The witch trials of Salem
Cotton Mather's involvement
1692-1693
Tessa Kok
Supervisor: Prof. Ruud Janssens
Second reader: Dr. Eduard van de Bilt
30 June 2014
Table of contents
Introduction
3
1. Witchcraft in Salem Village: occurrences, explanations, and context
11
2. Cotton Mather's personal legacy
23
3. Contemporaries
36
Conclusion
49
Bibliography
51
Introduction
At the height of the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, a congressman warned that the
impeachment process could turn legislators into “a set of Cotton Mathers, engaging in witch
hunts, setting extraordinarily high standards for other people, though not always for
themselves.”1 Cotton Mather is often blamed for the hysterical witch scare that occurred in
Salem in the 1690s. He is seen as an instigator, and as biasing in favor of the arrest of
suspected witches. But why and how did this image of him arise? Were his actions really telling
enough to be used in the manner they were during the Watergate scandal? What can be said
about witchcraft in general, and the role a priest might play in them?
The Salem witch persecutions of 1692 are pondered over in writing very frequently.
While the number of people executed was much more limited than is often believed – about
twenty – it is the scare and hysteria that spread like wildfire in a community that was as
conservative and controlling as Puritan New England was, that impresses people. The actual
events started near Salem, Massachusetts, in February of 1692, when both the daughter and
niece of local minister Samuel Parris started showing signs of seizures and fits. Many other girls
followed their example. This soon led to a major witchcraft scare. At least twenty-five people
died – nineteen of whom were executed by hanging, one was tortured to death, and at least
five died in jail due to harsh conditions. Over 160 people were accused of witchcraft, most were
jailed, and many deprived of property and legal rights. At least half of the people who were
accused, confessed to witchcraft – mainly to save themselves from trial. Hundreds upon
hundreds of people were involved in the trials one way or another, for instance as neighbors,
relatives, jurors, ministers, judges and magistrates. After the Salem trials ended, not a single
person has been convicted of witchcraft in New England. During the Salem trials, more people
were accused and executed than in all the previous witchcraft trials in New England. 2
A couple of major seventeenth century Puritan figures dictated the course of the events.
This thesis will focus on Cotton Mather, who was one of the most influential Puritan ministers of
the time. He was very interested in the craft and actions of Satan. This won him a powerful
audience during the trials. A couple of years before they started, in 1689, he had already
written Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions , which was “A Faithful
Marc Mappen, Witches & Historians. Interpretations of Salem (Huntington: Robert E. Krieger
Publishing
Company, 1980) 83.
2
“Overview of the Salem Witch Trials”, Salem Witch Trials. Documentary Archive and Transcription
Project. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States.
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/overview.html (accessed January 21, 2014).
1
Account of many Wonderful and Surprising Things, that have befallen several Bewitched and
Possessed Persons in New-England: Particularly, A Narrative of the marvellous Trouble and
Releef Experienced by a pious Family in Boston, very lately and sadly molested with Evil Spirits.”
It describes a family in Boston that had suffered from a “possession.” He even took the eldest
child of the family into his home to study the case closer. Mather used these experiences to
prove that New England was wrapped up in a battle with Satan. His positions towards the trials
have been contemplated both by his contemporaries and by historians. After the final
executions in 1693, Mather wrote The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the
Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England. He defended his role in the trials,
and condemned witchcraft as an evil magical power. He viewed it as Satan's tool to overpower
the Puritan colony – prosecution of witches was then a way to receive blessings from God to the
colony. This book rewrote the trial records of five selected cases. It was an important
representation of his opinion.3
In this thesis I will research Cotton Mather's viewpoints and his role in the Salem trials.
A large part of the witch scare and the resulting trials came forth out of the general religious
doctrine of the Puritans. The Puritan doctrine was laid out by historian Perry Miller in his New
England Mind series of 1939 and 1953. Piety, humility, religious devotion, and discipline are
keywords when it comes to understanding their way of life. Miller laid the foundation of
scholarship on the Puritans and he is often seen as one of the founders of the modern field of
American studies. His work is viewed as the paradigm for historical writing on early New
England. Therefore, New England Mind is also very important for my research, as it provides the
necessary framework to understand Puritan life and ideas. In the second part of the series,
From Colony to Province, Miller paid attention to Cotton Mather. He described The Wonders of
the Invisible World as “utter confusion”, and according to him, Mather deeply regretted his
actions during the trials later in his life. Apparently, at that point he wished he had put more
effort into stopping the judges from making the decisions they made. 4 As an authority on the
field, Miller's notes should always be considered.
While the eighteenth century was surprisingly quiet on this topic, the nineteenth century
produced several leading works that focused specifically on the Salem witch trials. The most
3
4
“Salem Witch Trials: Cotton Mather”, Salem Witch Trials. Documentary Archive and Transcription
Project. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States.
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/overview.html (accessed January 21, 2014).
Perry Miller, The New England Mind. From Colony to Province (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1953).
important of these are Salem Witchcraft, written by Charles Upham in 1867, and Witchcraft in
Salem Village, written by Winfield Nevins in 1892. Both these authors put major research into
their work. Upham, who had been both a member of the Senate and of the House of
Representatives of the state of Massachusetts, recreated every little detail he was able to find in
the records and uses them to renarrate the story, with which he also goes into Salem's
economic and legislative problems. In 1869, Upham also wrote Salem Witchcraft and Cotton
Mather: A Reply, in which he investigates Cotton Mather's role more deeply. In the introduction,
he states: “In the first place, I venture to say that it can admit of no doubt that Increase Mather
and his son Cotton Mather did more than any other persons to aggravate the tendency of that
age to the result reached in the Witchcraft Delusion of 1692.” 5 According to Upham, father and
son Mather then went on to “promote the prevalence of a passion for the marvelous and
monstrous, and what was deemed preternatural, infernal, and diabolical, throughout the whole
mass of the people, in England as well as America.” 6 Upham immediately seems to steer in the
direction that Cotton Mather's role in the trials was suspicious. In my research, I will take a
more open route by also analyzing both court records and Mather's own sermons. Winfield
Nevins' Witchcraft in the Salem Village is a series of essays on various aspects of the events.
The most important of these deals with the legal side of them, which is of course also extremely
important when forming a statement about the part Cotton Mather played in this whole
episode.
It is also important to consult more recent scholarship. While Perry Miller is an important
figure when it comes to Puritan doctrine, another very important twentieth century works that
deals specifically with the Salem witch trials is The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry
into the Salem Witch Trials, written by Marion Starkey in 1949. This is both a record and an
analysis of the trials, which reviews the existing records in the light of the findings of
psychology at the time, especially that of the Freudian school. This was a novelty at the time –
it is the first psychological study written about the Salem affair. This sheds a different light on
the trials. Starkey also mentions Cotton Mather extensively. This is a noteworthy book and the
research is innovatory, but it still written over half a century ago – around the time Miller wrote
the second part of his New England Mind series.7 Fortunately, more recently historians have
also conducted research on this topic. Another very important book dealing with the trials of
5
6
7
Charles Upham, Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply (Morrisania, NY, 1869) 1.
Ibid., 2.
Marion Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts. A Modern Inquiry into the Salem Witch Trials (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1949).
Salem is Salem Possessed, written by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum in 1974. This book
explores the pre-existing social and economic divisions within the Salem Village community, as
an entry point to understand the accusations of witchcraft in 1692. It is about the lives of the
men and women who helped spin the web of the trials and witch scare and who ended up
being entangled in it. It is a very useful book both for the background and the larger story of
the trials, as for smaller facts. I have relied on it greatly in this thesis.
