A dark and awful cloud was lowering over Massachusetts. Not alone had she to deplore the ravages of her frontiers and the abridgment of her charter privileges; a new and direr calamity was now falling upon her, and which, like so many of her other sorrows and all her mistakes, was mainly attributable to her spiritual pride. The belief in witchcraft was in this century prevalent in all Christian countries. The laws of England, which admitted it and punished it with death, had been adopted in Massachusetts, strengthened by the Scriptural Judaic command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;” and as early as 1645 the mania commenced, several persons at Boston and other towns were taken up and tried, and one individual executed, for this supposed crime.
“Among other evidences,” says Hildreth, “of a departure from the ancient landmarks, and of the propagation even in New England of a spirit of doubt, were the growing suspicions of the reality of that every-day supernaturalism which formed so prominent a feature of the puritan theology. Against this rising incredulity, Increase Mather had, in 1684, published a book of ‘Remarkable Providences,’ which enumerated and testified to the truth of all the supposed cases of witchcraft which had occurred in New England, with arguments to prove their reality.”
As the sight of an execution for murder creates in the mind of the debased a morbid passion for the committal of the crime, so did the publication of this work soon give rise to a supposed case of witchcraft. A house at Newbury was said to be haunted or bewitched, and the wife of the occupant, a wretched old woman, was accused as a witch. Seventeen people came forward on her trial to charge her with misfortunes which had happened to them in the course of their lives, and but for the firmness and good sense of Simon Bradstreet, and the abrogation of the charter which just then took place, and gave people something else to think of, she would have been executed on the charge.
Mather, however, had sown seed which fell into fruitful ground, and in due course sprang up, being fostered in the meantime by the re-publication, in Boston, of the works of Richard Baxter and the authority of Sir Matthew Hale. In 1688, therefore, the morbid imaginations of the people, already predisposed, being excited by this mental food, cases of witchcraft were discovered. The four children of a “pious family” in Boston, the eldest a girl of thirteen, began to be strangely affected, barking like dogs, purring like cats, being at times deaf, dumb, or blind; having their limbs distorted, and complaining of being pricked, pinched, pulled, and cut. A pious minister was called in, witchcraft was suspected, and an old Irish woman, an indented servant of the family, who had scolded the children in Irish because her daughter was accused of theft, was taken up on the charge. Five ministers held a day of fasting and prayer, and the old woman was tried, found guilty, and executed.
“Though Increase Mather,” says Hildreth, “was absent, he had a zealous representative in his son, Cotton Mather, a young minister of five-and-twenty, a prodigy of learning, eloquence, and piety, recently settled as colleague with his father over Boston North Church. Cotton Mather had an extraordinary memory, stuffed with all sorts of learning. His application was equal to that of a German professor. His lively imagination, trained in the school of puritan theology, and nourished on the traditionary legends of New England, of which he was a voracious and indiscriminate collector, was still further stimulated by fasts, vigils, prayers, and meditations, almost equal to those of any catholic saint. Like the Jesuit missionaries of Canada, he often believed himself, during his devotional exercises, to have direct and personal communication with the Deity. In every piece of good fortune he saw an answer to his prayers; in every calamity or mortification, the especial personal malice of the devil or his agents.”
In order to study these cases of witchcraft at his leisure, Cotton Mather took one of the bewitched to his house, and the devil within her flattered his religious vanity to the extreme. He preached and prayed on the subject, calling witchcraft “a most nefandous treason against the Majesty on High,” and wrote another book of “Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possession,” in which he defied the modern Sadducee any longer to doubt. Four ministers testified to the unanswerable arguments which he thus set forth, as did also Richard Baxter in London.
Public attention thus turned to the subject, other cases of the same character soon occurred. Two young girls of Salem, the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris the minister, began to be “moved by strange caprices,” and being pronounced bewitched by a physician of Boston, Tituba, an old Indian woman, the servant of the family, was suspected, principally because she had volunteered to discover the witch by some magical rites. Of course nothing was talked of but these girls; it was quite an interesting excitement; ministers met to pray; the whole town of Salem fasted and prayed, and a fast was ordered throughout the colony. The rage for notoriety, or the effects of these cases on the imagination of others of similarly nervous temperaments, soon produced their results, and not only were several girls affected in the same way, but also poor old John, the Indian husband of Tituba.
The whole of Salem was agog, and the magistrates took up the matter solemnly. Accusations spread; two women, the one crazy, the other bed-ridden, were suspected, in addition to the others. Parris preached the next Sunday on the subject, and the sister of one of the accused left the church, which was enough to throw suspicion upon her. The deputy-governor of the colony came to Salem, and a great court was held in the meeting-house, five other magistrates and “a great crowd being present.” Parris was the general accuser. The accused were held with their arms extended and their hands held open, lest by the least motion of their fingers they might inflict torments on their victims, who sometimes appeared to be struck dumb or knocked down by the mere glance of their eye.
“In the examinations in Salem meeting-house, some very extraordinary scenes occurred. ‘Look there,’ cried one of the afflicted, ‘there is Goody Procter on the beam.’ (This Goody Procter’s husband, firmly protesting the innocence of his wife, had attended her to the court, and, in consequence, was charged by some of ‘the afflicted’ with being a wizard). At the above exclamation, many if not all the bewitched had grievous fits. Question by the Court: ‘Ann Putnam, who hurts you?’ Answer: ‘Goodman Procter, and his wife too.’ Then some of the afflicted cry out, ‘There is Procter going to take up Mrs. Pope’s feet;’ and immediately her feet are taken up. Question by the Court: ‘What do you say, Goodman Procter, to these things?’ Answer: ‘I know not, I am innocent!’ Abigail Williams, another of the afflicted, cries out, ‘There is Goodman Procter going to Mrs. Pope;’ and immediately the said Pope falls into a fit. A Magistrate to Procter: ‘You see the devil will deceive you; the children (so the afflicted were called) could see what you were going to do before the woman was hurt. I would advise you to repentance, for you see the devil is bringing you out!’ Abigail Williams again cries out, ‘There is Goodman Procter going to hurt Goody Bibber;’ and immediately Bibber falls also into a fit. And so on. But it was on evidence such as this that people were believed to be witches, and were hurried to prison and tried for their lives.
“Tituba was flogged into confession; others yielded to a pressure more stringent than blows. Weak women, astonished at the charges and contortions of their accusers, assured that they themselves were witches, and urged to confess as the only means of saving their lives, were easily prevailed upon to admit any absurdities: journeys through the air on broomsticks, to attend a witch sacrament—a sort of travesty on the Christian ordinance—at which the devil appeared in the shape of a ‘small black man;’ signing the devil’s book; renouncing their former baptism, and being baptized anew by the devil in ‘Wenham Pond,’ after the Anabaptist fashion. Called upon to tell who were present at these sacrifices, the confessing witches wound up with new accusations. By the time Phipps arrived in the colony, near a hundred persons were already in prison. Nor was the mischief limited to Salem; many persons were accused in Andover, Boston, and other towns.”[[18]]