Killing the witches, p.4
Killing the Witches, page 4
JUNE 10, 1692
SALEM TOWN
MORNING
Bridget Bishop is a troubled rebel.
It is some seventy years since the Mayflower spilled forth Puritans onto American soil. Bridget herself came from England in 1664 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s second generation of immigrants. Her first husband died of an unknown illness just as they arrived in the New World, leaving her the widowed mother of three young children. That’s when her troubles began.
Bridget has long followed her own rules, even when they conflict with the harsh Puritan dictates. She wears flashy clothes and is known to speak confidently to men. Her independent attitude earns her few friends among the residents of Salem, who dutifully follow theocratic orders.
Bridget Bishop is an attractive woman with strong features. And available. She soon marries again. That’s acceptable; widows are encouraged to remarry. But this is not a loving relationship. Thomas Oliver is much older and has three grown children. He also has a nasty temper, and he abuses his wife. But Oliver is respected by his neighbors, and he works for a time keeping track of newcomers, “what strangers do come or have privily thrust themselves into the town.”
Even though wedded, with a new last name, Bridget remains an outlier. The New England colonies are settled now, the wild early days of exploration done. Salem is a tight-knit place. Its residents depend on each other. Everybody plays a role in the health and security of the town. They share each other’s secrets. There is little room for nonconformist thought. Especially since there is a new danger threatening the community: the peaceful relationship with the Wampanoags has broken down. The possibility of Indian attacks has drawn the colonists even closer.*
* * *
In Salem, the law is very clear: the husband has complete control of everything in a marriage—including his wife. But Tom Oliver goes too far. The couple is brought into court for brawling several times. At one hearing, a neighbor testifies she saw “Bridget’s face at one time bloody and at other times black and blue.”
Bridget fights back—which causes even more trouble. A court gives the couple a choice: ten whiplashes each or pay a fine. They pay.
After another arrest, they are ordered to “stand back-to-back … in the public marketplace.” They are to be gagged, wearing a printed sign on their caps detailing their offense. This time, Oliver’s daughter from another marriage pays his fine, but Bridget is forced to face the public humiliation.
And so it goes.
Bridget Oliver recognizes her precarious position and joins Reverend John Hale’s church in nearby Beverly, attending services faithfully. But she just isn’t like everybody else. Rather than dressing in an acceptably conservative manner, Bridget uses colorful patches to repair her worn clothing. And she insists on wearing a “red paragon bodice,” an upper-body garment, in public.
It’s all too much. She becomes a target for the anger and frustrations of the townspeople. Rumors begin spreading: Bridget Oliver is a witch.
* * *
That is a dangerous accusation. Most people accept the existence of powers they can’t see; if there is a God, there must also be a Devil. And it is witches and warlocks that do his bidding in the world. There are laws. England’s Witchcraft Act of 1604 ruled that a witch who commits a minor offense could be imprisoned for a year; the penalty for committing a second act is death. Massachusetts Bay’s “1641 Body of Liberties” includes the biblical admonition “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death.” *
Such executions begin in 1647. They start in the Connecticut Colony, adjacent to Massachusetts Bay. Thirty-seven women are tried for witchcraft. Eleven are convicted and hung by the neck until dead. These prosecutions are primitive, tried in small hamlets primarily by hysterical zealots. At this point, Connecticut is not as organized as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There is no central authority. So atrocities are common, carried out by fanatical people who fear no reprisal for these executions.
* * *
Now, in Salem, Bridget’s life takes the same terrible turn. A hatmaker named Samuel Gray claims her “spirit” was present when his child died. Another neighbor testifies she paid him for some work he had done—and the money disappeared from his pocket. That same man also says Bridget asked him if his father would mill her grain, “because some folks counted her a witch.”
Bridget has no protection. Her husband, Thomas Oliver, dies in 1679. She inherits his small estate—and whispers say she used witchcraft to kill him for it. People in Salem have never forgotten Thomas’s accusations: “She was a bad wife … the devil had come bodily to her … and she sat up all night with the devil.”
