Fridenmaker !

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Megan Fridenmaker
Dr. Walton
ENG 208
8 December, 2016
Culture of Fear in Salem
The Salem witch trials are one of the most fascinating yet disturbing events that took
place in early America. From February of 1692 through May of 1693, nineteen women and men
were hung, one man was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen people died in prison awaiting
trial for witchcraft. For years historians have analyzed this time period and attempted to reason
why such mass hysteria took place. While the exact reasons have been argued excessively,
several known factors that explain why the Puritans acted the way they did indicate their belief
system had a lot to do with the events that took place. The tragic deaths of nineteen hung
witches can be attributed to the culture of fear the Puritans brought about through their strict
religion, deeply ingrained fear of the occult, and poor methods of finding proof.
The Puritans first came to America from England in order to escape the Church of
England. According to Edmund S. Morgan, Puritanism was,superficially, only a belief that the
Church of England should be purged of its hierarchy and of the traditions and ceremonies
inherited from Rome. (Morgan 1)However, Morgan continues on to make the point that it was
far more than a simple separation from Rome: But those who had caught the fever knew that
Puritanism demanded more of the individual than it did if the church. Once it took possession of
a man, it was seldom shaken off and would shape- some people would say warp- his whole
life. (Morgan 1) Using words like fever, possession, and warp make the interesting point

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that the Puritans around this time were incredibly zealous about their faith, so much so that a
believer was forever changed when they entered into the church because it demanded so much
from the person. This itself could be a stressor that, over time, could cause great psychological
damage. The strictness of the beliefs and the emotional strain could be an explanation as to why
the individuals involved in the trials acted so irrationally, but to go so far as to kill people would
be extreme.
Within their religion, the Puritans had a great fear of the occult. Rather than believing the
realm of the devil was purely supernatural and didnt cross into the real world, seventeenth
century Puritans had inherited a Platonic world-view, believing that the spiritual and the earthly
realms overlapped, so that the events of this world were but temporal shadows of an eternal
reality. (Heath, 507) God could speak to them and guide them though events of nature, health,
etc. However, if they believed that, they also believed that the devil influenced the outcome of
earthly events, often through his demonic minions. (Heath 507)
The Puritans believed their religion to be pure, and therefore were special in the eyes of
God. Being special to God also made them a target of the devil. This is evident in the writings of
Cotton Mather, an ordained pastor of Old North Church. In his narratives about both the witch
trials and the Indian wars, the Puritans anxiety over their perceived status as Gods
chosen (Heath 508) is conveyed through the writings of a practicing Puritan. The reader gets
to see that while they accepted the role of Gods chosen people, it did not come without a
massive dose of fear of the occult. Mather explains this in his narrative The Wonders of the
Invisible World: The New Englanders are a people of God who settled in those, which were
once the devils territories; and it may easily be supposed that the devil was exceedingly

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disturbed, when he perceived such a people here accomplishing the promise of old made unto
our blessed Jesus, that He should have the utmost parts of the earth for His possession. (Mather
110) It would not have surprised the Puritans if there was a witch among them, and this belief set
the stage perfectly for the trials to take place.
The infamous trials came to pass when three young girls (Elizabeth, daughter of a local
pastor, Abigail Williams, her cousin, and Ann Putnam) began having unrecognized symptoms, or
fits in January, 1962. These fits included screaming, making odd noises, throwing things, and
even contorting their bodies into unnatural positions. Upon examining the girls, a local doctor
claimed it was the work of witchcraft. On February 29, under pressure from magistrates
Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the girls blamed three women for afflicting them: Tituba,
the Parris' Caribbean slave; Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, an elderly
impoverished woman. (A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials) Both Good and Osborn
denied the claims made against them, but Tituba confessed, perhaps sensing the great danger she
was in. While all three women were thrown in jail, neither Tituba nor any of the other people
who would soon confess were hung. The seed of paranoia had been planted, and for the next
several months more accusations would follow. A notable one would be that of Martha Corey,
practicing follower of the Puritan religion and member of the local church. This dug the paranoia
even deeper into peoples minds: if a respected member of their society could be a witch, then
anyone could. Magistrates even questioned Sarah Good's 4-year-old daughter, Dorothy, and her
timid answers were construed as a confession. (A Brief History)
Once the accusations began picking up speed, Governor William Phipps ordered the
establishment of a Special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide). (A Brief History)

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This court was created especially for the trial and condemnation of witches. The first person to
be tried and convicted by this court was Bridget Bishop, whos response to her accusation was "I
am as innocent as the child unborn. (A Brief History) In Bishops trial,, as well as many
others, the primary evidence to support the accusations of witchcraft came from spectral
evidence, the use of testimony about things unseen (visions, dreams, etc.) Rather than bringing
physical proof to the trials, accusers would often say the witch had appeared as a vision or in a
dream to torment them and force them to behave out of character. This was a huge problem
because anyone could say anything about a person, no matter how outrageous it sounded, and it
would be counted in court as evidence.
After Bishops hanging, Cotton Mather publicly condemned the use of spectral evidence.
In response,
the court largely ignored this request and five people were sentenced and hanged in
July, five more in August and eight in September. On October 3, following in his son's
footsteps, Increase Mather, then president of Harvard, denounced the use of spectral
evidence: It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent
person be condemned. (A Brief History)
The trials came to an end when the Governor Phipps called off the arrests when his wife
was accused. He released several, though not all, accused witches and disbanded the Court.
Phipps replaced it with a Superior Court of Judicature, which disallowed spectral evidence and
only condemned 3 out of 56 defendants. (A Brief History) He pardoned all imprisoned
witches by May 1693, but the accusations haunted the individuals for the rest of their lives.

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The culture of fear the trials cultivated is almost unimaginable in todays age of physical
evidence, witnesses, and the motto of innocent until proven guilty. However, there were other
outlying factors that could have influenced the paranoia and fear the Puritans felt. Salem had
been suffering, just as many other New England towns, for years. The relentless attacks from
Native Americans, harsh winters, looming disease and the constant threat of death would be
enough to drive anyone mad. With all the tension building up, people would naturally have
looked for a release of some kind. From outside forces to inner struggles with religion, Salem
had brewed a perfect storm of events that would ultimately claim many lives.
While the events that took place in Salem from 1692-1693 were incredibly tragic, it
serves as an excellent study on how something like that could occur. While their beliefs may
seem stringent and a bit crazy today, we can understand why they reacted so harshly because of
what they believed. The Puritans practiced their religion with such fervor that when they found
conspirators of the devil living among them, they found both validation in their beliefs and a way
of serving God. Even though the deaths of innocent people came to pass, one thing is for sure:
the culture of fear that lived in Salem stands as a reminder for us today to act rationally and
justly in the face of apparent evil.

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Works Cited
"A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials." Smithsonian.com. Smithsonian Institution, n.d.
Web. 06 Dec. 2016.
Morgan, Edmund S., and Oscar Handlin. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1958. Print.
Mather, Cotton. "Wonders of the Invisible World." Project Gutenberg. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Dec.
2016.
The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Print.
"Witchcraft in Salem." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2016.