In 1993, Bernard Rosenthal wrote Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 , in
which he examines primary sources and investigates the motives people had to participate in
the witch hunt – to turn in their neighbors, for instance. This book also examines the myths
that came forth out of the trials and that still are prevalent today. In 2008 Rosenthal also wrote
an article in cooperation with Margo Burns: Examination of the Records of the Salem Witch
Trials, which is, as the title suggests, a closer examination of the existing records of the trials. A
useful article, as it both summarizes and criticizes the records. In 1997, Elizabeth Reis wrote
Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England . This book is a combination of a
historical study and a work of gender studies. It examines the Salem trials, but specifically
women's role in them. “Why was it that far more women than men were accused and convicted
of witchcraft? What was it about New England Puritanism that linked women more closely to
the devil?”8 This book takes a stance on witchcraft, gender, and Puritanism. An interesting twist
to the existing Salem debate, that could provide a fresh viewpoint.
Al large amount of scholarship has been written on the Puritans. Perry Miller started it,
and the others followed suit – they all followed his example and cited him frequently. These
works are all important in order to fully understand the Puritan background of the trials of
Salem. On the specific topic of the witch trials, there is also a large number of books and
articles that can be found. These all base their arguments upon the same primary sources, but
they all shed a different light on the events, which makes them impossible to ignore when
conducting research on this topic. While the amount of scholarship is impressive, the amount of
easily available primary sources is possibly even larger. Court records, sermons, and personal
letters are all readily accessible on the Internet, which makes them easy to use. Therefore, I
will try to base the bulk of my research on them. Another batch of primary sources that can be
used, are books written by contemporaries. John Hale, Robert Calef, and Cotton Mather himself
all wrote one or more books about their views on and experiences with the trials. The large
8
Elizabeth Reis, Damned Women. Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1997) preface.
amount of both secondary and primary sources makes it necessary to narrow the research topic
down to a large extent – it is already narrowed down to a specific event in a specific place in a
specific time, but this is not enough. The controversy in historiography about Cotton Mather's
part in the trials made me decide to focus my research on him.
In Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply (1869) Charles Upham stated that
Cotton Mather and his father Increase Mather played an important role in instigating the witch
scare in 1692. They stimulated the clergy to “collect and circulate all sorts of marvelous and
supposed preternatural occurences.”9 They were fully aware of the influence they had on the
clergy, Upham stated, and therefore knew their actions would have great effect. It can be said
that they were for a large part responsible for the extraordinary outbreak and fanaticism that
occurred in Salem. The Mathers were extremely interested in witchcraft, and spent many years
researching the phenomenon. They collected and circulated a large amount of material. In
some cases, they would also take their investigations a bit too far. Every strange little
occurrence or unusual type of behavior would immediately be attributed to the devil. This
stimulated the development of fear in the area. Upham states:
No wonder that the country was full of the terrors and horrors of diabolical imaginations,
when the devil was kept before the minds of men, by what they constantly read and
heard, from their religious teachers! In the Sermons of that day, he was the allabsorbing topic of learning and eloquence. In some of Cotton Mather's, the name, Devil,
or its synonyms, is mentioned ten times as often as that of the benign and blessed God.
No wonder that alleged witchcrafts were numerous! 10
Thus, according to Upham, Cotton Mather played an important role in instigating the fear of
witchcraft in Massachusetts, and possibly in the entire country. His extensive work on witchcraft
and his tendency to blame everything on the devil worked as a self-fullfilling prophecy – it led to
major fear and excessive accustions of witchcraft. His role during the actual trials was also
questionable. While he never recommended the use of spectral evidence (which is evidence
based upon dreams and visions) during trials, he also never truly recommended against its use.
And, according to Upham, there were also several cases in which Mather stated he viewed
certain types of spectral evidence as “very palpable”, after which he stated “hold them, for you
9
10
Upham, Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather, 3.
Ibid., 4.
have catched a witch”.11 Thus, Upham stated that Mather did not only instigate a large part of
the witch fear in Massachusetts, he also held a very controversial position during the trials.
Winfield Nevins, who wrote Witchcraft in Salem Village in 1692 (1892), did not agree
with Upham about Mather's position. According to him, his place has been misunderstood and
misinterpreted. He and his father were conservative in all matters that related to the witchcraft
prosecutions after they began. Cotton Mather has been accused repeatedly of “getting up the
delusion at Salem Village, with being the chief agent of the mischief, and helping it on
throughout that dark summer.”12 On the contrary, he was not present at a single trial, and was
at only one execution. According to Nevins, Mather advised the judges and the council to
exercise proceed with caution, and not to convict base only spectral evidence. Often, it has
been said that he advised testing the accused by having them repeat the Lord's prayer – which
he did. But while he did so, he actually forbade the judges to use it as evidence to convict. The
question is not whether Mather believed in witchcraft – he did, just like almost everybody in
Puritan New England. It is also a fact that he wrote about the subject very extensively. But,
according to Nevins, it is his position that can be questioned – whether he did play such an
enormous, powerful role during the trials, and how much he cared to influence the judges. 13 It
was Nevins's position that this was not as suspicious as Upham states it to have been.
According to Marion Starkey in The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry in to the
Salem Witch Trials (1949), Mather actually followed the cases and trials from a distance and did
not get involved too much. Only three times had he taken action, one of these had been his
giving of advice to the judges, which cautioned them against relying too much on spectral
evidence. Before that he had also unofficially written to Judge John Richard to warn him against
spectral evidences but also against uncritical acceptance of such confessions because they
might come from “a delirious brain or a discontented heart.” He also denounced torture as a
way of getting confessions. However, his speech after the execution of Reverend George
Burroughs was questionable. Burroughs was the only minister who would ever be executed for
witchcraft, and his trial was problematic. He was convicted for witchcraft because he managed
to lift weights that were deemed impossible without help from the supernatural. However, there
was no further “evidence” found and while Burroughs was waiting to be hanged, he recited the
Lord's prayer – which was considered by many, including Cotton Mather as stated above –
11
12
13
Ibid., 21.
Winfield Nevins, Witchcraft in Salem Village in 1692 (Boston: North Shore Publishing Company, 1892)
240.
Ibid., 240-241.
impossible for a witch to do. Yet, after the execution Mather delivered a speech in which he
stated that Burroughs was tried in a court of law, and that the trial was carried through lawfully.
This speech was so convincing that it led to the execution of four more witches.Thus, according
to Starkey, Mather was not very much involved in the trials. He did give some advice to the
judges, but this was only a couple of times and only to advise against the use of spectral
evidence and to condemn torture. However, the Burroughs case was an example of
questionable behavior.14
In Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (1993), Rosenthal
states that in general, the clergy did more to restrain the witch trials than to promote them.
However, Increase and Cotton Mather seemed to have been an exception to this rule. He also
discusses the case of George Burroughs. According to Rosenthal, the Mathers were very
involved in this case, because Burroughs had a tendency to deviate from orthodox religious
practices.15 Thus, Rosenthal states that while the general clergy did not try to get involved in
the trials, and when they did, they would rather try to stop them than promote them, this did
not go for the Mathers. They played a different role – one that stirs controversy in
historiography on the Salem trials. Increase and Cotton Mather have been acting suspicious
several times, but they were still important ministers. It is beyond doubt that Cotton Mather
was extremely interested in witchcraft. He wrote several books on the subject, for which he did
a tremendous amount of research. It could be said that this actually played a role in provoking
fear of witches in Salem. The extended knowledge on the subject led to an excessive
interpretation of witchcraft – every tiny unexplainable event would be seen as caused by
witches or the devil. This would make Mather an instigator of witch fear, whether it was on
purpose or not. The debate continues on his actual role during the trials. Upham argues Mather
behaved conservatively during the trials, and his only suspicious act was the fact that he did not
argue actively against the use of spectral evidence, and in some cases he even concluded
someone was a witch solely through spectral evidence. Nevins agrees with this, he even
defends Mather further by stating that he did advise the judges not to use spectral evidence.
This is a problematic controversy, that should be researched further through primary sources.
Marion Starkey states Cotton Mather denounced torture, and she also argues that he did
argue against the use of spectral evidence. Furthermore, according to her Mather actually did
14
15
Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts. 244-245
Bernard Rosenthal, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993) review by: Richard Weisman, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, vol. 52, no. 1
(Jan. 1995) 181-184.
not get involved in the trials that much – his actions can be limited to only three times.
