Researching Witches and Wizards by M.E. Kemp
No aspect of
our history has quite caught the imagination like the Salem Witch Trials of
1692. The focus of numerous books,
television shows, magazine articles and one famous play by Arthur Miller, the
Witch Trials continue to fascinate the American public. Nineteen people were hung, one man pressed to
death, hundreds were jailed and many people fled for their lives.
We hang our heads even today at the shame of
this injustice, this despite the fact that thousands of innocents were burned
to death in Europe then and well into the 18th century. (We never burned our witches.)
As a writer of historical mysteries with two
nosy Puritans as detectives, I could not resist including the witch trials when
I came to the year 1692 in my detectives' adventures. This made it necessary for me to do a great
deal of research, to comb through some strange theories - there really were
witches involved - and to discover other connections on my own.
One of the
facts I discovered was that "the afflicted children" as they were
called,were really a group of young women in their late teens and early
twenties. Hardly children, even by the
standards of 1692. (The original
afflicted 12-year-old girls were removed from the scene early on.) The 'afflictions' imposed upon the accusers
of hysteria, pin-pricks and choking sensations were adopted by will by the
girls, especially when some sympathy was shown to the old women accused of
witchcraft. "We must have our
sport," one of the girls was quoted as saying. Bullying is a problem even today.
With our
knowledge of psychology we may be able to understand this age group's idea of
'sport' but the adults who became involved are another thing. Adults took advantage of the situation to
settle old scores or to justify their adulterous urges, in the case of
tavern-owner Bridget Bishop whose 'shape' appeared to men in their dreams. The mother of one of the original afflicted
12-year-olds, became a vociferous accuser of other adults, especially the
Proctors, John and Elizabeth. John was
hung by her testimony and Elizabeth was only saved from hanging by her
pregnancy. By the time she gave birth,
the trials were over. I knew that
members of the Town of Salem and members of the Village of Salem were at odds
frequently over land disputes. What I
uncovered in my research was that there was a feud between the Proctors and the
Putnams going back two generations, at the least. This became my "aha" moment.
The trials
ended when the ministers of Boston, led by Increase Mather, wrote a pamphlet of
protest called "Cases of Conscience."
That pamphlet and the fact that the Governor's wife had just been
accused of being a witch, made a quick end to the hysteria in Salem.
The publicity
about the trials became so loud and shameful, when reason finally returned,
that the Village of Salem changed it's name into the Town of Danvers. So if you go to visit the Witch Museum in the
City of Salem, MA, know that the real trials were held down the road. I continue to research the witch trials,
although the book in which it is featured has been published (Death Of A Bawdy
Belle.) I decided to use all the research I did in a talk which has become
quite popular in libraries and historical societies. These talks also help with sales of that book
and of others which I've written since.
So long as the public remains fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials I
will continue to investigate this incident in our country's history and psyche
and to hopefully uncover more new material which may help to explain this lapse
in our sober ancestors' judgment.
Bio:
M.E.Kemp
writes the Hetty and Creasy series of historical mysteries set in Colonial
America. Her own ancestors settled in
Salem in 1636 but were excommunicated from the Church and fled to Cape Cod well
before the trials took place. Kemp lives
in Saratoga Springs, NY where she touts tip sheets to bettors at the 'track.
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