the judges included Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton and eight others, including John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin with Stoughton sitting as the chief judge in the trials.

Stoughton did not run the Courtroom well by today’s standards. He admitted spectral evidence. He allowed private conversations between accusers and judges. He permitted spectators to interrupt the procedures with personal remarks. He forbade defense counsel for the accused and he placed judges in the role of both prosecutors and interrogators of the witnesses. His admission of evidence regarding specters and ghosts may appear to completely lack common sense to us now, but perhaps given the overly puritanical religious environment coupled with a colonist, multiple fears contributed to his mistakes. On June 2nd, 1692, the first woman tried by the newly established court of Oyer and Terminator was Bridgett Bishop. As part of the proceedings, the court appointed a jury of bns to examine her body and they found a expressions of flesh. That’s what we commonly understand today as a mole, but the puritans of the time thought her mole was where the devil suckled for nourishment and that evidence was admitted against her. There was more testimony against Mr. Bishop that included allegations of what was at the time considered black magic.

Stephen Sewell:

Two witnesses testified that on taking down the cellar wall in the old bishop house where Bridgett lived in 1685, they found in holes in the wall several pops, a type of ragdoll made of rags and straw with headless pins in them. With the points out, pops were believed to represent the person whom the witch desired to afflict, and by sticking pins into those images, the mischief was supposed to be mysteriously and safely accomplished.

J. Craig Williams:

In Bridge of Bishop’s trial, judge Stoughton failed to control the other judges. In fact, justice Hawthorne’s questioning grew even more prejudicial.

John Hathorne:

How do you know you are not a witch?

Bridgett Bishop:

I do not know what you say. I know nothing of it.

John Hathorne:

Well, look at you. You are taken now on a flat lie.

J. Craig Williams:

Justice Hawthorne’s initial query here is known as a negative pregnant question, a question that implies the opposite and is practically impossible to disprove. This style of questioning is frequently lampoon by lawyers to prove its foolishness, lawyers will equip sarcastically. When did you stop beating your wife? To which there’s no good answer. Justice Hawthorne’s comment that bishop’s answer was a flat lie instead demonstrates the biases. In this results oriented court, Mr. Bishop was tried and convicted on the same day and Judge Williams Stoughton immediately signed her death warrant. Just eight days later on June 10th, 1692, the townspeople hung Bridgett Bishop on Gallows Hill.

At this point, the judges paused the witch trials perhaps realizing what they had done. Judge Soton wrote The further trials were put off to the adjournment. The 30th of June. The governor and council thought proper in the meantime to take the opinion of several principal ministers upon the state of things. As they then stood one Baptist minister in Boston who publicly challenged the use of spectral evidence by the court was forced to post a 200 pound bond or be arrested for publishing his opinion. Then on June 15th, 1692, a group of ministers voiced their concern over the use of spectral evidence as penned by Reverend Cotton Mather,

Cotton Mather:

The return of several ministers consulted by his excellency and the honorable counsel upon the present witchcraft in Salem Village, presumptions where upon persons may be committed and much more convictions where upon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcraft ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused person being represented by a specter unto the afflicted in as much as tsan, undoubted, and notorious thing that a demon may by God’s permission appear even to ill purposes in the shape of an innocent yay and a virtuous man. Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers by the look or touch of the accused to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the devil’s leisure domains.