In February 1680, Bridget is finally arrested—but not for the murder of her husband. She is accused of witchcraft by a slave with the unlikely name Juan, who claims she spooked his team of horses, causing them to drag his wagon into a swamp. The slave also says he encountered her “specter” in his master’s barn, but it vanished when he tried to hit it with a pitchfork.*
There is no longer much doubt in Salem that Bridget Oliver is a witch. Human nature is pretty simple: when something not easily explained takes place, people look for a reason. Black magic is as logical as any other cause in New England.
Several other residents accuse Bridget or her “specter.” Samuel Shattuck is convinced she has bewitched his son. So he takes steps to break her spell. He sends the boy to scratch Bridget “below the breath” and draw blood, which is believed to neutralize spells. Instead, Bridget hits his son with a shovel—drawing blood. Samuel Shattuck is furious.
* * *
Sensing her life is in danger, Bridget Oliver marries Edward Bishop in 1685 and takes his surname. He is a prosperous woodcutter and she raises chickens. The couple own a pair of very popular taverns. Soon, they tear down the house she shared with Tom Oliver to build a new home. But hidden in the cellar walls of the old house workers find several poppets. These small dolls in human shape are used in magical ceremonies for casting evil spells. Most often they are stored in chimneys, so even though there is no evidence Bridget knew these implements were in her home’s foundation, there is shock among the townspeople.
The accusations pile up. Several men claim that Bridget has visited them in their nightmares. She is now fifty-five years old and, in addition to witchcraft, she is charged with theft. The owner of Salem Mill accuses her of stealing a valuable brass fitting. She denies it and the court dismisses the case for lack of evidence.
That does not mollify the mill owner. He soon accuses Bridget of stalking him. As he is walking to his barn, he suddenly is thrown against a stone wall and down an embankment. He looks around—but there is no one there. However, he has no doubt who to blame for his misfortune.
Then life in Salem takes a dark turn.
It is no longer just enemies of Bridget Bishop who feel the Devil’s presence.
In January 1692, the daughter and niece of Salem’s minister Reverend Samuel Parris are found to be “afflicted.” Parris immediately warns the town: they are bewitched, he says.*
Soon there are other “victims.” Bridget’s own pastor, Reverend Hale, has seen them: “These children were bitten and pinched by invisible agents; their arms, necks, and backs turned this way and that way, and returned back again, so as it is impossible for them to do it themselves, beyond the power of any … natural disease … their limbs wracked and tormented so as to move a heart of stone.”
Someone must take the blame.
Thus, Bridget Bishop is living on the edge of disaster.
Chapter Five
JANUARY 1692
SALEM, PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY
AFTERNOON
Fear descends.
The Indians have again turned hostile. Reports that they are torturing Europeans are terrifying. Inside Salem, the Puritan village is being ripped apart by apprehensions—Indian attack, starvation, winter cold. There is no central authority. There is a shortage of almost everything because of poor harvests. Once friendly neighbors are fighting over property. It is a perfect cauldron for witches and warlocks.*
Seventy-two years have passed since the first settlers landed in Plymouth. They are long gone. The small outposts they founded have grown into crowded towns. Their children and grandchildren are now in charge. John Alden Jr., whose father oversaw the beer supply on the Mayflower, is one of the first New England celebrities, distinguishing himself as a merchant and adventurer. He is a charter member of Boston’s prestigious Old South Church. When there is a negotiation in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Alden Jr. is often at the center of the discussion.
Recently, Alden stopped in Salem on his way back from prisoner exchange negotiations with the French in Canada. He does not like what he sees. The town has become a cold, colorless place haunted by religious extremism.
Alden quickly notices that life is dominated by the church. It is a respite from work, a gathering place where the faithful can save their souls. Residents attend mandatory three-hour-long services each Sunday, at which they are lectured about the evils of all pleasure. They also gather in the meetinghouse every Thursday afternoon to hear additional hellfire sermons.
