Graphic Source: GreenStreet

Salem is a city that is located in Essex County Massachusetts, in the United States. Unfortunately for Salem, or maybe fortunately if you count the tourist trade, most people associate the name of the city with the witchcraft trials that took place starting in1692. Every time that I hear about things like this occurring throughout history, I can't help but think that many people have used this as a license to get even with those that they didn't like, for one reason or another. If you had an annoying neighbor, what better way was there to get rid of him or her than accusing them of witchcraft? This didn't work too well if you had a conscience, since the people you'll accuse might even be executed for something that they didn't even do. I am sure that not only was this done to get rid of people that were not liked, but it was also done for financial gain. Was there a piece of property that somebody refused to sell to someone, just call them witch and they would be executed if found guilty and their property confiscated, then you could step in and offer to buy it from the town. I'm sure this happened in the Spanish Inquisition also and throughout history when many people were being accused of performing certain acts that were considered illegal.

Ever since Salem found out that they could make money out of their reputation, they have proceeded to use the word witchcraft as much as they could. Even one of the local public schools is known as the Witchcraft Heights elementary school. The football team from Salem high is named the witches and many sports are played on a field that is located on Gallows Hill, the site of many hangings. Salem was a relatively new place, when the witchcraft trials began. It had been founded in 1626 by Roger Conant. The funny part about the city is that it gets its name from two words that mean peace. One of the words is shalom from the Hebrew and the other word is salam from the Arabic. Yet Salem was anything but peaceful by the time the witch trials started. There was a sort of witch frenzy that was going on there for years. Salem had become a very prosperous city near the end of the 1700s and was the sixth largest city in the United States at the time, but things began to slide downhill for the city and the witchcraft trials were used as publicity to gain valuable tourist trade. It seems to have worked.

Graphic Source: Cosmi

On June 10, 1692, Bridget Bishop became the first one to be executed, after being found guilty of being a witch. History states that her husband Edward Bishop, a rich businessman signed the papers accusing her of witchcraft. Her first and second husband had died and Bishop was her third. Thomas Oliver, her second husband had also been a prominent businessman. It is not entirely clear, but it seems that somehow the relatives of the deceased second husband also saw this as an opportunity to get back what was left to her when her second husband died. She was vulnerable to the in laws from her second marriage. It was said that her former in laws had become very jealous. Bridget had been accused of being a witch two times before, it was said that she witched Thomas Oliver to death, but she had been found innocent both times. This time the tribunal found her guilty of practicing witchcraft. Her second husband was considered to have been well to do in those days, owning a house and a tavern. It just so happened that one of the police offices who arrested her was married to one of her former in laws and this was an in law that had stated that she was jealous of Bridget owning a tavern. As if this wasn't bad enough, one of the judges in the trial was married to a woman whose last name had been Oliver, but history is not quite clear on whether it was spelled the same way that her second husband's name was, or not. .At first glance it certainly seems that the deck was stacked against her. Another reason that she may have been picked to be put on trial, was the fact that she did not live up to the Puritan standards of the time. She was accused of being a flashy dresser, whatever that means? She was also accused of being too outspoken. She also had a primitive shuffle board game in the tavern in the town and noise would come from people playing and cheering. These traits may not have fit into the Puritan way of life, but they should not have been punishable by death, however. The bottom line on this particular case was the fact that her former in-laws from a second marriage, the marriage to Oliver, were jealous of her good fortune and believed that since they were related to a member of the police force, they would be able to accomplish their goal of stealing her inheritance and getting rid of her by joining in the charges with her husband.

Graphic Source: Cosmi

The Salem witch trials took place in 1692 and 1693. They were conducted in the counties of Essex, Suffolk and Middlesex by local courts. The trials that took place in Salem Village, Ipswich, Ananova and Salem town were conducted by the court of Oyer and Terminer and later by the Superior Court of judicature, which heard the cases in 1693. You have to wonder how these learned jurists could ever consider that somebody might be a witch? Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned for witchcraft and more than that were accused, but some of the accused were never pursued by the authorities. 29 people were convicted on a felony charge of witchcraft and 19 of them were hanged. Contrary to common belief, it was not only women that were charged with this crime. Of the 19 people who were hanged, five were men and 14 were women. We are certainly not talking about an area that had a huge population at the time. 150 people was quite a mob of people for the day. There was one man who just refused to admit that he was a witch. The court ordered him to be tortured until he confessed, but the torture ultimately resulted in his death.

