Fear emerged and grew after the loss of the frontier wars, the severe psychological impact remained. The puritan hierarchy beliefs compounded the painful loss of war.  Mary Beth Norton PhD, director of undergraduate studies of history at Cornell University, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1997, and author of “In the Devils’ Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692” reminds the reader the colonists firmly believed “that they were a chosen people, charged with bringing God’s Message to a heathen land previously ruled by the devil” (295).

     Not only residents of Salem, but also residents of New England continuously endured ongoing Indian attacks.  Norton points out that the residents of Main felt the brunt of these battles.  The growing attacks, perpetrated by the Wabanaki Indians, steadily grew in number.  The attacks multiplied as they aggressively and rapidly destroyed most of Maine’s farms and towns.  Refugees and orphaned children made their way into Essex County, Salem Massachusetts being a town they flocked to.  The Puritans needed to know why God readily sought his revenge and why he now allied with the Indians.  The witnesses of the bloodshed and loss of family members created lasting traumatic memories; refugee’s often replayed the visions of Indians taking captives away as they helplessly watched.  The overload of violence lingered in their minds as haunting memories.  Two such survivors who would migrate to Salem, Massachusetts would become part of the group of seven predominate accusers, Mercy Lewis and Abigail Hobbs.

     Fear not only developed from the atrocities of war and post traumatic stress, fear also dominated the Puritan’s lives through strict rules and ideology of their religion.  The church dictated the paths of everyday life during the 17th century.  The people of this period lay witness to the everyday battle of survival.  They dealt with floods, poor soil, droughts, hunger, and plagues that consumed entire families. Nature’s destruction appeared to have a voracious appetite.  The scared and isolated Puritans tried to grasp on to a sense of purpose in order to make sense of the world around them.  They yearned for understanding, this knowledge and a sense of peace came from the bible and an undeniably strong faith in both God and the Devil.

     The sermons shouted out by the ministers demanded for the people to follow a strict code of inflexible morals.  Predestination loomed over each soul, they often felt the burden of this belief, a belief which left them wondering if they would receive the glorious key to the kingdom of Heaven.  Punishment came with the breaking of any law, from the smallest: not attending church; to the worst: witch craft.  The concept of individualism could not enter their minds because the elders frowned upon such behavior.  The church called for hard work and piety, which could prove ones goodliness in the eyes of the Lord.  The church demanded obedience and compliance of the rigid codes from all citizens; males, females, and children.

     The discouragement and punishment of normal childhood emotions, such as excitement, occurred daily.  From conception the Puritan children received the knowledge that they possessed original sin. They learned to fear death as the Ministers terrorized the children with graphic descriptions of hell and the horrors it offered.  One such Puritan child felt the sting of religious lifestyle every day; the child, Elizabeth Parris, daughter of Revered Samuel Parris.

     Elizabeth Parris at the tender age of nine, transformed from a sweet girl into the first child supposedly afflicted by witches.  She, being of pre-pubescent age, found herself struggling with the bleak realities of predestination and the eternal damnation her father continuously preached.  Her wanting of a more stable life and curious nature sent her down a dangerously forbidden world.  She listened, mesmerized by the fantastic stories Tituba spun of Voodoo and the power to see into the future (Walsh).

     Around the winter of 1691, Elizabeth Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams undertook experiments in fortune telling, searching for an escape from the gloom and doom of everyday life.  They told their futures through a device known as a Venus glass; this tool consisted of an egg white suspended in water in which one could see shapes and figures.  After awhile the fortune telling game spread and other young girls from the area were joining in.  On one ominous occasion the glass reading reveled a coffin, this sign frightened the girls causing feelings of guilt as they thought surely now they dammed themselves and believed the wrath of hell was destined to be their punishment.

     Elizabeth’s first symptoms of the mysterious illness occurred in January of that year.  She started to forget to do her normal errands, her mind often wandered; she seemed preoccupied with something other than her duties.  She could not focus when it came time to pray.  Her father scolded her numerous times in an attempt to control her outbursts.  Elizabeth added a new symptoms, she began to bark like a dog, especially when her father lectured her. She screamed on a whim and hurled a bible across a room as her father recited prayers.  After each tantrum Elizabeth found herself distraught, conflicted with overwhelming emotions of both fear and guilt.  She would sob profusely as she spoke of her eternal damnation.

