The Salem Witch Trials of 1692

1. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil,as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”          1 Peter 5:8

4. In 1689 the villagers won the right to establish their own church and chose the Reverend Samuel Parris, a former merchant, as their minister. He made continuous demands for compensation—including such varied requests as personal title to the village parsonage and free firewood. Many villagers vowed to drive Parris out, and they stopped contributing to his salary in October 1691. Parris’s daughter, Betty, and her cousin Abigail Williams delighted in the tales told by Tituba, a slave from Barbados. The girls invited several friends to share this delicious, forbidden diversion. Tituba’s audience listened intently as she talked of telling the future.

5. In February, 1692 Betty Parris began having “fitts” that defied all explanation. So did Abigail Williams and the girls’ friend Ann Putnam. Doctors and ministers watched as the girls contorted themselves, cowered under chairs, and shouted nonsense. The girls’ agonies “could not possibly be Dissembled,” declared the Reverend Cotton Mather, one of the leading figures in Massachusetts. Lacking a natural explanation, the Puritans turned to the supernatural—the girls were bewitched. They named their tormentors: a disheveled beggar named Sarah Good, the elderly Sarah Osburn, and Tituba herself. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASA_TITX.HTM

6. “The devil came to me and bid me serve him,” Tituba reported in March 1692. Tituba spoke of black dogs, red cats, yellow birds, and a white-haired man who told her to sign the devil’s book. There were several undiscovered witches, she said, and they yearned to destroy the Puritans. Finding witches became a crusade—not only for Salem but all Massachusetts.

7. A close friend of the afflicted girls in the Parris household, 12-year-old Ann Putnam soon showed the same ailments and emerged as the “star” witness, testifying against more accused witches than anyone else. Sorrow clouded Putnam’s life after the witch-hunt. Her parents died young, and she struggled alone to rear her siblings. In 1706 she publicly repented her role in the hysteria: “It was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time.”

8. Samuel Parris's 11-year-old niece Abigail Williams quickly caught the affliction—and attention—that had settled on her young cousin, Betty Parris. Williams apparently reveled in the spotlight, disturbing services at the village meetinghouse and eagerly accusing unlikely neighbors. Abigail Williams was one of the main accusers in the Salem Witch trials. She and her 9-year-old cousin Betty were the first two afflicted girls in Salem Village. Abigail gave formal testimony at 7 cases, and she was involved in as many as 17 capital cases. Little is known about her life after the witch-hunt. Historians believe she died young, never having recovered from her “affliction.”

9. The Dead Nineteen accused witches were hanged on Gallows Hill in 1692: June 10Bridget Bishop July 19Rebecca NurseSarah GoodSusannah MartinElizabeth HoweSarah Wildes August 19George BurroughsMartha CarrierJohn WillardGeorge Jacobs, Sr.John Proctor September 22Martha CoreyMary EasteyAnn PudeatorAlice ParkerMaryParkerWilmott ReddMargaret ScottSamuel Wardwell http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/ASA_NUR.HTM

10. One accused witch (or wizard, as male witches were often called) was pressed to death on September 19 when he failed to plead guilty or not guilty: Giles Corey Other accused witches died in prison: Sarah OsbornRoger ToothakerLyndia DustinAnn Foster(As many as thirteen** others may have died in prison.)**sources conflict  as to the exact number of prison deaths

11. (Death Warrant for Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wilds) To Goerge: Corwine Gent'n High Sheriff of the county of Essex Whereas Sarah Good Wife of William Good of Salem Village Rebecka Nurse wife of Francis Nurse of Salem Village Susanna Martin of Amesbury Widow Elizabeth How wife of James How of Ipswich Sarah Wild wife of John Wild of Topsfield all of the County of Essex in thier Maj'ts Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England Att A Court of Oyer & Terminer held by Adjournment for Our Severaign Lord & Lady Kind Wiliam & Queen Mary for the said County of Essex at Salem in the s'd County onf the 29th day of June [torn] were Severaly arrigned on Several Indictments for the horrible Crime of Witchcraft by them practised & Committed On Severall persons and pleading not guilty did for thier Tryall put themselves on God & Thier Countrey whereupon they were Each of them found & brought in Guilty by the Jury that passed On them according to their respective Indictments and Sentence of death did then pass upon them as the Law directs Execution whereof yet remains to be done: Those are Therefore in thier Maj'ties name William & Mary now King & Queen over England &ca: to will & Command you that upon Tuesday next being the 19th day for [torn] Instant July between the houres of Eight & [torn] in [torn] forenoon the same day you Safely conduct the s'd Sarah Good Rebecka Nurse Susann Martin Elizabeth Howe & Sarah Wild From thier Maj'ties goal in Salem afores'd to the place of Execution & there Cause them & Every of them to be hanged by the Neck untill they be dead and of the doings herein make return to the Clerke of the said Court & this precept and hereof you are not to fail at your perill and this Shall be your sufficient Warrant given under my hand & seale at Boston th 12't day of July in the fourth year of Reign of our Soveraigne Lord & Layd Wm & Mary King and Queen &ca: *Wm Stoughton Annoq Dom. 1692 (Reverse) Salem July 19th 1692 I caused the within mentioned persons to be Executed according to the Tenour of the with[in] warrant