It is an austere life. Quite the opposite from cosmopolitan Boston, just twenty-five miles away. In Salem, religious holidays still do not exist, even after all these years in America. There is no Christmas. No Easter. Daily, adults work on the farms or docks, then go home to simple meals. They eat foods that are readily available: grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Fish are caught and preserved with salt. Wild game is sometimes available, though harder to find as the colonial population grows. Low-alcohol apple cider is the most popular beverage.
The typical home in the town of Salem is two stories high, with a large hearth on the ground floor to provide heat. Food is cooked in the fire as well. There is often a long table and wooden chairs but little other furniture except a sewing wheel. Upstairs, bedrooms are heated by the chimney that runs through the center of the house. The rooms are tight, as Puritans possess little. Windows are few because glass is expensive.
Salemites relieve themselves in chamber pots, which are either dumped into nature or used as fertilizer. In winter, only the fire provides relief from the cold. In summer, there is no respite from the heat, houseflies, mosquitoes, and ants.*
Women wear undershirts, corsets, and long petticoats. Outer clothing consists of a gown or long skirt. Females also wear white linen caps to cover their hair. Their shoes and stockings are no different from men’s.
The men of Salem wear a shirt, stockings, garters, breeches, waistcoat, neckcloth, and a knee-length coat. Leather and coarse wool are the most common fabrics. More prosperous individuals favor linen. The tall hat with the broad brim that will become synonymous with Puritan appearance did not become fashionable until 1670 and is already being modified. In time, the habit of buckling three sides of the brim to the upright cap will become known throughout the colonies as the tricorn.
Many children die in infancy. And those who do survive are extremely limited in their daily lives. Young people are expected to do chores and attend school, where they are taught Latin and study a Bible-based curriculum. They are not allowed to play with toys, which are considered a “sinful distraction”—although, with the permission of their parents, the young can sing and play outdoor games like tag. But in reality there isn’t much for children to do other than study the Bible and fear the Lord.
Secretly, some of the young girls wonder about the man they will eventually marry. There is one dangerous way to find out: the use of a “Venus glass.” It is called that because Venus is the goddess of love and romance. The glass was introduced to the girls by a slave woman from the Caribbean named Tituba. And, in the winter of 1691, it has become a rage among Salem’s young females. However, any fortune-telling is forbidden in the town because it goes against the word of God. So the children know they are at risk if their parents find out what they are doing.*
Everyone in Salem understands that violating religious law will result in harsh punishment. Women have to cover their heads, arms, and legs in public—even on the hottest days of the summer. Sex is never talked about, and adultery has long carried a potential death sentence. Women who break that law are publicly shamed, sometimes whipped, and told to wear a scarlet A. A few adulterers are hanged. By law, the leaders of Salem are allowed to put children born out of wedlock into indentured servitude—and whip the mother.
Men work from dawn to dusk. No one has much free time. The main diversions are taverns, where males are always welcome—but women are not allowed.
* * *
John Alden Jr. recognizes the harshness of life in Salem. But elements of that restrictive life are also becoming more common in his hometown of Boston. For example, the frightening sermons of Reverend Increase Mather have made him one of the most powerful men in New England. Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1639, Increase was raised by his father, Reverend Richard Mather, to preach the Puritan gospel. No one does it better or is more respected. After graduating from Harvard as a seventeen-year-old, the kindly-looking Mather eventually becomes president of that college at age forty-five.†
Increase Mather has no doubt the Devil exists. He has been investigating witchcraft for most of his career. His sermons, which reinforce widely held fears against witches, are published and read throughout the colonies. “Thunder is God’s voice,” he rails from his Boston pulpit, warning New Englanders against even a brief slip from Puritan orthodoxy.
