Increase Mather.
In a people thus trained the miracle is not that witchcraft and
superstition did so much mischief, but so little. Had it not been for
their sturdy Saxon good sense its results must have proved infinitely
more sad. The first remarkable case of sorcery in New England occurred
at Boston, in 1688. Four children of a pious family were affected in a
peculiar manner, imitating the cries of cats and dogs, and complaining
of pains all over their bodies. These were the regulation symptoms of
witch-possession, which presumably they had often heard discussed. An
old Irish serving-woman, indentured to the family, who already bore the
name of a witch, was charged with having bewitched them, and executed,
the four ministers of Boston having first held at the house a day of
prayer and fasting.
Cotton Mather.
Young Cotton Mather, grandson of the distinguished Rev. John Cotton, a
man of vast erudition and fervent piety, was at this time colleague to
his father, Increase Mather, as pastor of the Boston North Church. His
imagination had been abnormally developed by fasts and vigils, in which
he believed himself to hold uncommonly close communication with the
Almighty. His desire to provide new arms for faith against the growing
unbelief of his time led him to take one of the "bewitched" children to
his house, that he might note and describe the ways of the devil in her
case. The results he soon after published in his "Memorable Providences
Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions." This work admitted no doubt as
to the reality of the demoniac possessions, which indeed it affected to
demonstrate forever. All the Boston ministers signed its preface,
certifying to its "clear information" that "both a God and a devil, and
witchcraft" existed. "Nothing too vile," it alleged, "can be said of,
nothing too hard can be done to, such a horrible iniquity as witchcraft
is." The publication excited great attention, and to it in no small
measure the ensuing tragedy may be traced.
Old Tituba the Indian.
In February, 1692, three more subjects, children of Rev. Mr. Parris,
minister at Danvers, then called Salem Village, exhibited bad witchcraft
symptoms. The utmost excitement prevailed. Neighboring clergymen joined
the village in fasting and prayer. A general fast for the colony was
ordered. But the "devilism," as Cotton Mather named it, spread instead
of abating, the children having any number of imitators so soon as they
became objects of general notice and sympathy. Old Tituba, an Indian
crone, who had served in Parris's family, was the first to be denounced
as the cause. Two other aged females, one crazy, the other bed-ridden,
were also presently accused, and after a little while several ladies of
Parris's church. Whoso uttered a whisper of incredulity, general or as
to the blameworthiness of any whom Parris called guilty, was instantly
indicted with them.
On April 11th, the Deputy Governor held in the meeting-house in Salem
Village a court for a preliminary examination of the prisoners. A scene
at once ridiculous and tragic followed. When they were brought in, their
alleged victims appeared overcome at their gaze, pretending to be
bitten, pinched, scratched, choked, burned, or pricked by their
invisible agency in revenge for refusing to subscribe to a covenant with
the devil. Some were apparently stricken down by the glance of an eye
from one of the culprits, others fainted, many writhed as in a fit.
Tituba was beaten to make her confess. Others were tortured. Finally all
the accused were thrown into irons. Numbers of accused persons, assured
that it was their only chance for life, owned up to deeds of which they
must have been entirely innocent. They had met the devil in the form of
a small black man, had attended witch sacraments, where they renounced
their Christian vows, and had ridden through the air on broomsticks.
Such were the confessions of poor women who had never in their lives
done any evil except possibly to tattle.
Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton.
On June 2d, a special court was held in Salem for the definite trial.
Stoughton, Lieutenant Governor, a man of small mind and bigoted temper,
was president. The business began by the condemnation and hanging of a
helpless woman. A jury of women had found on her person a wart, which
was pronounced to be unquestionably a "devil's teat," and her neighbors
remembered that many hens had died, animals become lame, and carts upset
by her dreadful "devilism." By September 23d, twenty persons had gone to
the gallows, eight more were under sentence, and fifty-five had
"confessed" and turned informers as their only hope. The "afflicted" had
increased to fifty. Jails were crammed with persons under accusation,
and fresh charges of alliance with devils were brought forward every
day.
Fac-simile of Sheriff's Return of an Execution.
Some of the wretched victims displayed great fortitude. Goodman Procter
lost his life by nobly and persistently--vainly as well,
alas!--maintaining the innocence of his accused wife. George Burroughs,
who had formerly preached in Salem Village, was indicted. His physical
strength, which happened to be phenomenal, was adduced as lent him from
the devil. Stoughton browbeat him through his whole trial. What sealed
his condemnation, however, was his offer to the jury of a paper quoting
an author who denied the possibility of witchcraft. His fervent prayers
when on the scaffold, and especially his correct rendering of the Lord's
Prayer, shook the minds of many. They argued that no witch could have
gotten through those holy words correctly--a test upon which several had
been condemned. Cotton Mather, present at the gallows, restored the
crowd to faith by reminding them that the devil had the power to dress
up like an angel of light. Rebecca Nurse, a woman of unimpeachable
character hitherto, unable from partial deafness to understand, so as to
explain, the allegations made against her, was convicted notwithstanding
every proof in her favor.
