The Salem Witchcraft and 17th-Century Puritanism As the Historical Background of Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
...ve’s only possession―Tituba confessed to witchcraft. Now there was proof―a confessed witch and her victims―that the devil had established a physical presence in Salem. The hysteria began for real. In June of 1692, the special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) was sat in Salem to hear the cases of witchcraft. The legal system of that time which accepted “spectral evidence ” in cases involving witchcraft also contributed to the spread of the hysteria. These magistrates based their judgements and evaluations on various kinds of intangible evidence, including direct confessions, supernatural attributes (such as “witchmarks ”), and reactions of the afflicted girls. By early fall, after 20 people have died in the commotion, Thomas Brattle wrote a letter criticizing the witchcraft trials. This letter had great impact on Governor William Phips, who ordered that reliance on spectral and intangible evidence no longer be allowed in trials in October 29th of that year. During the following decade several of those who had served on the trial juries also sought public pardon, as did many others variously involved. And the General Court gave official stamp to the communal guilt in 1711 by reversing all bills of attainder against the executed victims. Fourteen years later, in August of 1706, Ann Putnam confessed that she had falsely accused Sarah and others. She was humbled before her congregation. The colony of Massachusetts eventually made small financial restitution to the surviving families if those who merely suffered imprisonment. “The Salem witch trial episode had come to a belated close.” (Joseph Gaer and Ben Siegel) Trail of a Witch About Witches To understand the Salem witch trials, it is necessary to know the 17th-century definition of witchcraft. The existence of witches had been almost universally accepted for centuries before Salem’s tragic events. Both Catholic and Protestant Europe through the centuries had put to death large numbers of witches. Cotton Mather preached sermons on the certainty that the air was permeated by active legions of Satan’s demonic followers. (Middlekauff) New England’s Puritans were particularly sensitive to the possibility of the Satanic presence. “What more likely stronghold for these demonic powers than the bleak North American wilderness, with its savage barbarians and their unholy medicine men whose heathen rites undoubtedly were pleasing to Satan?” (Gaer and Siegel) Since no one could be absolutely certain of being elected for salvation, every man, woman, and child was a potential victim. Furthermore, the Old Testament made clear that God frequently punished an entire group of people for the deeds of the few. Therefore, all had to be carefully watched. Moral and spiritual vigilance could not be relaxed. With this background, people in 17th-century New England were extremely witch-conscious. The cause of the Hysteria Today it is easy to dismiss the entire episode as the major instance of Puritan ignorance and cruelty. Yet such a conclusion ignores the historical context in which these events occurred and does not help to explain how so learned and sophisticated a society as that of 17th-century Massachusetts Bay could have been moved to such barbarous acts. But how and why could the hysteria have occurred? Historical theories have ranged from weather conditions producing an LSD-tike mould on the grain to boundary and property-rights disputes being fundamental causes. A strong belief in the devil also “created a fertile ground for fear and suspicion”. (Gaer and Sienel) But it is impossible to single out one specific fundamental cause. I think a glimpse of the mindset of the times might be helpful. By the winter of 1692 the people of Massachusetts had good causes to feel insecure and threatened for these following reasons : 1. The colony existed on the edge of a huge, unknown continent, and there was a constant threat of Indian attack. 2. The winter was particularly harsh and this reinforced the feeling of isolation. 3. The harvest of 1691 had been poor. 4. There had been an outbreak of epidemic smallpox. 5. The colony’s charter, which gave it the right to exist and established legal rights and land boundaries, had been revoked. The new charter would extend toleration to other Protestant groups and thereby challenge the established order. The divisions within Salem Village were fueled in part by general changes in the political culture of Massachusetts Bay. 6. The French were waging war. In 1688 the French and Indians launched a new series of attacks on the frontier villages. “If the Massachusetts government had been able to defend the colonists from the French and Indians, the witch-hunting episode might never have occurred, much less gotten out of hand.” (Breen) 7. New wealth from the trade with the Caribbean was upsetting the social and political establishment of the colony. A new merchant class was challenging the traditional leadership of the church. 8. The collapse of political authority in New England also indirectly caused the event. The impotence of the Bradstreet government, of course, does not reveal why people in Salem Village accused each other in 1692 of witchcraft, but it does help to explain why the fantasies of a few adolescent girls sparked mass hysteria. “The external controls necessary to stop the executions had disintegrated”. (Breen) The Devil What was the devil? T...