However, she does argue that he acted very suspiciously at the George Burroughs case. His
speech defends this questionable trial, and even led to more executions. Bernard Rosenthal
agrees that both Cotton and Increase Mather's behavior around this case was leery – they got
involved to an inappropriate extent, which was not the standard for the clergy at the time.
Clergy prefered to keep a distance, and rather tried to restrain the witch trials than promote
them. Yet, Cotton Mather received an extremely bad reputation, being cast as an instigator of
witch scare and the trials. It is this paradox that I will research in this thesis. What was Cotton
Mather's position, and what were his actions? Did he behave like the other clergy, or were his
actions questionable? What was his position in the work he wrote about witchcraft? And how
and why did he receive the reputation that he did? The research is mainly based on primary
sources, the books of the age, because they will create the most reliable seventeenth century
picture. My goal is to objectify Mather's part, not to take a side – which some scholars have
tended to do in this debate. According to Perry Miller, at the end of his life Cotton Mather
regretted not having put more effort into stopping the judges. Thus, that would mean that he
himself found his role questionable as well. Upham, Nevins, Starkey and Rosenthal all disagreed
slightly on Cotton Mather's part. This thesis will research this controversy.
1. Witchcraft in Salem Village: occurrences, explanations, and context
Once a witch signs the book and covenants with hell (the special heinousness of
this crime was the fact that it, like regeneration, took the form of a covenant),
Satan delegates to him a devil who, taking on the likeness of the witch, executes
his behests, such chores as pinching his enemies, blinding them, burning their
houses or wrecking their ships.
Perry Miller, The New England Mind. From Colony to Province, 193-194
In 1692, the trials of Salem started, when both the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel
Parris started suffering inexplicable fits. When pressed to identify who had caused their
mischief, the girls named two local outcasts and one slave. Promptly, they were interrogated
and imprisoned. Reports of witchcraft spread, and new afflictions were reported both in Salem
and elsewhere in New England. By early summer, dozens of men and women were taken into
custody. Some of them confessed to witchcraft, while others merely voiced uncertainty at
surreal proceedings. This chapter will give an introduction to the witch trials of Salem, what had
started them, what the main background of witchcraft was, and what the main controversies
were that surrounded the trials.16
Belief in devils and witches is world wide and ancient. New England was definitely not
the first nor the last area of the world to be afflicted by it. Even in the modern world, it is still
quite prevalent. According to a national Gallup poll taken in 1980, 34% of American adults
believe in the devil as a personal being who directs evil forces. The Salem case represents a
late, transatlantic instance of a much larger witch scare in Europe. The events of Salem
followed a
pattern that was classic in European outbreaks of witchcraft since at least the
sixteenth century. For instance, in almost every case the accuser and accused knew each other
intimately, often as neighbors. The accuser had suffered some strange illness, accident, or other
personal misfortune for which no natural explanation could be found. He or she usually did
remember, however, having offended a neighbor and accused him or her of having produced
the illness or accident by way of revenge. The victim's symptoms were also stereotypical:
convulsions, speech difficulties, the sticking with or throwing up of pins and nails, appearances
of cats, dogs, or other animals. Both in America and in Europe, finally, cases of witchcraft were
clearly community events. No matter what actions the ministers or clergymen undertook, the
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed. The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1974) 1-2.
16
responsibility for prosecution and hanging rested on neighborhood people. They snooped on,
accused, and gave evidence against each other.
Through contacts with Europe and the Caribbean, stories and books on the subject of
fortune telling made its way to New England. Late in 1691, all over New England young people
were being “led away with little sorceries,” as historians Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum
put it. They began to cast spells and practice conjuration with elements such as sieves and
keys, nails, peas, and horseshoes. These practices became particularly popular in Salem Village,
where it were mainly young girls who were anxious to find out about their future. An
atmosphere of obscurity arose, and strange things happened to those involved. By February
1692, the grownups noticed something was happening to their children: “odd postures;”
“foolish, ridiculous speeches;” “distempers;” “fits.” Visits from physicians confirmed the
suspicion that the condition was not medical, but supernatural. It was also a legal problem,
because those who suffered from witchcraft were not the victims of a disease, but of a crime.
But instead of turning to the civil authorities, Reverend Parris took counsel with several nearby
ministers. They advised him to “sit still and wait upon the Providence of God, to see what time
might discover.”17
However, rumors had already spread through Salem Village and not everybody was
satisfied with Parris's passive approach. For instance, the story about the slaves Tituba and
John Indian was brought into the world – they were said to have baked a “witch cake.” More
and more girls suffered from the same symptoms of odd postures, distempers, and others, and
eventually legal action was taken. On February 29, 1692, warrants went out for the arrest of
three Village women whom the girls, under the pressure of intense adult questioning, had
finally named as their tormenters. Among them was the slave Tituba. The next day, two
members of the upper house of the provincial legislature who lived in the vicinity of Salem,
Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, traveled to the town to conduct a public examination of
the three women in the Village meetinghouse. Only Tituba confessed, describing her actions in
great detail – she even gave a description of the devil as “a thing all over hairy, all the face
hairy, and a long nose.”18 In spite of the other two women's denial, all three of them were sent
to jail in Boston.19
If the situation had followed the pattern of previous witch accusations in the area – for
17
18
19
Ibid.
Ibid., 3.
Ibid., 2-3.
instance, the case of the Goodwin family in 1688 – the affair would have been over now that
the three women were arrested. But that was not the case. The afflicted girls' bizarre behavior
continued. The village strove to handle this situation by itself, in its own way. Samuel Parris held
ritual “private fasts” in his own home, and on March 11 he invited several neighboring ministers
for a day of prayer. These actions were attempts to scare off evil spirits. However, the girls'
behavior did not stop – it got worse. This even happened when the ministers were present in
the very room that the girls were in. In order to take matters into hand, a couple days later
Reverend Deodat Lawson, a former minister of the village, came over from Boston to observe
the situation and to do what he could to help. On March 20, Lawson delivered an earnest antiwitchcraft sermon in the Salem meetinghouse. According to Perry Miller, this sermon did nothing
to allay the panic, nor was it a malicious burning: it was a bout of wisdom. He covered the
standard points: afflictions come upon a people from God (or by His permission) because of
their sins; the only relief is prayer and repentance, to be manifested by confession of the
provoking acts; meanwhile, the duty of civil magistrates, in the interest of the people's welfare,
is to suppress disorders and punish criminals without mercy, especially those who refuse to
repent and confess. Lawson approached the situation in the way preachers usually treated
military disasters or epidemics. He also realized that ruthless prosecution of witches might
tempt people, who had been agonized by a series of standard village quarrels, to imagine that
“the specters of any or all their neighbors were let loose” - therefore to be convinced that every
neighbor was a witch. So even in this early stage, Lawson advised caution: “the Devil may
represent good and decent citizens as afflictors of others; therefore, to accuse any without
sufficient grounds will have pernicious influence, will bring in confusion and an abundance of
evil.”20
Several strange events occurred before, during and after that sermon, and more and
more adults and children suffered fits and showed signs of possession. 21 A fourth person was
arrested, a village woman named Martha Cory, and Boyer and Nissenbaum described her
examination as following:
On the Monday following Lawson's sermon, the fourth person to
be arrested, Martha Cory of Salem Village, was examined by
Hathorne and Corwin before a throng of several hundred in the
Village meetinghouse. As she was led into the room, the afflicted
20
21
Miller, From Colony to Province, 192-193.