If one talks about the Salem witch trials, they have to mention Cotton Mather. He was a very influential Puritan minister who also wrote many books and pamphlets. His father had been a powerful Puritan minister before him. He had graduated from Harvard at only 15 years of age and then went on to complete his postgraduate work. When I said he wrote pamphlets and books, I should have mentioned the fact that he wrote over 450 of them and became one of the most influential religious leaders in America. Mather had been appointed as one of the judges in the Salem witch trials. You would have thought that such an educated man would have moved to release all of those charged with witchcraft, but instead he admitted the use of spectral evidence. He stated that it could be used as a basis for investigation, which should not be brought to the courtroom. Many of the judges hearing the trials were friends of his and he defended them saying,"If in the midst of the many Dissatisfactions among us, the publication of these Trials may promote such a pious Thankfulness unto God, for Justice being so far executed among us, I shall Rejoyce that God is Glorified...".this was the same man that years later would lead one of the first successful experiments in corn hybridization. With such an influential man defending judges that were making decisions condemning people for witchcraft, the accused did not have much of a chance. Smallpox inoculations had been known about since 1706. They were being given in Africa and Mather proposed that they be administered in Massachusetts. Most of the doctors were diametrically opposed to this idea. I just wanted to add this one historical footnote, Mather had three wives and 15 children, yet only his last wife and two children lived longer than he did.

Witch hunts was certainly nothing new, they had been going on for centuries in Europe, before the witch trials in Salem. It is believed that witch hunts started in Europe around 1400 AD. Many believed it was much earlier than that, they cite the beginning to be about 475 AD. The simple truth here is that the Church did not believe in witches during that time and it is thought that medieval investigations and torture, including the Spanish Inquisition, paved the way for witch hunts It seems that during those days everyone was looking for heretics. In the course of the searches some of the investigators decided that people were practicing Satanism and thus began the search for witches. Terrible things were done to people in the name of these inquisitions. People would be thrown into a pond with large stones tied around their ankles and if they floated they were guilty of being a witch, but if they sunk to the bottom and drowned they were considered innocent. When the Black plague came along, some blamed witches. Well I guess if you are an ignorant peasants and can't read or write and had no education, you could be excused for thinking this. There was no excuse for the educated to believe this nonsense.

Graphic Source: GreenStreet

William Shakespeare became famous. Some of his plays, such as MacBeth and The Tempest dealt with witches. In Henry VI he portrayed Joan of arc as a witch. This certainly didn't help when people were told there were no witches. In medieval Europe, fire was usually used to determine if somebody of noble birth was a witch, while water was used for the lesser classes. In a trial by fire a person usually had to walk about 9 feet over red hot plowshares or holding a red-hot piece of metal. Usually three days later a priest would look at the wound and declare whether or not God had intervened to help with the healing. If the wound was found to be festering or not healing, the person was immediately exiled or executed. there were many different versions of ordeal by fire, but they all had one thing in common. They all forced you to stand on, retrieve something from a flame or boiling liquid, or hold something that was burning hot for a certain period of time. When it comes to the ordeal by water, there were at least two types, but probably many more. There was the ordeal by hot water and the ordeal by cold water. In the ordeal by hot water, you would have to stick your hand into a kettle of boiling water. Again your hand would be examined in three days to see if God was intervening in the healing. The ordeal by cold water was partially mentioned previously. Another method of finding guilt or innocence was by putting you in a barrel and submerging it about three times. If the barrel goes to the bottom, you were guilty and drowned, if it floats you were innocent..In this type of thing it was believed that if you were guilty your sins would weigh you down so much that you would sink to the bottom. There were many other ridiculous tests that were given, I want to cite one more, this test was the ordeal of ingestion. The accused was given dried bread and cheese that had been blessed by a priest. If he choked on that he was guilty.

Aren't you glad that we no longer live in such uninformed times? It is hard to believe when you look at the brutality of the world today, that it was even more brutal in times past, but there is certainly no denying some of the savage practices that took place in the name of religion. One last interesting fact, a woman in England named Mary Duncan was jailed as a witch in World War II. Yep that is correct, her name was Helen Duncan and her granddaughter is trying to clear her name today.