His most famous sermon, “The Day Trouble Is Near,” which he delivers in 1674, warns, “Shouts of anguish will be heard on the mountains, not shouts of joy.… Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come; the day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting on the mountains.”
The Puritans understand. He’s telling them what they fear most: God is angry because they are not strictly practicing their faith. Those words circulate. Wherever Increase Mather goes to preach, churches are packed. His name is meant to honor God, who “increased” his love for this world by giving mankind his son, Jesus, to save sinners. “Increase” is the literal translation of the name Joseph.
The son of Increase Mather, Cotton, often joins him on the pulpit and also becomes an important voice against witches. Cotton has the glowering countenance of a scold that makes him look older than his thirty years. He has actually surpassed his father as the leading expert on witchcraft. Cotton Mather’s popular 1689 book Memorable Providences tells the story of a poor Irish immigrant named Ann Glover. Four young children, he writes, accused her of torturing them. Mather details the charges and actually believes them. Predictably, his vivid descriptions about how the four children were harmed terrify the already superstitious New Englanders: “Sometimes they would be deaf, sometimes dumb, and sometimes blind, and often, all this at once.”
In 1688, Boston authorities place Ann Glover in prison, where Cotton Mather visits her. He then reports she is having trysts in her cell with the Devil himself. He writes that the young woman is unable to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. That’s evidence she is a witch. As a result, Ann Glover is hanged in Boston on November 16, 1688.
It matters not that the Irish immigrant spoke only her native Gaelic and was thus unable to recite the Lord’s Prayer in English: Cotton Mather is well satisfied. “Very poor, a Roman Catholic and obstinate in idolatry,” as he describes her, she has been justifiably punished.
* * *
The power of the father-son Mathers is especially felt in Salem. As John Alden Jr. discovers, people in the town are petrified and fear dominates daily existence. Indians have already attacked more than fifty New England towns. Salem, so far, has been spared. But that does not lessen the apprehension.
Winter sets in. It is unusually cold. Food is becoming scarce. Salemites know who to blame.
Witches.
And Cotton Mather knows how to deal with that.
Chapter Six
JANUARY 1692
SALEM
NIGHT
Darkness descends.
A howling wind pounds the door of Reverend Samuel Parris’s parsonage. The last embers of a dying fire throw jagged shadows against the walls. In an upstairs bedroom, huddled for warmth under thick blankets, the slave Tituba is whispering stories of witches and demons to Parris’s nine-year-old daughter, Betty, and his orphaned eleven-year-old niece, Abigail Williams, who lives with them.
The young girls are enthralled.
Tituba knows the witch landscape. She was also Parris’s servant in Boston when Ann Glover was convicted of witchcraft and hanged four years ago. She heard that the Irish washerwoman bewitched four children. Tituba tells Betty and Abigail that the victims had fits and lost control of their bodies.
The girls take it all in. The tortured children are about their same age.
Tituba’s almond eyes glisten with reflected flames as she relates what else she has seen: Witches flying through the air on sticks and poles. Witches appearing in her dreams as a hog, a dog, a yellow bird, or a three-foot-tall winged creature. She warns the girls: They must not repeat a word of what she is telling them. The Devil has threatened to cut off her head if they do.
Betty and Abigail vow to keep silent. They know the Devil is watching. They have learned his tricks from Reverend Parris, who came to Salem two years earlier to reignite a fading Puritan zeal in the village. He preaches strict adherence to traditional principles, denying church membership to anyone not faithfully following his dictates. The reverend even wants locals who do not live in Salem to pay a fee to attend his church. But more than anything else, Parris warns the people of Salem to beware: “The Devil is the grand enemy of the Church.”
The minister and his wife, Elizabeth, require the children to strictly follow orders. Betty respects her father but is fascinated by the exotic Tituba. Everything about her is strange and different: her bronze skin, the singsong of her Barbados accent, the things she knows about witches. The girls cuddle closer to Tituba in the cold night, for affection as well as warmth. She has raised them. They trust her.