Ibid., 3-5.
girls, sitting together at the front, cried out in “extreme agony”;
when she wrung her hands, they screamed that they were being
pinched; when she bit her lips, they declared that they could feel
teeth biting their own flesh. In the general hubbub, a Village
woman named Bethshaa Pope flung first her muff and then her
shoe at Martha, striking her on the head.22
Martha Cory was sent to jail. The outbreaks, however, did not disappear or even decrease. The
number of arrests strongly increased and began to get out of hand. An example of this was
four-year-old Dorcas Good, who was held in heavy irons in Boston prison for nine months. The
situation was turning into a crisis. Prisons were overflowing and overly exhausting demands
were being placed upon magistrates, jailers, sheriffs, and constables. Even former Salem
minister George Burroughs was arrested after he was accused of being a wizard. 23
The legal system, by which the accused had been arrested, examined, and imprisoned,
created a number of serious problems. The worst problem was that while a large number of
suspected witches and wizards had been arrested and sent to jail, there had not been any trials
yet. Trials could not take place, because Massachusetts did not have a legally established
government. In 1684, its original form of government had been abolished by the English
authorities. In 1689 the administration that the King had replaced it with, was overthrown.
Between 1689 and 1691, the colonists had lobbied tirelessly at the royal court for a restoration
of the government they had had before 1684. Early in 1692, word came that a new governor,
Sir William Phips, would arrive soon, bringing with him a new charter. But until Phips arrived, it
was illegal to proceed with formal prosecution of the accused witches. Therefore, the only thing
the authorities could legally do with the suspects was to jail them without a trial. Phips arrived
on May 14, 1692, and his response was swift and bold. Within a few days he had constituted six
members of his advisory council as a special Court of Oyer and Terminer to “hear and
determine” the enormous collection of witchcraft cases. On June 2, the Court of Oyer and
Terminer held the first trial in Salem, which immediately led to a death sentence. On June 10,
Bridget Bishop – a woman from Salem who had been in prison since April 18 – was hanged.
The second time the court sat was on June 29, and by then it was able to try five women in one
day. All of these led to a death sentence as well. These events marked the start of the witch
22
23
Ibid., 5.
Ibid., 5-6.
trials of Salem.24
The origins of witchcraft
Witchcraft in New England was a small phenomenon of a much larger witch scare in Europe.
Therefore, in order to properly understand Salem, it is necessary to have some knowledge of
the history of the belief in witchery in the Old World. Witch hunts in Europe started much
earlier, during the late Middle Ages – roughly the late fifteenth century. Before that, the
execution of witches occurred, but it was a much more infrequent event. People believed in
witchcraft, but it was not considered a major social problem. However, in 1484 Pope Innocent
VIII published a bill against witchcraft, which marked the beginning of a new era in the history
of superstition. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were scarred by witchcraft delusion. It
was the time in which the Roman Catholic Church was engaged in a fight with heresy, and
obnoxious individuals suspected of heresy could sometimes be destroyed by an accusation of
witchcraft when there were no other ways of reaching them. The universal superstition and
belief in witches was now used by a militant and merciless ecclesiastical organization. The
diabolical crime of witchcraft was to be exterminated forever. People were hunted down,
accused and executed by the thousands. Puritan religion originated from the Catholic religion,
therefore some general ideas about Hell and the Devil were very comparable. The Puritans were
also wary of outsiders, and they were very protective of their community. The witch scare in
Massachusetts started at the end of the period of witch scare in Europe. 25
In 1902, American author John Fiske wrote an essay that can be considered a brief
survey of the phenomenon. It is a very traditional interpretation of witchcraft, and it has been
challenged by many scholars. I will address the criticism later, but Fiske's interpretation is very
useful in order to grasp the ideas that existed about witchcraft. Fiske argued that the
unquestioning belief in witchcraft had been shared by the entire human race, both civilized and
uncivilized, from prehistoric ages to the end of the seventeenth century. According to him, it
was the one thing even the most undeveloped people believed in: “There are tribes of men with
minds so little developed that travelers have doubted the existence of religious ideas among
them; but none have been found so low as not to have some notion of witchcraft.” 26 All people
assumed connection between disease or death and some malevolent personal agency. Only
24
25
26
Ibid., 7-8.
Mappen, Witches & Historians. 6.
John Fiske, New France and New England (Cambridge: 1902).
“civilized” minds could understand the concepts of natural disease and natural death: to the less
civilized, all death was regarded as murder, either by a supernatural power by another human
seeking vengeance. Disease was explained in the same way – one of the main tasks for
medicine-men and priests of less civilized tribes of the past was the detection and punishment
of witches. Therefore, among all superstitions, the belief in witchcraft had always been
accepted without a doubt.27
What was it then, that caused people after the seventeenth century to not only
disregard their belief in witches, but also to stop thinking about it altogether? According to
Fiske, it was the enormous development of physical science that took off with Newton and
Descartes. People became familiar with the conception of natural law, which discredited the old
superstitions.28 Seventeen years after Fiske wrote his essay, Princeton professor of history
Lawrence Stone wrote a new interpretation of witchcraft, which went against many of Fiske's
arguments. For instance, he did not think that the decline of witch accusations in the late
seventeenth century was solely due to scientific developments. The lay and clerical elite played
an important part in it, as they were the first to lose faith in the system of beliefs upon which
the persecutions were founded. Belief in magic, witches, and black witchcraft survived in the
general populations until recent times – it probably never completely died out in the West. It
was therefore too simplistic to state that scientific developments caused everybody to quit
believing in witches. In causing the elite to lose its faith in witchcraft, the change in scientific
attitudes was, furthermore, more important than actual scientific discoveries. For instance, the
new demand for experimental proof – the idea that “there is no certain knowledge without
demonstration” slowly eroded belief in all kinds of magical explanations for events. This
occurred just at the time when lawyers were more demanding of actual evidence, and
tightening the rules for what was considered good evidence. With new scientific developments,
man's attitude also changed: there was now a belief that the human condition could be
improved, both by social actions and by technological discoveries. It was a new religious
attitude of self-help, an acceptance of the idea that God helps those who help themselves, and
that supernatural intervention in the workings of nature was very rare. 29 While Fiske was not
wrong to argue that scientific development played an important role in the decline of witch
scare, it was much more the change of attitude that came with it than the actual discoveries
27
28
29
Ibid.
Ibid.
Lawrence Stone, “The Disenchantment of the World,”, The New York Review of Books (December 12,
1971) 17-25.
that were being made, that made people change their minds about witchcraft.
Stone also disagreed with Fiske about the origins of belief in witchcraft. According to
Stone, in the sixteenth century belief in witchcraft reached a higher level of consciousness than
it had during the Middle Ages. One reason was that the Reformation caused a large increase in
belief in the powers of the Devil. The early Protestants disregarded all claims that God could be
persuaded into interfering – for the good - in the mechanics of nature, but simultaneously, they
also strengthened the claims that the Devil was responsible for all the forces of evil in the
world. They thus rejected the Church's white magic, and offered an explanation for black magic.
Belief in supernatural forces was therefore reinforced by Protestant doctrine, which soon also
made its way to Counter-Reformation beliefs. The pressure of social and economic change,
furthermore, broke down the old values of the intimate peasant communities and put great
stress on the villages. This created a more widespread network and diminished the old familiar
feeling of the village, causing constant friction between people. 30 A similar force was also at
work in late seventeenth century New England, where the arrival of the triangle trade increased
globalization, introducing new people and new luxuries to the area, which henceforth greatly
transformed the area.
When combining Fiske's traditional interpretation and Stones new interpretation, it can
be concluded that the roots of witchcraft scares were both deep and varied. Belief in witchcraft
was incredibly common in the pre-scientific age, since many phenomena simply could not be
explained, nor was any evidence or proof expected. Witchcraft was something everybody
believed in to a certain extent, but it did not lead to major social issues until several forces were
at work, starting in the early sixteenth century. The forces of the Reformation, and social and
economic transformations were enough to push society into that stage of hysteria – where
neighbors and friends accused each other of having cast their spell. Seventeenth century New
England dealt with similar issues. Constant pressure from the Crown of England caused stress
and friction, as did the inevitable changes that occurred in society over time. The generational
conflict Perry Miller wrote about in New England Mind was strongly tied to the stress the
community of Puritan New England was put under – I will discuss this in the next chapter.
