What really happened during the Salem Witch Trials - Brian A. Pavlac
You’ve been accused of a crime
you did not commit.
It’s impossible to prove your innocence.
If you insist that you’re innocent anyway,
you’ll likely be found guilty
and executed.
But if you confess, apologize,
and implicate others for good measure,
you’ll go free.
Do you give a false confession—
or risk a public hanging?
This was the choice facing
those accused of witchcraft
in the village of Salem, Massachusetts
between February 1692 and May 1693.
They were the victims of paranoia
about the supernatural,
misdirected religious fervor—
and a justice system that valued
repentance over truth.
Salem was settled in 1626 by Puritans,
a group of English protestants.
Life was strict and isolated
for the people of Salem.
Battles with their
Native American neighbors
and groups of French settlers
were commonplace.
People feared starvation and disease,
and relations between villagers
were strained.
To make matters worse, 1692 brought
one of the coldest winters on record.
That winter, two cousins,
9 year old Betty Parris and
11 year old Abigail Williams
started behaving very strangely.
A physician found nothing
physically wrong —
but diagnosed the girls
as under “an evil hand.”
Puritans believed that the Devil wreaked
havoc in the world through human agents,
or witches, who blighted nature,
conjured fiendish apparitions,
and tormented children.
As news swept through the village,
the symptoms appeared to spread.
Accounts describe 12 so-called
“afflicted” girls contorting their bodies,
having fits,
and complaining of prickling skin.
Four of the girls soon accused three
local women of tormenting them.
All three of the accused were considered
outsiders in some way.
On February 29th,
the authorities arrested Sarah Good,
a poor pregnant mother
of a young daughter,
Sarah Osbourne,
who had long been absent from church
and was suing the family
of one of her accusers,
and Tituba, an enslaved woman
in Betty Parris’s home
known by her first name only.
Tituba denied harming the girls at first.
But then she confessed to practicing
witchcraft on the Devil’s orders,
and charged Good and Osbourne
with having forced her.
Osbourne and Good both
maintained their innocence.
Osbourne died in prison, while Good’s
husband turned against her in court,
testifying that she "was a witch
or would be one very quickly."
Good’s 4 year old daughter
was imprisoned
and eventually gave testimony
against her mother.
Meanwhile, Good gave birth in jail.
Her baby died, and she was convicted
and hanged shortly thereafter.
Tituba was held in custody until May,
and then released.
These three victims were
just the beginning.
As accusations multiplied,
others, like Tituba,
made false confession to save themselves.
The authorities even reportedly
told one accused witch
that she would be hanged if she did not
confess, and freed if she did.
They were not particularly interested
in thoroughly investigating the charges—
in keeping with their Church’s teachings,
they preferred that the accused confessed,
asked for forgiveness, and promised
not to engage in more witchcraft.
The court accepted all kinds
of dubious evidence,
including so-called “spectral evidence”
in which the girls began raving when
supposedly touched by invisible ghosts.
Complicating matters further,
many of the jurors in the trials
were relatives of the accusers,
compromising their objectivity.
Those who dared to speak out,
such as Judge Nathanial Saltonstall,
came under suspicion.
By the spring of 1693,
over a hundred people had been imprisoned,
and 14 women
and 6 men had been executed.
By this time, accusations were starting
to spread beyond Salem
to neighboring communities, and even
the most powerful figures were targets.
When his own wife was accused,
the governor of Massachusetts colony
suspended the trials.
Sentences were amended,
prisoners released, and arrests stopped.
Some have speculated that the girls
were suffering from hallucinations
caused by fungus;
or a condition that caused
swelling of the brain.
But ultimately, the reason
for their behavior is unknown.
What we do know is that adults
accepted wild accusations by children
as hard evidence.
Today, the Salem Witch Trials remain
a cautionary tale
of the dangers of groupthink
and scapegoating,
and the power of fear
to manipulate human perception.
