Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble

It was an age of ignorance and superstition, and misfortunes and occurrences that people didn’t understand were attributed to demons and spirits. Political and religious leaders pandered to these irrational fears and other equally cynical and manipulative people took advantage of the widespread ignorance by inciting hysteria and denouncing their personal enemies. The weak, the foolish and those who were simply “different” were victims of emotional and physical abuse, and even murder at the hands of the authorities. When, you ask? Where, you inquire? I know your first guess would be Texas in 2009, but actually I am referring to Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692. The future bastion of American Liberalism was going on a witch hunt.

On March 1st, exactly 318 years ago today, Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados, were charged with practicing witchcraft. Not surprisingly, accounts from the time indicate Sarah Goode was more or less homeless and supported herself by begging, an unpopular career choice amongst the Puritans. Sarah Osborne was a single woman who didn’t go to church and had an “inappropriate” relationship with her indentured servant and Tibuta was, well, Tibuta. If a bunch of stuffy white folks are going to find fault with somebody, and your name is Tibuta, you are at the top of the list. Tibuta was an Indian slave from Barbados, so she probably didn’t find the witchcraft hysteria too strange.

Ultimately, almost 150 people were brought before the Court of Oyer and Terminer, which are apparently 17th Century terms for kangaroo, and some other equally competent courts. Testimony consisted principally of “bewitched” adolescent females appearing before the court and recounting having fits and hallucinations, or actually having fits and hallucinations, which is pretty convenient as far as eye-witness testimony goes. During these episodes the “victims” claim to have seen images of those that had afflicted them; this was termed “spectral evidence”. If you are black in America, you may be familiar with this legal concept. Fortunately, clear-headed people were involved in the process and so there was much important debate as to whether the Devil might actually try to trick someone (heaven forbid!) by showing them the wrong person during their afflicted state. Eventually the astute legal minds concluded that using one’s image without permission would be some sort of copyright infringement, and the Devil certainly wouldn’t stoop to that. Other key evidence included the accused being blindfolded and brought into contact with a group of alleged victims. If any of the victims reacted hysterically when touched, then the accused was certainly guilty. There was also the “witch cake”, which made as much sense as Deepak Chopra does now, and therefore will not be discussed. Needless to say, some pretty high evidentiary standards were used, which is certainly reasonable given that these were capital crimes.

On June 10, 1692, Bridget Bishop, a sixty-something widow, was hanged, the first of the 19 people to lose their lives for their various evil activities. While Bridget Bishop’s life is not well documented, her indignant attitude during her trial was, and this counted heavily against her, since it wasn’t proper for women to be indignant. Also, she bewitched John Bly’s pig following an altercation, so I guess she deserved what she got. Five more women were hanged on June 19, and on August 19, five more persons were hanged, four of them male. Most of the males were primarily guilty of defending the honor of their wives, daughters or other relatives and were, therefore, in league with the witches. All in all, fourteen women and five men were executed, 18 by hanging and one by being crushed with rocks. In October of 1682, the Governor of the Massachusetts Colony dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer and replaced it with a court that actually utilized something reminiscent of proper legal process. There were no further executions and all of the accused still in custody were either pardoned or released without trial.

Having been bewitched myself a few times, I can empathize with my distant cousins in Salem Village. Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be any reason for stuff, and somebody’s got to be responsible, right? There are a number of theories about how the train got off the tracks in Salem, including poisoning by the ergot fungus, which is a fungus that infests grains and may turn up in bread. The ergot fungus has elements with a similar chemical composition to LSD, which will surely make you see bewitched pigs, among other assorted peculiar animals, but most analysts blame the debilitating mix of colonial hardship, extreme religious dogma and sexual repression in the Puritan social order for adolescent female hysteria, adult male frustration and a generally crappy attitude on the part of the majority of the community. Sounds reasonable to me.

Anyway, we have made some progress since 1692. For the most part, women are no longer expected to be subservient to men, although true gender equity still eludes us to some extent. The sexual nature of the human female is by most no longer seen as a thing to fear (although frankly some other aspects of the female character still frighten the shit out me). Religious extremism is no longer nearly as popular as it used to be and even demons and spirits have largely been reduced to marginality, except perhaps in Texas. The court system, as over-burdened and dysfunctional as it can be, at least tries to implement some standard rational process and protect the rights of the accused and religious authorities no longer participate directly in the justice system. So, I’m not sure to what extent we can indentify valid parallels between the society that made the Salem witch trials possible and our own, but I can’t help but feel that, as Bridget Bishop stood exhausted and terrified on the gallows and looked out over the crowd assembled to be entertained by her violent dangling, she saw the same faces, blank or enraged, spiteful or ashamed, curious or excited that we might see in any crowd on any street in America today.