Puritan religion was also very Satan focused, blaming unexplainable events on the Devil. While
the witch scare of Massachusetts was a late, much smaller occurrence of the enormous witch
scare in Europe, when looking at the background of Europe's scare, it becomes obvious that the
30
Ibid.
two are connected and similar. Of course, the Puritans of New England had only lived in the
New World for a couple of generations, so they will have shared many general ideas and beliefs
with their European counterparts. The forces that were at work behind the European witch
hunts are essential in order to understand the background of Salem. The unquestioning belief in
magic and the Devil as an entity responsible for all forces of evil in the world was present both
in Salem and in Europe. The pressure of social and economic change, causing the familiar
feeling of the village to disappear, which led to the uncomfortable insecurity of the unknown,
was a development that was set in motion in both the New and the Old World. Of course, there
are also differences. The magnitude of the European witch hunts cannot be compared in size to
those of Salem. Twenty people were executed in Salem, whereas this was the case for
thousands in Europe. Another difference is that while in Europe, witches were burned at the
stake, this never happened in Salem – the Puritans hanged their suspects.
Witch accusations always followed a distinct pattern, which was very similar in Europe and in
New England. There are a couple different types that can be identified. The most important
pattern is the one where the accuser had committed some breach of the social conventions in
their behavior towards the accused. This could, for instance, be the refusal of giving alms or
lend money. The accused had then mentioned some expression of malevolence – usually a
curse – and then the accuser had been struck by misfortune. This caused the victim to accuse
the suspect of casting their spell upon them, and thus being a witch. Another pattern was that
of the hysteric, usually a woman, who went into serious fits and spoke with voices, accusing
somebody to have bewitched her. This was very common in Salem – a good example is the
group of girls discussed in the beginning of this chapter. According to Lawrence Stone, in Salem
one could speak of a local epidemic of hysteria, superimposed on a general belief in magic.
Hysteria is extremely catching, he argues, which could cause entire communities to be
shattered by an epidemic of witchcraft hysteria – even causing the authorities to be temporarily
blind to the weak evidence. These two patterns could also be combined, where a person would
be struck by hysteria after having done wrong to an acquaintance. This was what generally
happened in Salem.31
In Europe, a third pattern that sometimes also occurred: that of the dedicated
ideological witch-finder, who was armed with the Malleus Maleficarum or some similar
31
Ibid.
inquisitorial handbook, and roamed the countryside, terrorizing entire neighborhoods. These
people caused very dire situations, such as the 1645 mass prosecution of fifty witches in the
Manningtree area of Essex, which was launched by two witch-finders. These people were
merely exploiting pre-existing fears, hatreds and delusions within communities, in order to
enjoy a highly sensational case. They were rare though, and this obscure phenomenon never
made it to New England.32
The trials
During the Salem trials, dozens of people were heard and tried. Well-known stories are those of
Rebecca Nurse, Martha and Giles Corey, and Reverend George Burroughs. It would be way too
extensive to discuss all these in this introductory chapter, but it is useful to draw a general
picture of what the court cases looked like. The charter that Governor Phips brought with him
when he arrived in Massachusetts enabled the General Court to create judicatories and courts
of record or other courts. The Governor was to appoint judges. It took two to three weeks until
the members of the General Court were elected, during which it was not yet possible to hold
trials. It was necessary that this happened as soon as possible though, both because this was
demanded by the accused as their rights, and because the jails were overcrowded. Phips issued
a commission for a court of Oyer and Terminer, and appointed commissioners. William
Stoughton, the deputy governor, was chosen first and always commanded as chief justice.
Because of previous political affiliations, Stoughton was a bit unpopular with the people. He was
also not educated in law, but in theology. It is believed that he owed his appoint to his close
friendship with the Mathers. It is very telling for the position of the Mathers and other ministers
that they put a word in for their friends to be on the commission for the court of Oyer and
Terminer.33
The other commissioners were Nathaniel Saltonstall of Haverhill, Major Bartholomew
Gedney, John Hathorn of Salem, Jonathan Corwin of Salem, Major John Richards, Wait
Winthrop, Peter Sargent and Samuel Sewall. These men were at the top of the social scale, and
were considered the ablest in the colony. While none of them were actually educated in law,
they probably knew at least as much, if not more, about the law of witchcraft as any American
lawyer at the time. They had extensive knowledge because of their minister background, and
had conducted a lot of research on the topic. During the cases, they generally had the same
32
33
Ibid.
Nevins, The Witches of Salem, 70-72.
views as the legal scholars or lawyers in England had had, and they were governed by the rules
laid down by the English courts. The cases were also tried in accordance with English
precedents. During the trials, the “victims” were there, giving a testimony of their sufferings.
Witnesses were also present, and heard. A verdict was then spoken, which often resulted in
execution by hanging.34
The difficulty with trying witches was the fact that the wrongdoings on which the
accusations rested were not physically perpetrated by the witches at all, but by unidentifiable
spirits who could at times assume their shape. The crime lay in the initial “contract” by which a
person permitted to the devil to assume his or her human form, or in enabling the devil to
perform particular acts of mischief. However, these very private and secret transactions were
exceptionally difficult to prove because they took place, in fact, in the mind of the witch.
According to Boyer and Nissenbaum, the examination records of 1692 consist of a remarkable
testament to the magistrates' efforts to find proof that would conform to the established rules
of courtroom evidence. By that, what was meant was evidence that was empirically verifiable
and logically relevant. The simplest form of evidence, and also the most desirable, was a
straight confession. The records show the examiners almost frantically trying to draw a
confession from people whose guilt they did not doubt, but also recognized they did not yet
have a legal case. A confession was particularly valid when it contained confirming details, for
which the magistrates sought for ruthlessly – those were usually the things that form the
popular images of witchcraft: broomsticks, certain rituals, signatures in blood. In a society
where witchcraft was accepted as a definite fact, those little details meant a lot. 35
Also accepted as evidence was the “trustworthy” testimony to some supernatural
dimension of the accused. Six persons, for instance, testified that Reverend George Burroughs
had performed superhuman strengths such as lifting a heavy gun at arm's length with a single
finger thrust into the barrel. Another man said that Burroughs could read his mind. There were
also certain compensating supernatural weaknesses that were believed to characterize a witch.
For example, the inability to recite prayers with perfect accuracy, which the accused were often
asked to do in court. Sarah Good could only “mutter... over some part of a psalm” and appeared
reluctant to “mention the word God.” Furthermore, abnormal physical appendages were also
seen as a supernatural attribute. They were believed to have some relation to the devil, and
therefore the accused were subjected to exhaustive and conscientious bodily examinations by
34
35
Ibid., 72-82.
Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed, 11-12.
physicians or midwives in order to find this specific form of evidence. 36
A big point of controversy in this matter was the case of spectral, or specter, evidence.
Spectral evidence is evidence that is based on visions or dreams. For instance, when a person
would have a dream or vision of his neighbor casting a spell on him, then that would be
considered valid evidence in a trial that this neighbor was a witch. These statements can be
placed in the category of “trustworthy” testimony to some supernatural dimension of the
accused. Cotton Mather was a fierce opponent of this, as were many other ministers and other
important figures in the colonies. I will discuss the matter of spectral evidence further in the
next chapters, as it was an important part of Cotton Mather and his contemporaries' views.
When the trials continued, spectral evidence eventually lost its force and was then finally
completely rejected. That left nothing to substantiate the charges, because almost all of the
convictions had been secured largely on spectral evidence. Winfield Nevins state that “under the
rules of law as now fully established none of the evidence upon which convictions were found
would be admitted. Spectral and kindred evidence could not be allowed, and without it not one
of the accused could have been convicted.” 37 It was also going against exactly what Deodat
Lawson had warned for in March of 1692: do not go around in a headless way, accusing random
people without having sufficient proof.
