Witch hunts also touched the shores of America, as many Americans know. The Salem witch trials among the Massachusetts Puritans have entered American consciousness as being quite a bit more then just the killing of witches. They, like the trials of Europe, have become a symbol. In our case, the witch trials have become a symbol of what can go wrong when mobs of ignorant people go crazy, especially when egged on by just as ignorant and/or power hungry leaders.
The Salem story began in 1692 when a few girls who had become friendly with a slave woman named Tituba began acting very strangely — hysterical screaming, falling into convulsions, barking like dogs, etc. Soon other girls began acting in a similar manner and of course they all must have been possessed by demons. Three woman, including the slave, were promptly accused of witchcraft. The result was much like the European experience, with a chain-reaction of confessions, denouncements, and more arrests.
In an effort to help combat the witch menace, courts relaxed traditional rules of evidence and procedure — after all, witches are a terrible menace and must be stopped. In place of the normal rules and methods, the courts used what was common among Inquisitors in Europe — scouring the womens’ bodies for marks, numb spots, etc. Also accepted were “spectral sources” of evidence — if someone had a vision of a woman being a witch, that was good enough for the judges.
Unsurprisingly, the people who were mostly killed were not those who submitted quickly and obediently to authorities. Only those who were defiant or hostile were put to death. If you admitted being a witch and repented, you had a very good chance of living. If you denied being a witch and insisted that you had rights which must be acknowledged, you were on a quick path to execution. Your chances were also bad if you were a woman — especially if you were an older, deviant, troublesome or somehow disorderly woman.
In the end, nineteen people were executed, two died in prison and one man was pressed to death under rocks. This is a better record than what we see in Europe, but that isn’t saying very much. The religious and political authorities, clearly, used the witch trials to impose their own ideas of order and righteousness upon the local populace. As in Europe, violence was a tool used by religion and religious people to enforce uniformity and conformity in the face of dissent and social disorder.
Lest anyone imagine that such events have been relegated to the distant past, it must be noted that witch hunts — and killings — continue well into our own “enlightened” century. In 1928, a Hungarian family was acquitted of killing an old woman they thought was a witch. In 1976, a poor German woman was suspected of being a witch and keeping familiars, so people in the small town ostracized her, pelted her with stones, and killed her animals.
In 1977 in France, a man was killed for suspected sorcery. In 1981, a mob stoned a woman to death in Mexico because they believed that her witchcraft incited an attack on the Pope. The church’s creation of witchcraft and devil worship has exacted a heavy and bloody toll on humanity which still has not yet been fully paid.
Sources:
- Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History.
- James A. Haught, Holy Horrors.
- J.N. Hillgarth, Christianity and Paganism, 350-750.
- Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy.
- Edward Peters, Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe.
- R. Dean Peterson, A Concise History of Christianity.
