Our Ancestors Weren’t Stupid: on the Salem Witch Trials
When discussing history, one will very often encounter sentiments that our ancestors were primitive, superstitious people who were easily misled by tales of magic, monsters, and backwards religion. A question I have often pondered is why modern people think that our predecessors were so susceptible to superstition when they possessed the same faculties and powers of observation that we do. After careful research into this subject, I have come to a conclusion: They weren’t.
Most, if not all, historical examples of humans acting in barbarous, superstitious ways are stretched truths or flat-out lies. In reality, most ‘insane’ beliefs often have very mundane and rational explanations. For this article, we will only briefly examine just one of these cases: The Salem witch trial. While there are countless other examples of mythologized historical anecdotes, I hope that the examples given here may prove to be a formula by which to judge, and ultimately question, other examples of historical insanity that seem too ridiculous to be true.
Sebastion Major, in his podcast titled Our Fake History, spends roughly four hours diving into the Salem witch trials. For anyone with a hunger to fully explore this topic, I recommend listening to his entire series as I will be referencing it at length. To set the stage, Major states
“Somewhat counterintuitively, the era when Witch hunting really exploded is the period that commonly gets called the Renaissance. Yes, that period in European history that's been celebrated as a rebirth of learning, a time defined by a new emphasis on reason and rationality and huge leap forwards in science and art. That is when Witch hunting reached its bloody climax. European Witch hunting really picked up steam in the 15 hundreds, reached a zenith in the 16 hundreds and didn't fully peter out until the Mid 17 hundreds.”
Salem researcher Marian Starkey argues that Witch hunting and witch panics seem to loosely correlate with periods of social anxiety brought on by non-witch related factors, including famine, climate change, natural disasters, political strife, and warfare. Fast forward to Salem in 1692 and we will soon see that there were numerous other factors at play in Salem that had nothing to do with witchcraft.
To begin, the Massachusetts colony that settled this area was strictly puritan and extremely literate. In the 1650’s, a high literacy rate was very rare and proves that these people were not common peasants unable to decipher truth from fiction. Around this time, England had been subsumed by a civil war that pitted Catholics against Protestants. I will spare you the history of the civil war, but it is important to note that while the protestants had autonomy under a protestant English government, the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 brought massive changes and internal strife to the New World colonies. One of these was the dissolution of courts which the colonists had used very frequently as a form of petty conflict resolution. Also of note is that this period in history faced persistent food shortages due to a centuries-long cold spell. The Massachusetts colony began as a food exporter but had become a net importer by this time period.
Lastly, the colonies faced threats of raids on a daily basis. The Massachusetts colony had fought two wars with indigenous tribes, including the Pequot and Wampanoag, in the 50 years prior to the Salem Witch Trials. In 1688, the Wabanaki, who were allied with the French against England in the Nine Years War, began raiding English colonies in the region.
To say that the colonists were on edge is an understatement.
The last key detail is that Salem was incredibly factional. There were actually two Salem’s, one on the coast (Salem Town) and one about ten miles inland, where the witch trials actually took place (Salem Village). There was immense factionalization not only between the two settlements, but within them as well.
Readers may know that the Salem witch trials began when three girls, Elizabeth Betty Paris, Anne Putnam Jr., And Elizabeth Hubbard, began experiencing seizure like symptoms. Many theories from medical issues to fungal infections have been hypothesized as a cause. What many may not know is that these girls were not the ones executed for witchcraft. Instead, they gave the names of other women in town as being practicing witches who were spreading these afflictions. We will look at some of the most prominent names on that list: Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey.
To quote Major again: “the Putnam's were the defacto leaders of the economically declining Salem village faction. The Nurse family were a prosperous group, more aligned with Salem town. Notably, Rebecca Nurse was a member of the Salem Town Church and not the Salem Village congregation. The accusation of Sarah Osborne also coincidentally helped the interests of Thomas Putnam, who is in the midst of a civil suit with the woman. Now, it's hard to prove this, but many historians, including the influential researchers, Paul Boyer and Steven Nisenbaum, have proposed that Thomas Putnam may have been using his daughter to settle scores with his enemies in the community.”
Sarah Goode is another interesting case. She was destitute, often reduced to begging for money, and had been described as difficult, spiteful, and malicious. Giles, one of six men executed, was also described as being extremely short of temper and ill-mannered. He had been arrested in his youth and had married a woman who later became very critical of the early witch hunt, making her a target. All these people were executed despite never confessing to any wrongdoing.
While this is not an exhaustive list of those accused of witchcraft, there proves a consistent trend: Those who were seen as a blight on society, or who had engaged in factionalism against their neighbors, were accused of being involved in satanic magic. Of course, for those accused, it was advantageous to confess and then accuse someone else to save your own life. After all, only roughly half of those accused were executed. For those who were accused of witchcraft and not executed, we see again an alarming trend that they were members considered to be in good repute within the town, including the reverends wife, Sarah Hale, wife of the governor, Lady Mary Phipps, two pregnant women, and others who confessed to the crime.
To recap: Salem presented as an incredibly anxious town being ruled by a government antithetical to their puritan views which had dissolved the courts used to process petty grievances and major law infractions. They were starving and under constant threat of attacks from Native Americans and have engaged in very serious factionalism between Salem Town and Salem Village. When two young girls began accusing those of witchcraft, the first of those accused were women who were either in a legal dispute with the girl’s parents, or who were seen as an outcast and ne’er-do-well in society. The accusations spread to others who were seen as contemptuous or otherwise unpleasant, but only those who were truly not in good standing with their community were executed.
It ought to be very clear what happened in the Salem witch trials. The pressure and anxiety of the dangerous and declining colonial communities bubbled over into hatred and ultimately, executions. Those targeted were chosen based on political, financial, or outright communal disdain.
The modern assumption that everyone who lived in this time period was susceptible to mass religious hysteria is nonsense. In 1702, just ten years after the trials (a time frame unlikely to have suddenly spawned mass rationalization), the General Court of Massachusetts declared the trials unlawful and, in 1711, the Massachusetts legislature annulled the convictions. There are many modern parallels that one can learn from this, but one especially worth highlighting is how easy it is to scapegoat innocent people when times get tough – a lesson we ought to heed closely today. Our ancestors weren’t stupid, and the traditions and beliefs they have passed down to us are not rooted in fantasy or hysteria.