Reaction now began. Public opinion commenced to waver. No one knew whose
turn to be hanged would come next. Emboldened by their fatal success,
accusers whispered of people in high places as leagued with the Evil
One. An Andover minister narrowly escaped death. The Beverly minister,
Hale, one of the most active in denouncing witches, was aghast when his
own wife was accused. Two sons of Governor Bradstreet were obliged to
flee for their lives, one for refusing, as a magistrate, to issue any
more warrants, the other charged with bewitching a dog. Several hurried
to New York to escape conviction. The property of such was seized by
their towns. A reign of terror prevailed.
People slowly awoke to the terrible travesty of justice which was going
on. Magistrates were seen to have overlooked the most flagrant instances
of falsehood and contradiction on the part of both accusers and accused,
using the baseless hypothesis that the devil had warped their senses.
The disgusting partiality shown in the accusations was disrelished, as
was the resort that had been had to torture. One poor old man of eighty
they crushed to death because he would plead guilty to nothing. The
authorities quite disregarded the fact that everyone of the
self-accusations had been made in order to escape punishment. These
considerations effected a revolution in the minds of most people.
Remonstrances were presented to the courts, securing reprieve for those
under sentence of death at Salem. This so irritated the despicable
Stoughton that he resigned.
The forwardness of the ministers therein turned many against the
persecution, After the first victims had fallen at Salem, Governor Phips
took their advice whether or not to proceed. Cotton Mather indited the
reply. It thankfully acknowledges "the success which the merciful God
has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable
rulers to defeat the abominable witch crafts which have been committed
in the country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious
and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. It is pleasant to note,
after all, the ministers' advice to the civil rulers not to rely too
much on "the devil's authority"--on the evidence, that is, of those
possessed. The court heeded this injunction all too little, but by and
by it had weight with the public, who judged that, as the trials
appeared to be proceeding on devil's evidence alone, the farce ought to
cease. The Superior Court met in Boston, April 25, 1693, and the grand
Jury declined to find any more bills against persons accused of sorcery.
King William vetoed the Witchcraft Act, and by the middle of 1693 all
the prisoners were discharged.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIDDLE COLONIES
[1686]
The English conquest of New Netherland from the Dutch speedily followed
the Stuarts' return to the throne. Cromwell had mooted an attack on
Dutch America, and, as noticed in Chapter I., Connecticut's charter of
1662 extended that colony to include the Dutch lands. England based her
claim to the territory on alleged priority of discovery, but the real
motives were the value of the Hudson as an avenue for trade, and the
desire to range her colonies along the Atlantic coast in one unbroken
line. The victory was not bloody, nor was it offensive to the Dutch
themselves, who in the matter of liberties could not lose. King Charles
had granted the conquered tract to his brother, the Duke of York,
subsequently James II., and it was in his honor christened with its
present name of New York.
The Duke's government was not popular, especially as it ordered the
Dutch land-patents to be renewed--for money, of course; and in 1673,
war again existing between England and Holland, the Dutch recovered
their old possession. They held it however for only fifteen months,
since at the Peace of 1674 the two belligerent nations mutually restored
all the posts which they had won.
The reader already has some idea of Sir Edmond Andros's rule in America.
New York was the first to feel this, coming under the gentleman's
governorship immediately on being the second time surrendered to
England. Such had been the political disorder in the province, that
Andros's headship, stern as it was, proved beneficial. He even, for a
time, 1683-86, reluctantly permitted an elective legislature, though
discontinuing it when the legislatures of New England were suppressed.
This taste of freedom had its effect afterward.
[1690]
When news of the Revolution of 1688 in England reached New York, Andros
was in Boston. Nicholson, Lieutenant-Governor, being a Catholic and an
absolutist, and the colony now in horror of all Catholics through fear
of French invasion from Canada, Jacob Leisler, a German adventurer,
partly anticipating, partly obeying the popular wish, assumed to
function in Nicholson's stead. All the aristocracy, English or Dutch,
and nearly all the English of the lower rank were against him. Leisler
was passionate and needlessly bitter toward Catholics, yet he meant
well. He viewed his office as only transitory, and stood ready to
surrender it so soon as the new king's will could be learned; but when
Slaughter arrived with commission as governor, Leisler's foes succeeded
in compassing his execution for treason. This unjust and cruel deed
began a long feud between the popular and the aristocratic party in the
colony.