300 Years & Counting 1H KILLS - On The Issues Magazine

ead account of the Salem trials. Miller modernizedUpham's thesis by adding femalelust and jealousy to the list of motives. Specifically,he purports to show how a sexualaffair between John Proctor and AbigailWilliams turned sour after John spurnedAbigail to return to his wife Elizabeth. Out ofspite, Abigail accuses Elizabeth, and thenJohn, of witchcraft. In this 17th-century "FatalAttraction," the ultimate persecutors arewomen, their victims wrongfully accusedmen like John Proctor, or well-meaning butgullible clerics like the Rev. Sam Parris. Ofcourse, to make all this plausible Miller hasto raise Abigail's age, from 11 to 17. Shebecomes a conniving temptress, a true"daughter of Eve," while her 19-year-oldfriend Mercy Lewis is described as a "fat, slymerciless girl."Historian Carol Karlsen has a different viewof the afflicted and their role at Salem. Pointingout how it was the authorities, spurred onby Parris, who first insisted that the girlsname names, she then describes how SarahChurchill, coming out of her fugue, sought tostop the trials—until threatened by the courtwith trial and hanging. We should also rememberthat the maj ority ofaccusations camenot from the afflicted girls, but rather from"confessing" witches bargaining for their lives,while all of the corroborating evidence —accounts of spoiled milk, vanished beer, sickenedlivestock and murdered infants — camefrom adults not among the afflicted. The trialsbecame a way for these adults, most especiallythe elder Putnams, to settle long-standingscores against the Nurse/Esty clan overporperty, politics and status.An affidavit filed with the court by oneSamuel Barton gives us a clue as to how thisworked. "I being at Thomas putnams a helpingto tend the aflickted folds...I heard themteel mercy lewes that she Cryed out of goodyprocter and mercy lewes said that she did notCry out of goody procter nor nobody...andThomas putnam & his wife & others told herthat she Cryed out of goody procter andmercy lewes said if she did it was when shewas out in her head for she said she sawnobody..." This troubled adolescent, badgeredby the adults around her, bears little resemblanceto the "sly and merciless girl" of "TheCrucible." The court ignored Barton's swornstatement.Instead of seeing the afflicted girls as maliciousliars, Karlsen describes their "possession"as "a special, altered state of consciousnesswhich some women enter as an involuntaryreaction to profound emotional conflict.This conflict emerges from the need simulta-ON THE ISSUES SUMMER 1992The Rebecca Nursefarm in Danvers(Salem Village) ispretty much as itappeared the day in1692 when 71 yearoldRebecca waspulled from hersickbed to answercharges of witchcraft.This must bethe only townin Americathat has builta major touristindustryaround theabuse offwomenneously to embrace social norms and to rebelagainst them...With no legitimate way to expressthis conflict directly, the unbearablepsychic tensions are expressed physically —through women's bodies." The afflicted couldhave done no harm to anyone had it not beenfor Parris, Noyes, Mather, the court, and thewillingness of Puritan society in general toaccept an essentially hateful view of women.Had their elders been less repressive, and lessmisogynist, the girls might not have beenafflicted at all.Still, the "bitch witch" and "hysterical girls"theories remain the most popular explanationfor Salem. It is, for instance, the line taken atthe Salem Witch Museum. For four dollars,visitors are led into a darkened room, with ared lit circle at the center of the floor inscribedwith the names of the martyred. After a "Phantomof the Opera" type organ fanfare, a VincentPrice sound-alike begins his monologue. Onemoldy diorama after another is illuminatedwhile the afflicted are described as "hysterical,""restlessandresentful...wildand destructive..."To hammer home the point that thewitch trials were simple insanity and notrepression, we are told that Gallows Hill todaystands "in sight of a mental hospital," managingin one breath to blame the afflicted anddemonize the mentally ill.After the show, the doors open into themuseum gift shop. Items on sale include "GoodLuck Kitchen Witches," "Stop By for a Spell"T-shirts, "Witch Travel Mugs," "ScootingSkulls," and "Brewing Bucks"—witch-shapedceramic piggie banks. Witch-dolls, (like thepoppets that condemned Bridget Bishop?) area popular but relatively high-priced item:$16.95, tax not included.The afflicted eventually recovered. As anadult, Anne Putnam Jr. publicly apologizedfor her role in the trials, telling the congregationat Salem Village, "I desire to lie in the dustand be humbled for it." Only one of the justiceswho presided at the trials, Samuel Sewall,was as public in his repentance, and no judgesuffered politically for his part in the witchhunt. Booth points out that in 1693 everyone of them won a seat on the Governor'sCouncil, the highest elected post in theCommonwealth. Samuel Parris was forcedout of his pulpit in Salem Village anddisappeared from history, his only monumenta stone-rimmed hole which todaymarks the site of his parsonage. Titubawas sold south. And Nicholas Noyes,taunted from the gallows by Sarah Good,died years later of a throat hemorrhage.Perhaps God (or the Goddess) had indeedgiven him "blood to drink."•15