Perhaps no event from colonial America is as infamous as the Salem Witch trials, a dark event which took place in the small Puritan village of Salem, Massachusetts from February 1692 to May of the 1693. The event was well documented, and it is possible today to read first hand accounts of the event from those involved, as ministers and townsfolk recorded the strange goings on in town and church records of the day. Today the event is regarded as full of mass hysteria and scapegoating; the Puritans were extremely rigid in their religious beliefs, and also very superstitious – during the day, there were many who believed in, and feared, the work of witches and the devil (Brooks, 2011). However, while the event was occurring, it was taken very seriously by those involved, who felt it was their higher duty to protect the people of New England from the curses of the witches who did his bidding. Today, we can look back at the events of the Salem Witch Trials and, using new insight, better understand how such a thing could occur in what appeared, at least on the surface, to be a simple, quiet farming community.
It is important to understand the events leading up to the Salem Witch Trials. Beginning in 1691, the Puritans of Massachusetts had found themselves again battling the religious persecution which has led them to leave England and settle in the New World. In 1684, King Charles II had revoked the original charter for the Massachusetts colony, due to the fact that the colony had violated several of the charters rules, including basing several laws on religious beliefs and discriminating against Anglicans. In 1691, a new charter, with more stringent anti-religious guidelines, was enacted. This had led to a general sense of unease amongst the colonists who felt their religious beliefs were yet again under attack (Hill, 2000).
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In January of 1692, two young girls, 9 year old Elizabeth Parris and 11 year old Abigail Williams, began to display strange symptoms, which included crying and convulsing uncontrollably. In February, physicians, unable to find any physical reason for their strange illness, concluded that the girls were possessed by the devil (PBS, n.d.). Pressured by local authorities, including the Elizabeth Parris’ father, who was the local priest, the girls “confessed” that it was Tituba, a native Indian slave of the Parris family, who had caused their strange illness. Later they would also accuse two other women of the town, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn. Tituba would confess to practicing witchcraft and her life would be saved; the two Sarah’s, however, maintained their innocence and were executed (PBS, n.d.).
The radical sense of hysteria that overtook the town of Salem during the trials was short lived; the last executions occurred in November of 1692 and the last of the imprisoned accused were set free by May of 1693. Since that time there have been many who have sought a more earthly cause of the girls afflictions. Documents from the day show that indeed the girls did suffer from some sort of epileptic type fits (Salem Witch Trial Archives, 2012).
One modern day scientist believes he has the answer. In 2000, Alan Woolf published an article entitled, “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials”. This article puts forth the idea that the grain the colonists were making their bread from was infected by a species of ergot. Ergot is a fungus, Claviceps purpurea, that is known to affect rye and other cereal grains. It produces alkaloids that, when ingested, can cause a wide range of symptoms, including seizures, spasms, convulsions, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Woolf, along with other researchers, claim that ergot poisoning could have been the cause of many historical cases of bewitching. Woolf notes that the year the events of the Salem Witch Trials occurred, the weather had been unusual – a cold winter followed by a warm, wet planting season and a hot, wet summer – which led to a failed harvest. Lacking sufficient wheat for bread, the Salem villagers used rye instead. Many of the villagers central to the trials were indeed making bread out of the same store of rye. If the cereal stores of the town had indeed been infected with ergot, it would explain the unusual symptoms in the girls, as well as the heightened fear and paranoia of the other townspeople (Woolf, 2000).
Woolf’s hypothesis seems to explain part of the hysteria of the Salem Witch trials, but it is not the entirety of the story. It was the Puritans general sense of unease, their religious fervor, superstitious beliefs (including the existence of the devil, apparitions and witches) which combined to create an atmosphere of fear within the community. However, there were many in the community who did not agree with the witch trials – for example, John Proctor, a man who did not believe in witchcraft and accused the girls of being scam artists (Brooks, 2011). He, and several others, believed there might be more going on with the accusations, that in fact some of the accusers might be calling accusing those they had issues with of witchcraft as an act of revenge (Brooks, 2011).
We will perhaps never truly understand the entirety of what happened in Salem in 1692. We know that some 20 innocent men, women and children were hung and burned as witches. One man, Giles Corey, who refused to offer a plea for fear his lands would be confiscated from him, was even flattened to death over a period of 3 days. His gruesome death, along with others whose involvement with witchcraft was found hard to believe by may, strengthened the growing opposition among the villagers to the trials (Brooks, 2011). However, the events of those days should stand out as an example of how fear, hysteria and rhetoric can lead even sane and noble people to acts of extreme evil and violence.
- Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice (2011) “The Salem Witch Trials” History of Massachusetts Web. 27 Feb. 2015 from http://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-salem-witch-trials/
- Hill, Frances (2000). “The Salem Witch Trials Reader” DaCapo Press.
- “Salem Witch Trials: Documentary Archive and Transcription Project” (2002) The University of
Virginia Web. 27 Feb. 2015 from http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/home.html - “The Witches Curse” (n.d.) P.B.S. – Secrets of the Dead Web. 27 Feb. 2015 from
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/witches-curse-interactive-explore-salem/1579/ - Woolf, Alan (2000) “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. Clinical Toxicology 38.4, 457-460.