Perry Miller also discusses the use of spectral evidence, claiming it was the main reason
people grew more doubtful about the trials when more of them passed. According to Miller, the
Court of Oyer and Terminer was relying far too much on it. It was not consistent with the
commonly used common-law principle that an act had to have been seen by at least two
witnesses. The court at Salem, however, was convinced that no innocent person could, under
the providence of God, be represented by a specter – thus, those who were manifested had to
be guilty. It was obvious that the accused would not confess, because “having become the
Devil's children, they could confess only with his permission.” Cotton Mather called this “the
philosophical schemes of witchcraft”, before explicitly warning against the use of spectral
evidence. Mather also stated: “It is very certain that the divells have sometimes represented the
shapes of persons not only innocent, but also very virtuous.” Miller argues that if the court had
listened to Mather, there would have been no executions.38
36
37
38
Ibid., 12-13
Nevins, The Witches of Salem, 92.
Miller, From Colony to Province, 193-194.
Conclusion
The witch trials of Salem were an echo of the enormous witch scare that occurred in Europe
after the Middle Ages. Belief in witches was very common in both Europe and the New World,
where due to lack of science many natural phenomena could not be explained. In a society
where experimental proof is not as highly regarded as religious theory, the finger is quickly
pointed at Satan, demons and witches. Inter-generational conflicts and stress of a transforming
world – farmers to a more globalized trade network such as the triangle trade with Africa and
the Caribbean, the transformation of a young colony – easily catalyzed these fears into a panic
that got out of hand.
The witch scares in Europe were mainly a Catholic event, while those in Puritan New
England were, of course, Puritan ones. However, the similarity between the two is striking. This
could be because both religions shared similar beliefs in demons and Satan. Also, John Fiske
stated that most cultures have, at some point, believed in witchcraft. Salem and Europe
followed much of the same patterns. Accusers and accused always knew each other, and the
accused had always done mischief to the accuser. Often, the accuser was afflicted by some
form of fit, or hysteria. Even though the evidence was flimsy, most people were accused of
being a witch ended up being executed. One difference was that in Europe, witches were
burned, in Salem the authorities preferred death by hanging. Some form of evidence was, on
both continents, necessary in order to proceed to conviction, but this was often spectral: a
vision, or a dream, in which the victim witnessed the accused of doing something that would
certainly make him or her a witch. This was a major point of controversy during, and after, the
trials. It did not fly with the basic common-law principles at all, and it caused many people to
have doubts about the entire situation, eventually ending the trials. Many scholars, among
whom Perry Miller, argue that without the use of spectral evidence, there would have been no
executions. Cotton Mather was one of the main opponents. In the next chapter, I will cover his
personal history and his life, as well as some of his major works on witchcraft. I will also discuss
his opposition to the use of spectral evidence further.
2. Cotton Mather's personal legacy
I am far from insensible, that at this extraordinary Time of the Devils coming
down in great wrath upon us, there are too many Tongues and Hearts thereby
set on fire of Hell.
Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World, 379
Cotton Mather was born on February 12, 1663 in Boston to a preacher family. His father,
Increase Mather, was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: a
Puritan minister who would go on to become President of Harvard College. The entire Mather
family played important roles in the founding of the colony and several of them had been
among the strongest leaders of the founding generations. Both his father and his two
grandfathers, Richard Mather and John Cotton, were important Puritan ministers. The history of
seventeenth century Massachusetts has therefore been of major concern and influence in
Cotton Mather's childhood, being informed of every wave the colony went through. 39 This
chapter will touch on his personal history starting at childhood, as well as deal with the legacy
he left behind. Cotton Mather's personal history has had a major impact on his life, and
therefore inevitably also on his work. That means it is very important to consider this before
trying to form conclusions based on his writings. This chapter will also question Mather's
specific position as a priest during the trials. How unique were his actions, and how significant
is it that he preached about demons, devils and witches? How about general belief in those
phenomena? This chapter will attempt to answer those questions.
Cotton Mather grew up during a transforming period for New England. In 1662, the Act of
Uniformity was implemented by the Parliament of England. This act prescribed the form public
prayers should have, the way sacraments should be administrated, and in general it stated all
rites of the Established Church of England should be carried out the way they were described in
the Book of Common Prayers. Another important aspect of this act was the requirement of
episcopal ordination for all ministers. This was reintroduced after the Puritans had gotten rid of
many aspects of the Church during the Civil War. In practice, the Act of Uniformity enabled the
royal government of England to resume persecution of nonconforming clergymen. The Crown's
later insistence on tolerance in New England had a liberalizing influence on this matter, but the
39
David Levin, Cotton Mather. The Young Life of the Lord's Remembrancer, 1663-1703 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1978) 2.
Puritan leaders in Massachusetts genuinely feared the royal government as an aggressive
enemy. Fear was spreading through the colony for losing the virtual independence she had
enjoyed during three decades of ineffective or indifferent administration in London. Although
King Charles II confirmed the original charter, he expressed a
new interest in colonial
legislation, commerce, and justice. In England, a former governor of Massachusetts was
decapitated, and the chopped off head of another former Massachusetts leader was displayed
on the London Bridge. Charles commanded Massachusetts not to execute any more Quakers
(five of them had been hanged there between 1658 and 1661), and he insisted that Anglicans
in Massachusetts would be allowed to not only worship but also to vote. During the first year of
Cotton Mather's life, Massachusetts was marked by the struggle to express the colony's wishes
to the Crown through two distinguished agents – who returned from their mission with only
small success – and by rumors abroad of renewed persecutions and a new emigration from
England. General fear of the threat from England existed until 1665. 40
While Cotton Mather was too young to understand these issues at the time, the threat
was present throughout his childhood and youth. Until the original charter was revoked in 1684,
the mysterious danger from London formed a presence in Boston that was as real for the
Puritans as the power of the Lord and Devil. Providence and Satan formed very real fears for
the people of seventeenth century Massachusetts. It was present in every struggle they were
confronted with, and when a Puritan leader strove to maintain the ways of his community, he
also believed he was defending it against Satan. 41 With the endeavors Massachusetts was
confronted with during the early years of Cotton Mather's life, fear of Satan was ever more
present. This paved the way for his involvement in the events leading up to and during the
trials of Salem.
Harvard College
Cotton Mather enrolled at Harvard College in the summer of 1674, at the age of eleven. He was
the youngest student in his academic generation, and almost certainly the youngest in the fortyyear history of the college. At the time, it was still an – by twenty-first century standards –
extraordinarily small colleges. The entire undergraduate enrollment will not have been larger
than twenty-one students. The entire faculty consisted of the President and two tutors, Samuel
Sewall and Peter Thacher, who were themselves studying for advanced degrees. Urian Oakes,
40
41
Ibid., 4-5.
Ibid., 5.
Paster of the church in Cambridge and Fellow of the Harvard Corporation also did some
lecturing. There was only one building for students, which served as dormitory, library, and
lecture hall. Besides that, there was the unused Indian College – serving as a reminder of the
unrealized hopes of converting and training a large number of Native Americans for missionary
work – and the President's House. Mather significantly stood out at Harvard due to his young
age. The second-youngest student was fifteen, and Mather was thrown into a dormitory life of
adolescents and young men ranging in age from fifteen to twenty-one. However, he did have
some reason to feel at home. His impressive heritage was no exception, as an imposing
genealogy of ministers was rule rather than exception among his peers. He was joined by his
cousin John Cotton (both were named after their grandfather John Cotton), John Danforth (son
of a powerful minister and grandson of John Wilson), Edward Payson (grandson of John Eliot,
the apostle to the Indians) and others. 42
During Mathers first year at the college, he faced some controversies. In the summer of
1672, President Leonard Hoar was inaugurated. Preceding him, under the leadership of Charles
Chauncy, the college had been declining so significantly that the Harvard Overseers had written
letters to Hoar and to several eminent friends of the colony in England, asking for their aid.
They were hoping for money and books, but even more pressingly for leadership. Chauncy was
old and frail, and some fresh new blood was needed. Hoar, coming from England, provided that.
He had great plans for the college, which included a botanical garden, a chemical laboratory
and a large amount of books from London which New England's scholars were not familiar with.
However, under Hoar's leadership the college sank even lower and more rapidly than before. He
enforced severe standards, and “could not smile tolerantly on young men who wasted their
time”, as historian David Levin put it. Hoar's position greatly aggravated hostility from both
students and tutors. In Cotton Mather's own account of the controversy, he wrote that Hoar
made powerful enemies in the neighborhood, and the young men in the college took advantage
of that to ruin his reputation. Student rebellion flared up, and Hoar imposed strict rules.
