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Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: 'Witches' get a very late apology

By Mike Conley | The McDowell News

Published: October 28, 2009

On Halloween in 2001, the governor of Massachusetts proclaimed that a group of people who had been found guilty in a court of law and executed as punishment for their alleged crimes were actually innocent after all. These 19 people had not been put to death for killing someone or even stealing. They had been executed more than 300 years before for the crime of witchcraft.
Even though it happened in 1692 and 1693, the Salem Witch Trials has become an integral part of the American experience. It has haunted generations of Americans. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne was a descendant of one of the judges who oversaw the trials and that shameful knowledge overshadowed much of his dark writings. It has even become a part of modern pop culture through the TV show "Bewitched." Today, tourists visit the town of Salem, Mass. to learn more about the notorious witch trials and their dark legacy.
Scholars also debate what really happened in the Puritan village of Salem 317 years ago. Was it a case of mass hysteria that got started among some mischievous girls? Or was something truly evil at work behind the scenes?
In the cold New England winter of 1692, both the daughter and niece of Rev. Samuel Parris of Salem became ill. The girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into weird positions, according to the eyewitness account of Rev. Deodat Lawson, a former minister. All of that sounds like a scene from "The Exorcist."
When the girls failed to get better, Parris called the village physician William Griggs. The girls, ages 9 and 11, also complained of being pinched and pricked with pins. Griggs could find no physical evidence of any sickness. Other young women in the village began to exhibit similar symptoms. At one point, Lawson preached a sermon in the Salem Village meetinghouse but he was interrupted several times by outbursts from those who were afflicted. It seems that the people of Salem, especially young women, were under the spell of the Devil, according to a Web site.
The first three people accused and arrested for allegedly tormenting the innocent girls were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba. Sarah Good was poor and known to beg for food or shelter from her neighbors. Sarah Osborne was known as a "loose woman" and rarely attended church meetings. Tituba was a slave who came from the island of Barbados. All of these seemed to be prime suspects for witchcraft and no one stood up for them. They were brought before the local magistrates on the complaint of witchcraft and interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692, then taken to jail.
As the year went on, more people in Salem and other villages would stand accused of witchcraft and consorting with the Devil. The local prisons would be filled with more than 150 men and women from Salem and surrounding towns. The tormented young girls had cried out their names as the cause of their pain and suffering. And the Puritans had only one punishment for witchcraft.
It would ultimately result in the death by hanging of 19 men and women. One man was crushed to death with stones while seven others died in prison. The lives of everyone who survived would be changed forever by this experience. Despite the legend, no one was burned at the stake.
Today, scholars point out the Salem Witch Trials happened because life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at that time was far from easy. These determined and devout people were carving out a life for themselves in what was still pretty much a wilderness. They had just gone through a recent small pox epidemic and were under constant threat of attack by warring American Indian tribes. They also had a strong belief in the Devil and the forces of evil. It was an integral part of their culture and way of thinking. At the same time, there were factions among village residents and many of them may have used witchcraft as an excuse to settle old scores.
Years later, Massachusetts officials offered apologies and even restitution to the families of those who were put to death. But it would take three centuries before those 19 people were finally declared innocent.

Contact Mike Conley at 652-3313, ext. 3422 or e-mail nconley@mcdowellnews.com.