J. Craig Williams:

Despite the minister’s objections, the witch trial soon started again and continued to admit spectral evidence. At this time, the judges also required the witches to touch the accusers. Judge Stoughton still felt confident that spectral evidence should be admitted. He cited several authorities in defense of his position including the Bible. Although the Bible may seem like an odd legal citation now, like all good writers, judge Stoughton recognized his audience. At the end of June and beginning of July, the grand jury issued indictments against Sarah Good and seven other women, five of them including Sarah Good went to trial. All five were found guilty and were executed on July 19th, 1692. As Sarah Goods stood on the gallows with a rope hanging around her neck, Reverend Nicholas Noyes sought her confession as a witch saying You are a witch and you know are a witch. She retorted. You are a liar. 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. According to legends, some 25 years later, Reverend Noyes died of a hemorrhage and choked on his own blood, but the witch trials were far from over on July 2nd, 1692. Accused Witch Ter was examined in before the testimony against Anne is noteworthy. Due to the unique touch test used by the magistrates to determine whether the afflictions the children suffered could be transferred back to the alleged witch. Magistrates required Anne Putto to touch her accusers, the children Anne Putnam Jr. And Mary Warren. When the accused witch touched the children, they stopped driving as if their afflictions were miraculously returned to the witch’s body.

Stephen Sewell:

Anne Putnam fell into a fit and said put Tour was commanded to take her by the wrist and did, and said Putnam was well presently, Mary Warren fell into two fits quickly after one another and both times was helped by said PTO taken her by the wrist.

J. Craig Williams:

The written records from these trials do not report whether any type of control was used for this test like blindfolding the children and having different people touch them. This form of evidence is called demonstrative evidence, which was most famously used in the trial of OJ Simpson regarding the bloody gloves. Today’s judges are understandably worried about the use of demonstrative evidence. Trial judges and justices on courts of appeal frequently question whether the conditions of an in court demonstration matched the actual event. The evidence of an accused witch touching an alleged child victim like the judges allowed in the Salem witch trials would not be admitted today because it has no scientific credibility. On August 19th, the Reverend George Burroughs, remember the former village minister who skipped out on his debt to Thomas Putnam. He and three others were hanged on Gallows Hill. Reverend Burroughs had moved to Maine years before any of the witch trials started, but was later arrested and extradited back to Salem for trial as a wizard. He was accused as the ringleader of the covenant of witches, perhaps not surprisingly accused by the young Anne Putnam Jr. An accusation voiced by her father Thomas Putnam. Before his execution, Reverend Burroughs perfectly recited the Lord’s Prayer. A task thought to be impossible for a wizard or witch, but Reverend Cotton Mather reminded those watching that Burroughs conviction still stood.

Stephen Sewell:

His prayer was so well worded and uttered with such ness and such at least seeming fervency of spirit as was very affecting and drew tears from many so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. The accusers said the devil stood and dictated to him as soon as he was turned off. Mr. Cotton Mather being mounted upon a horse addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he Mr. Burrows was no ordained minister and partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the devil often had been transformed into an angel of light and this somewhat appeased the people and the executions went on

J. Craig Williams:

As accusations of witchcraft spiraled out of control. In the fall of 1692. Even Governor Pip’s wife, lady Mary PPPs was accused as a witch. Soon thereafter, in early October, 1692, governor PPPs ordered that spectral evidence and similar testimony must be excluded from future trials. Three weeks later on October 29th, pips prohibited all further. Arrests of witches released most of the accused witches still in prison, and dismissed the court of Oyer and Terminator. His wife was safe. About a month later, governor Pips created the superior court of Judicate and convened the court in Salem to conduct trials of the rest of the accused witches who remained in jail. Chief Judge Stoughton was once again on the court, but this time no spectral evidence or touching demonstrations were allowed. No one else was hanged. Although Judge Stoughton’s court found several guilty and Judge Stoughton wrote warrants for their execution In May, 1693. In response to those death warrants, governor Pips pardoned those remaining women who were convicted as witches. Even so one accused woman, Lydia Dustin, died in jail because she was unable to pay her jail fees despite her, pardon? Ironically, as one of its last trials, the Salem Court heard charges against Mary Watkins for falsely accusing her mistress, Mrs. Swift of witchcraft. Mrs. Watkins admitted under examination that her charges were false. She was convicted of lying and sold into slavery to satisfy her jail fees.