     In February, Elizabeth’s symptoms grew worse.  She complained of pain and of fever, in response her father called the doctor, his diagnosis, witchcraft.  Elizabeth panicked, her guilty conscious grew, she feared God, yet she feared her father more.  Her father interrogated her for the answers; he commanded her to speak, to tell who it was that had caused her sickness.  Finally the child succumbed to her own trepidation and placed the blame on the most readily available scapegoat; their family slave, Tituba.

     At this same time the illness afflicting Elizabeth now infected all of her friends.  All seven girls began to contort themselves into grotesque poses; they fell down into frozen postures and complained of biting and pinching sensations.  In a village, steeped in the firm belief of the devil, people found themselves blaming one thing, witchcraft.  The devil now lurked around every corner and speculations quickly evolved into obsessions.

     The first three of the accused were Tituba, a slave, Sarah Good, a beggar who was homeless, and Sarah Osborn, an old woman who had not gone to year sense earlier in the year.  The accusations at first kept a slow pace that is until Tituba confessed to the crime.  After being severally beaten by Reverend Parris, she declared herself a witch and stated that she and four other witches, including both Good and Osborn, flew in the air on poles.  Tituba wept tears of sorrow and pain as she lied about her attempt to get help from the Reverend Parris but the devil himself had blocked her path.  Tituba confession effectively squashed any hope of skepticism, the towns people could not believe an innocent person would confess; herself preserving act had solidified her guilt and confirmed the town’s people’s belief in witchcraft.

     One of the seven accusers, for a moment, wished to stop the confusion; she swallowed her pride and pushed through her fear.  With a hanging scheduled to commence on a real person, she realized that this game being played by the girls was now spiraling out of control.  Mary Warren, one of the seven, admitted that she made up the accusations and said the other girls were lying as well.  The six responded quickly to her incrimination, claiming Mary a witch.  Mary, now trapped by her and her friends lies, decided she would either go to trial, and likely hang, or she could rescind and confirm the stories of the girls, she chose not to be tried, the sentencing commenced, and the hangings began.

     A fateful and dark day came, bringing dread to fall upon the population at large.  The town’s people, after the execution of their ex-minister George Burroughs, found themselves culminating into a hysterical mob.  Burroughs also lived in Main in 1692 and knew two of the accusers very well; one lived with him for awhile, Mercy Lewis.  She identified him as being the ringleader of the witches.  Both Mercy Lewis and Ann Putnam claimed Burroughs bewitched soldiers during a failed military campaign against the Wabanaki in 1688-89; the battle followed a string of military disasters and loses.  This information substantiated their belief in an Indian Devil alliance. At this juncture of a long road of shame, after watching a former minister hang, after receiving so called proof of a devil’s alliance with the Indians, after submitting to their worst nightmares and fears, the town’s people could no longer trust anyone.  Complete chaos washed through the village delivering terror as one by one neighbor turned against neighbor, some out of fear, others out of revenge, the town became devoured by the deadly game spun by seven girls.

     Finally the trials ended, taking a collective toll on the entire population of Salem, which was now filled with shame and sorrow.  One of the judges Samuel Sewall later came forward and issued a public apology and confession of guilt.  Several jurors came forward and apologized for their deluded mistake. Revered Perris was replaced with Thomas Green, a man who would spend his entire career trying to put back the pieces of a broken town.

     The egregious events unfolded so long ago and may appear, to some, obscure and outdated, perhaps even ridiculous, yet these events should not be seen as farfetched even now in the 21st century claims of witch craft surface, such as the Harry Potter books causing the practice of sorcery amongst its many young readers; neighbors spying on neighbors, internet sites invading privacy, and the list could go on and on.  The human race must take heed and let the past remain in their minds as a warning and as a means of gaining knowledge through others mistakes.  These fear driven, hate driven crimes occur time and time again.  They have not stopped and will not stop until everyone can accept others on a more collective level.  People cannot be expected to act rationally when living in a constant state of fear.  Freedom comes with the comprehension of the difference between understanding and preparing for dangers as opposed to being paralyzed with fear.  As Franklin D. Roosevelt so eloquently put it, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Bibliography

Boyers, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum.  Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft.  Wisconsin: Harvard UP, 1974.

Gardner, Richard.  Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited.  New Jersey: Creative Therapeutics, 1990.

Linder, Douglas.  “The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary.” March 2007. 29 Sept. 2007.http://www.law.umke.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm
Norton, Mary Beth.  In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692.  New York: Random House, 2003.

Walsh, Sarah Nell. “Elizabeth Parris.” Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project. 2002. 1 Oct. 2007.  http:www.iath.virginia.edu/salem/people/e_parris.html