19. I will not pleadIf I deny, I am condemned already,In courts where ghosts appear as witnessesAnd swear men's lives away.  If I confess,Then I confess a lie, to buy a life,Which is not life, but only death in life. --William Wadsworth Longfellow http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/gilescoreypage.HTM

20. THE MAN OF IRON Giles Corey was a wizard strong, a stubborn wretch was he; And fit was he to hang on high upon the locust tree. So, when before the Magistrates for trial he did come, He would no true confession make, but was completely dumb. "Giles Corey," said the Magistrate, "What hast thou here to pleadTo those who now accuse thy sould of crime and horrid deed?" Giles Corey he said not a word, no single word spoke he."Giles Corey," said the Magistrate, "We'll press it out of thee." They got them then a heavy beam, then laid it on his breast;They loaded it with heavy stones, and hard upon him pressed. "More weight," now said this wretched man.  "More weight!" again he cried; And he did no confession make, but wickedly he died. --Anonymous (early 18th century)

21. This sculpture shows three sisters: Mary Easty, Rebecca Nurse, and Sarah Cloyce. Sarah watched as both her sisters were accused, tried, and executed for witchcraft. This model of a statue, on exhibit in Salem, MA, has yet to be erected permanently since some in Salem believe that it recognizes two women who were justly executed.

22. THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller (1952) "The play is not reportage of any kind .... [n]obody can start to write a tragedy and hope to make it reportage .... what I was doing was writing a fictional story about an important theme." --Arthur Miller The "important theme" that Miller was writing about was clear to many observers in 1953 at the play's opening.  It was written in response to Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee's crusade against supposed communist sympathizers.  Despite the obvious political criticisms contained within the play, most critics felt that The Crucible was "a self contained play about a terrible period in American history."

23. Joseph McCarthy became the most visible public face of the 1950’s era of intense anti-Communism. The term McCarthyism became the way to describe both the historical period (roughly 1950-1956) and the practices that came to be identified with McCarthy. By 1953 a seemingly out-of-control McCarthy was making many enemies. His investigation of the activities of an Army dentist, Maj. Irving Peress, eventually led to his downfall. In 1954, the Army launched its counterattack, charging that McCarthy was seeking preferential treatment for a consultant, David Schine, who in 1953 had been drafted into the Army. Eventually McCarthy's own subcommittee decided to hold hearings on the matter, the Army-McCarthy hearings. The televised hearings fully exposed McCarthy as irresponsible and dishonest. In December 1954, the Senate voted to censure him. McCarthy never repented, but he quickly descended into irrelevance. He died of a liver ailment in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 2, 1957, at age 47.

24. When America was overwhelmed by McCarthyism, Edward R. Murrow created the See It Now television broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy. Murrow did not kill off McCarthy or McCarthyism, but he helped halt America's slide toward what seemed like its own kind of fascism: “ You had to live through the times to know how fearful -- indeed, terrorized -- people were about speaking their minds. The cold war with Russia, the threat of a hot war with China, security programs and loyalty oaths -- all had cowed the citizens of the most powerful nation on earth into keeping their minds closed and their mouths shut. The Senate of the United States, in order not to appear Red, chose to be yellow. It was the Age of McCarthyism.”—Joseph Wershba Edward R. Murrow helped bring it to an end.

26. The Ten consisted of Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Sam Ornitz, Robert Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. They had scripted or directed hundreds of Hollywood films. Trumbo was one of the highest paid Hollywood writers and Lawson had been the first president of the Screen Writers Guild. Most of the Ten's best films had dealt with antifascist themes. Red Channels

28. Sign at “Checkpoint Charlie,” in West Berlin Building of the Wall The Berlin Wall, aerial view

30. Sputnik I, 1957 USSR Sputnik I

32. Arthur Miller dead at 89 Playwright wrote 'Death of a Salesman,' 'The Crucible' Monday, February 14, 2005 Posted: 12:32 PM EST (1732 GMT) (CNN) -- Arthur Miller, the American playwright whose works "Death of a Salesman," "All My Sons" and "The Crucible" made him one of the leading lights of 20th-century theater, has died. He was 89. Miller died at home Thursday night of heart failure, his assistant Julia Bolus said Friday, according to The Associated Press. His family was at his bedside in Roxbury, Connecticut, she said. In his most famous work, 1949's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Death of a Salesman" -- written in six weeks -- it was the question of loyalty and sacrifice, success and failure, both in business and among blood relations. "A lot of my work goes to the center of where we belong -- if there is any root to life -- because nowadays the family is broken up, and people don't live in the same place for very long," Miller said in a 1988 interview. "Dislocation, maybe, is part of our uneasiness. It implants the feeling that nothing is really permanent." Miller's plays became some of the most read and performed in the world. Generations of schoolchildren have read and put on his 1953 play "The Crucible," a play about the Salem witch trials that was a thinly veiled view of the Red Scare. Miller was a staunch liberal and refused to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. For Miller, writing came from a much more personal place. Indeed, it was as natural -- and important -- as breathing. "It is what I do," he said in a 1996 interview with the AP. "It is my art. I am better at it than I ever was. And I will do it as long as I can. When you reach a certain age you can slough off what is unnecessary and concentrate on what is. And why not?"