Dancing, drinking and especially hazing were strictly forbidden. Cotton Mather found himself in
a very precarious situation, because besides being the youngest student at the college, his
father Increase Mather was Hoar's most vigorous defender. He arrived at Harvard with an
understandably respectful attitude towards Hoar and a desire to please. It was a tough
transition going from beloved first-born son to the smallest boy in college, and the conflict
42
Levin, Cotton Mather, 23-25.
between college rules and student customs, the warfare between Hoar and the most powerful
students and teaching fellows, and knowledge of Increase Mather's desire to see Hoar prevail,
made the situation incredibly complex, especially for an eleven-year-old. He was often
threatened by older students, and accused that he had told his father of their misconduct.
Eventually, on July 16, 1674, Increase Mather took Cotton home to Boston. He did not enroll
again until nearly a year later.43
This controversy situation at Harvard was, however, not very telling about Cotton
Mather's behavior. It does describe the difficulties he was confronted with at such a young age,
which is telling for the way he behaved later in his life. He experienced what it was like being an
outsider early in his life, which later might have been an extra motivator to fight for issues he
deemed important. Mather did not withdraw from the college, he graduated with his class in
1678 and after the summer of 1675 the record indicates no further trouble between him and
the other students. Above all, these events indicate the importance and influences of his father
in Cotton Mather's young life. In 1687, Increase Mather successfully roused opposition against
the
Declaration
of Indulgence,
which prohibited
the
discrimination of Catholics
in
Massachusetts. However, this led to his near arrest for treason, and he traveled to London to
petition the King. Increase's absence finally liberated Cotton. He was left alone with the
responsibilities of his large congregation, conducted church affairs and became an important
figure. Cotton was also deeply involved in the town's responses to political, military, and
religious dangers. It was during this time that the crisis occurred that would touch him on a
deeply personal level and that would have a great impact on the rest of his life. This crisis was
the case of witchcraft that started in midsummer of 1688, when the four children of John
Goodwin were being afflicted with “strange fits”, more extreme than epileptic or “cataleptic”
seizures. Cotton Mather would write and publish two books about these events, which would
cause to ruin his reputation for nearly three centuries. 44 This chapter will be concerned with the
arguments of these books, and with their presumed implications.
Written work
In 1689, Mather wrote Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions ,
and in 1693 he wrote The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of
Several
43
44
Witches Lately Executed in New-England. Memorable Providences describes his
Ibid., 27-32.
Ibid., 145-147.
experiences with the Goodwin family. Four children from this family suffered from several fits
and suspicious behavior, as described above. The eldest child, thirteen-year-old Martha, had
insulted the family's laundrywoman when she asked her about some missing linen. The
laundrywoman's mother was an Irish widow called Glover, who was “an ignorant and a
scandalous old Woman in the Neighbourhood”.45 Her late husband “had sometimes complained
of her, that she was undoubtedly a Witch, and that whenever his Head was laid, she would
quickly arrive unto the punishments due to such an one.” 46 According to Mather, Goodwife
Glover had cursed Martha Goodwin in an attempt to defend her daughter. Soon, three of the
other five Goodwin children were “infected”, and all four of them suffered from strange
symptoms, such as deafness, blindness, “dumb behavior”, having their tongues drawn down
their throats, and odd clapping of the jaw, shoulder-blades, elbows, and several other joints.
Mather studied this phenomenon intensively, and this book describes every single detail. He
even took Martha temporarily into his home in order to create an ever more accurate and
detailed picture. Memorable Providences mainly deals with Mather's experiences with the
Goodwin family and his forthcoming ideas about witchcraft. It can be seen as a good
introduction to his next book, The Wonders of the Invisible World. According to Bernard
Rosenthal, this book “has been instrumental in offering the popular view of Cotton Mather as a
rabid witch-hunter.”47 This book will be the main concern of this chapter.
The Wonders of the Invisible World was written during the height of the Salem witch
trials. It rewrites the trial records of five selected cases. Mather also spends large parts on his
explanation of the reason why New England was affected by these issues, as well as of how
witchcraft actually took place. Many things are explained through the Puritan doctrine, and a
typical Puritan view of life can be seen in Mather's arguing. The book defends his role, but
Mather does claim to present an unbiased view of the events in Salem. The main point of this
book is the idea that the Devil created a plot against New England, a plot that consisted of a
network of witches that are to punish the people and pull down the churches, by “WITCHCRAFT
and a Foundation of WITCHCRAFT.”48 According to Mather “an army of Devils is horribly broke in
upon the place which is the center.” 49 He argues that the reason the Devil created this plot, was
the fact that the people of New England settled in an area that had previously been a “Territory
45
46
47
48
49
Cotton Mather, Memorable Providences. Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689), Section III.
Ibid.
Rosenthal, Salem Story, 146.
Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World, 389.
Ibid., 389.
of the Devil”. The Devil did not like this, especially since the Puritans were people who
“accomplished the Promise of old made unto our Blessed Jesus”. 50 Harvard professor Barrett
Wendell explained this as following in 1891. In the eyes of the Puritans, the American continent
– where they settled in accordance with no laws but those of the Scripture – had been Satan's
special territory until their settlement. He had ruled there for centuries, unmolested by the
opposing power of the Gospel. Anybody who had any doubts to this should only look at the
degradation of his miserable subjects, the Indians, to be convinced. The arrival of the Puritans
was a direct invasion of his territories. Satan fought it in every way he could – material and
spiritual. The physical hardships the Puritans were faced with during the early years of their
settlement were largely of his doings, for instance. The same assumption was taken on for
phenomena that would generally be recognized as natural: more than once Cotton Mather
remarked the fact that the steeples of churches were more often struck by lightening than other
structures as a diabolical, and thus caused by Satan, effect. From the very early days of
settlement Satan had also often waged his war in a more subtle way: by appearing in person
and seducing harmless subjects to his service.51 About this, Wendell states:
Whoever yielded to him was rewarded by the possession of
supernatural power, which was secretly exterted for all manner of
malicious purposes; these were the witches: whoever withstood
him was tortured in mind and body almost beyond the power of
men to bear; these were the bewitched. There was no phase of
the Devil's warfare so insidious, so impalpable, so dangerous, as
this: in the very heart of the churches, in the pulpits themselves,
witches might lurk.52
Cotton Mather's childhood was drenched with religion and Puritan values, as he grew up in such
a famous minister family. As Wendell explained, the witch outbreak was the ultimate Puritan
fear. It was an attack from within, as the danger came from within the community and “in the
very heart of the churches, in the pulpits themselves, witches might lurk”. Mather stated:
Never were more Satanical devices used for the Unsettling of any
People under the Sun, that what have been employed for the
50
51
52
Ibid., 388.
Barrett Wendell, Cotton Mather. The Puritan Priest (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1891)
67-68.
Ibid., 68.
Extirpation of the Vine which God has here Planted, Casting out
the Heathen, and preparing a Room before it, and causing it to
take deep root, and fill the Land, so that it sent it Boughs unto the
Atlantic Sea Eastward, and its Branches unto the Connecticut
River Westward, and the Hills were covered with the shadow
thereof.53
It was thus seen as a serious threat, the most dangerous one “any People under the Sun” had
ever encountered. However, Mather was determined to fight against it. He devoted himself to
this purpose, as “I myself expect not few or small Buffetings from Evil Spirits, for the
Endeavours wherewith I am now going to Encounter them”.54 Clearly, he expected to be
“punished” himself as well. As a minister, Mather felt responsible for the protection of the
people of New England. This book reflects that, as large parts are devoted to explaining why all
witches should be eradicated. He also writes about the harmful and frightening things witches
are assumed to be capable of. Particularly interesting is his piece about invisibility:
In all the Witchcraft which now grievously Vexes us, I know not
whether any thing be more unaccountably than the Trick which
the Witches have to render themselves, and their Tools invisible.
