Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply

by Charles Wentworth Upham

This appearance of the "White and Shining," Spirit, or "White Angel," exercising a good and friendly influence, was entirely out of the line of ordinary spectral manifestations; constituted a speciality in the cases mentioned; and seems to have originated in the same source. Let it, then, be considered that Cotton Mather's favorite precedent, which was urged upon Sir William Phips, and which Mather brought to the notice of Richards, and was so fond of citing in his writings, had a "White Angel." In his account of the "most horrid outrage, committed in Sweedland by Devils, by the help of witches," we find the following: "Some of the children talked much of a White Angel, which did use to forbid them, what the Devil had bid them to do, and assure them that these things would not last long; but that what had been done was permitted for the wickedness of the people. This White Angel would sometimes rescue the children, from going in with the witches."—Wonders, 50.

Mr. Hale also notices this feature of the Salem Trials—that the witnesses swore to "representations of heavenly beauty, white men."

Mather brought the story of this witchcraft "in Sweedland," before the public, in America; he had the book that contained it; and was active in giving it circulation. There can be little doubt that he was the channel through which it found its way to the girls in the hamlet of Salem Village. He was, it is evident, intimate with Parris. How far the latter received his ideas from him, is, as yet, unknown. That they were involved in the same responsibility is clear from the fact that Parris fell back upon him for protection, and relied upon him, as his champion, throughout his controversy with his people, occasioned by the witchcraft transactions.

When these considerations are duly weighed, in connection with his language in the passage of his Diary, just quoted—"I saw a most charming instance of prudence and patience" in the Judges: "My compassion upon the sight of their difficulties," "raised by my journeys to Salem, the chief seat of those diabolical vexations"—it seems necessary to infer, that his opportunities of seeing all this, on the occasions of his "journeys to Salem," must have been afforded by attending the Examinations, held by the Magistrates who were also Judges; as it is established, by his own averment, that he never saw them on the Bench of the Court, at the Jury-trials. It is, therefore, rendered certain, by his own language and by all the facts belonging to the subject, that the purpose of his "journeys to Salem" was to attend the Examinations. We are, indeed, shut up to this conclusion.

The Examinations were going on from the first of March, far into the Summer of 1692. There is no intimation that either of the Mathers uttered a syllable against the course pursued in them, before or after the middle of May, when the Government passed into their almost exclusive possession. All the way through, spectral evidence was admitted, without restraint or a symptom of misgiving, on their part; and, whether present or absent, they could not but have known all that was going on.

Cotton Mather's "journeys to Salem," must have been frequent. If only made two or three times, he would have said so, as he speaks of them in an apologetic passage and when trying to represent his agency to have been as little as the truth would allow.

The Reviewer states that the journeys were made for another purpose. He states it positively and absolutely. "He made visits to Salem, as we shall presently see, for quite another purpose than that which has been alleged." This language surprised me, as it had wholly escaped my researches; and the surprise was accompanied with pleasure, for I supposed there must be some foundation for the declaration. I looked eagerly for the disclosure about to be made, in some document, now, for the first time, to be brought to light, from "original sources," such as he, in a subsequent passage, informs us, Mr. Longfellow has had access to. Great was my disappointment, to find that the Reviewer, notwithstanding his promise to let us know the "other purpose" of Mather's visits to Salem, has not given us a single syllable of information to that effect, but has endeavored to palm off, upon the readers of the North American Review, a pure fiction of his own brain, a mere conjecture, as baseless as it is absurd. He says that Mather made his visits to Salem, as the "spiritual comforter" of John Proctor and John Willard!

He further says, in support of this statement, "that Proctor and Willard had been confined several months in the Boston Jail, and there, doubtless, made Mr. Mather's acquaintance, as he was an habitual visitor of the prison." This hardly accounts for "journeys to Salem," during those months. Salem was not exactly in Mr. Mather's way from his house in Boston to the Jail in Boston.

As only a few days over four months elapsed between Proctor's being put into the Boston Jail and his execution, deducting the "several months" he spent there, but little time remained, after his transfer to the Salem Jail, for Mather's "journeys to Salem," for the purpose of administering spiritual consolation to him. So far as making his "acquaintance," while in Boston Jail is regarded, upon the same ground it might be affirmed that he was the spiritual adviser of the Prisoners generally; for most of those, who suffered, were in Boston Jail as long as Proctor; and he visited them all alike.

The Reviewer adduces not a particle of evidence to prove his absolute statement, nor even to countenance the idea; but, as is his custom, he transforms a conjecture into an established fact. On a bare surmise, he builds an argument, and treats the whole, basis and superstructure, as History. To show, more particularly, how he thus makes History, I must follow this matter up a little further. Brattle, in his Account of the Witchcraft in the County of Essex, 1692, has this paragraph, after stating that the persons executed "went out of the world, not only with as great protestations, but also with as great shows, of innocency, as men could do:" "They protested their innocency as in the presence of the great God, whom forthwith they were to appear before: they wished, and declared their wish, that their blood might be the last innocent blood shed upon that account. With great affection, they entreated Mr. C. M. to pray with them: they prayed that God would discover what witchcrafts were among us: they forgave their accusers: they spake without reflection on Jury and Judges, for bringing them in guilty and condemning them: [they prayed earnestly for pardon for all other sins, and for an interest in the precious blood of our dear Redeemer:] and seemed to be very sincere, upright, and sensible of their circumstances on all accounts; especially Proctor and Willard, whose whole management of themselves, from the Jail to the Gallows, [and whilst at the Gallows,] was very affecting and melting to the hearts of some considerable spectators, whom I could mention to you:—[but they are executed and so I leave them.]"—Massachusetts Historical Collections, I., v., 68.