With this disgraceful end, the initial chapter was closed on the Salem Witch trials. Reverend Increased Mather wrote a vigorous defense of the judges and trials, but at the same time condemned their use of spectral evidence in his book that became known as America’s first track on evidence cases of conscience concerning evil spirits. Reverend Mathers said it were better that 10 suspected witches should escape than that one innocent person should be condemned.

After the trials, many relatives of those hanged, jailed or accused petitioned the state of Massachusetts for compensation for lost loved ones and damage to their reputations. In response, the state legislature agreed to pay approximately 600 pounds to various relatives, and in 16 97, 5 years after the trials and hangings acknowledged a day of atonement for its actions in 1706 and no longer a child, Anne Putnam Jr. Sought membership in the Salem Village Church and she’d likewise apologized for her role in the trials instead of accepting responsibility. However, she ironically blamed Satan when she stood before the church members. The parish admitted her despite her refusal to accept responsibility. Mr. Putnam, whose parents Thomas and Anne had died earlier and left her to raise her siblings remained an unmarried spinster for the rest of her life. In the years after the trials, many of the parishioners who took part attempted to make amends for their behavior. On January 14th, 1697, nearly five years after the trials, 11 jurors asked for forgiveness from their fellow parish members. Finally, in October, 2001, the Massachusetts legislature passed chapter 1 22 of the Acts of 2001 for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that legislation included the names of all who were wrongfully convicted of witchcraft and found the innocent, but some 300 years too late.

It’s a bit frightening to go back in time and realize how the lack of modern day constitutional protections could so easily lead to excommunication, exile, jail, slavery, even your death. The witch trial verdicts that led to hangings went horribly wrong due to a series of bad decisions, fears, and unfounded beliefs. The appointment of Ill trained judges their willingness to allow untested and illogical evidence into trial. The lack of lawyers to defend the accused, no jury, no presumption of innocence, and certainly no right to appeal. In contrast, some people today argue that the pendulum of our constitutional protections has swung too far in the opposite direction, but few would disagree that the Salem witch trials were nothing less than a farce. How easy would it have been to avoid these mistakes if lawyers and the rule of law had been in place? William Shakespeare’s famous line, the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers, actually points out how topsy-turvy the world would be without lawyers. In fact, the first part of that quote reads, if you want anarchy, then let’s kill all the lawyers, and that’s exactly what happened with the ministers. Instead of lawyers running the witch trials, had these protections been in place, the Salem witch trials may have ended quite differently, but you are the judge and jury here, so you decide and you can decide if we will face these dangers again today if these constitutional protections are taken away.

Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this story. This episode was adapted from the second chapter in my book. How would You Decide? 10 famous trials That Changed History. So if you want the full story of the Salem Witch Trials and the other nine trials covered in my book, please pick up a copy and learn all the details, testimony, and juicy bits that didn’t make these episodes. You can buy copies on Amazon and all major books, sellers. The book is published by Crimson Cloak Publishing and I’m its author, J. Craig Williams. Thanks. Also, go to our script writer, sound designer and sound mixer. Nathan Todhunter, our producer, Kate Kenney. Lisa Kirkman, our director of partnerships and the publisher of my book, Carly McCracken of Crimson Cloak Publishing, who granted permission for the Legal Talk Networks adaptation. And a very special thanks to our voiceover actors, Doreen Wiley, who played the part of the accused witch, Sarah Good.

Kevin McGrath, who played the part of Reverend Cotton Mather, Troy Starr who played the part of Justice John Hawthorne. Dave Scriven-Young, who played the part of court clerk Stephen Sewell. Evan Dicharry who played the part of an unnamed court justice and Georgia well who played the part of Accused witch, Bridgettt Bishop. Next up, we will spotlight the Boston Massacre trials as we continue our exploration of famous trials throughout history. Did you know that a future president John Adams was the attorney who defended the eight British soldiers who shot and killed five colonists? Thanks for the privilege of your time today. We look forward to seeing you again. I’m Craig Williams. Please stay tuned for our next episode of In Dispute on the Legal Talk Network.

Continue Reading