The Salem Witch Trials: The People

21 Pages 5337 Words

on, accused witches began to fill the jails in Salem, Boston, Cambridge, and Ipswich. The most active of which came from Salem Village.
Lieutenant Governor William Stoughton headed the court of Oyer and Terminer. Stoughton supported the validity of spectral evidence used by the girls in their accusations. The use of spectral evidence was not uncommon in New England witchcraft trials, but never played a major role. In the Salem trials, spectral evidence was used to initiate legal complaints, alleging harmful pinching or choking, in order to bring people into court for witchcraft. Records show that 47 people confessed to practicing witchcraft, and many did so to avoid a trial. Some were even tortured into confession. All who confessed were safe from the noose, whereas those who claimed to be innocent were executed. After some confessors recanted their false confessions, many began to doubt the confessions and legal process.
In October, Rev. Increase Mather and other minister in Boston pleaded with Gov. Phips to stop the trials and disallow the use of spectral evidence. Without the use of spectral evidence and the courtroom performances of the “afflicted” girls, witchcraft convictions ended. In a letter of explanation to the Crow as to why the trials had stopped, Phips wrote, “I saw many innocent persons might otherwise perish.”

The Accused



Tituba
Tituba, and Indian slave, belonged to Reverend Samuel Parris. She was the most likely target for witchcraft accusations when shortly after Parris’s daughter, Betty, began having strange fits and symptoms; she participated in the preparation of a “witch cake” (a mixture of rye and Betty’s urine, cooked and fed to a dog, in the belief that the dog would then reveal the identity of Betty’s afflicter). Parris was enraged when he found out about the cake. Shortly thereafter the afflicted girls named Tituba as their tormentor and a witch. Parris then beat ...