Witchcraft seems to be the Skill of Applying the Plastic Spirit of
the World, unto some unlawful purposes, by means of a
Confederacy with Evil Spirits. Yet one would wonder how the Evil
Spirits themselves can do some things: especially at Invisiblizing
the grossest bodies. (….....) Thus much I will say; The notion of
procuring Invisibility, by any Natural Expedient, yet known, is, I
believe, a meer PLINYISM; How far it may be obtained by a
Magical Sacrament, is best known to the dangerous Knaves that
have try’d it. But our Witches do seem to have got the knack; and
this is one of the Things, that make me think, Witchcraft will not
be fully understood, until the day when there shall not be one
Witch in the World.55
This part is meaningful on several levels. First, it is a description of the belief that witches were
capable of overcoming the laws of physics: they could achieve something that was deemed
impossible, obtained by “a Magical Sacrament”, and by means of “a Confederacy with Evil
Spirits”. This shows Mather's warnings to the people of the supernatural powers of witches. The
last sentence is also extremely important. “Witchcraft will not be fully understood, until the day
53
54
55
Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World, 388.
Ibid., 377.
Ibid., 433-434.
when there shall be not one Witch in the World” demonstrates Mather's conviction that
witchcraft could be eradicated from the world (since it would not be possible to understand it
until then).
Involvement
The writings discussed above show Cotton Mather's deep, personal involvement in the
witchcraft events. But what do they say about his position on the matter? Can he be seen as
exciting the accusations even further, thus promoting the trials? According to Kenneth
Silverman, emeritus professor at New York University, the connection remains obscure. In the
eighteen months between the case of the Goodwin family and the outbreak of the Salem witch
trials, Mather kept calling public attention to the existence of devils and witches. After finishing
Memorable Providences, at the last minute he added a “Notandum” in which he informed his
readers that since he had finished his book, another “very wonderful attempt” had been made
on a different family in Boston (“probably by Witchcraft”). He speculated that God may have
permitted it in order to expose more witches. However, Cotton Mather was far from being the
first nor the last Puritan minister who preached about witches. He is associated with it very
often in later history because he published many of his sermons, and many other ministers,
although having the same ideas, did not. The Charlestown minister Charles Morton, and three
Boston ministers (including Samuel Willard), wrote and supported a preface to Memorable
Providences, stating that they had been “Eye and Ear-Witnesses” to many of the “most
considerable things” in the Goodwin case as Mather described them. 56 Of course, the fact that
Mather published his sermons might also have meant that they were important – more
important than sermons that did not end up being published, because publishing meant that
they would be saved for future readers.
In their occasion, symptoms, and resolution, both the Goodwin affair and the Salem
affair typify witchcraft cases throughout Europe and America throughout the seventeenth
century.57 Thus, the Salem witch scare was in no way unique. Cotton Mather played an
important part, yet the question remains how unique his part was in comparison to his
colleagues. Certainly, his belief in witches and devils was not extraordinary or worrisome.
However, his work does contain some pretty bold statements about witchcraft.
56
57
Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)
87-90.
Ibid., 88-90.
When looking at his work closely, there is something else that becomes apparent when
one is familiar with the history of Puritan New England. According to Silverman, the Goodwin
children do not seem so much as possessed as turbulently rebellious. He argues that when
looking at Mather's descriptions from the secular viewpoint of modern psychoanalysis and
anthropology, the children's antics merely ventilated severely repressed desires and disapproved
behavior.
Similar demonic possessions of course still occur frequently in
many cultures, preventing psychotic breaks with reality by
affording underlying conflicts expression in a culturally shared
idiom of spiritual beings which relates them to the people's larger
religious life. Instead of driving the burdened person to an
isolating private reality, the idiom of demonic possession allows
inaccessible experiences to be made public and intelligible. 58
The Goodwin children's behavior represented hostility toward Puritan standards. The enacted
the worst fears of the ministers, who denounced the rising generation for wanting to explore
sex, taunt their parents, and deride the ministry. Puritan society demanded utter submission
from the young, and demonic possession was more culturally acceptable than this type of
rebellion. According to Silverman, Mather's account then becomes “a tale of sassy adolescents
who loathed washing their hands, going to bed, or doing their chores.” Of course, Mather and
his contemporaries did not locate the source of the children's behavior in rebellion, but in an
“ever present, malicious world of invisible devils.” 59
The idea of a generational gap in Puritan society is well-known in scholarly literature on
the topic. Perry Miller discusses this in his New England Mind series. New England's cultural
position in the western world had changed and while the settlers of the first generation had
been major figures in England, this was not the case for their children. They felt isolated and
confused trying to find their place in society. Up until 1688 Increase Mather, who belonged to
the second generation himself, had been preaching an already classic series of jeremiads, which
stated the decline and downfall of the area. Near the end of the seventeenth century, trade
expanded and became more global. That led to an increase of luxury in Massachusetts.
Christmas parties, weddings, and church fairs grew bigger and bigger and more “boisterous”.
Trade with the Caribbean facilitated the import of new spirits, which, according to Cotton
Mather, was “a greater disaster than a French invasion.” Drunkenness became more common
58
59
Ibid., 90.
Ibid., 90-91.
and with less shame – numerous of them were to be “seen in the open Street, staggering and
reeling.”60 Perry Miller thus argues that the first couple generations after the settler generation
contributed to a general decline of New England. Cotton Mather and his father Increase shared
this conviction. It is therefore very likely that not only the Goodwin children were indeed
rebelling, but also that Cotton Mather had extreme disdain for this behavior – which led him to
ascribe it to demonic possession.
Kenneth Silverman also collected several personal letters Cotton Mather wrote during the
witch trials, which he bundled into Selected Letters of Cotton Mather in 1969. In this book he
argues that it is Mather's part in the trials that mostly identifies him in the popular mind and, by
extension, still symbolizes Puritanism. This stems from his defense of the proceedings in
Wonders of the Invisible World – for instance, his insistence on the eradication of all witches
from the world – but also on “a simpleminded marrying of the most prominent man of his time
to the most notorious incident of his time.” 61 An important thing to note is that Cotton Mather
strongly opposed the use of specter evidence. This is the testimony of a witness that someone
had appeared to him in spectral form and done mischief. Since most trials were based on
specter evidence, by default Cotton Mather opposed the basic legal principle of most trials. Of
course, this did not mean he doubted the reality of witchcraft. It cannot be stated often enough
that there are few men who have dealt with witchcraft more intimately than Cotton Mather. He
definitely believed there were witches living in New England. His letters reveal much about his
attitude.62
In a letter to judge John Richards on May 31, 1692, he emphasizes his opposition of the
use of specter evidence. He asks him not to lay more importance on specter evidence than
absolutely necessary. He writes that when there is “good, plain, legal” evidence present, he very
much recommends the direct extermination of said person. However:
It is very certain that the devils have sometimes represented the
shape of persons
not only innocent, but also very virtuous,
tho' I believe that the just God then ordinarily provides a way for
the speedy vindication of the persons just abused. Moreover, I do
suspect that persons who have too much indulged themselves in
malignant, envious, malicious ebullitions of their souls, may
Perry Miller, The New England Mind. From Colony to Province (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1953) 305-307.
61
Kenneth Silverman, Selected Letters of Cotton Mather (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1971) 31.
62
Ibid., 31-33.
60
unhappily expose themselves to the judgment of being
represented by devils, of whom they never had any vision, and
with whom they have much less written any covenant.
Thus, although Cotton Mather believed that devils often appear on the earth representing
innocent and virtuous people, he also thought that God would then find a way to save those
people. Moreover, he also believed that people who have “sinned” one way or another,
sometimes can expose behavior that can cause other people to think they are consorting with
Satan, when they are not. Too much emphasis on specter evidence can lead to a false
accusation, for instance when said witness is a neighbor looking to ruin the life of the person
who is accused. Mather therefore states that “caution is certainly wished for”. However, he also
states that there certainly is enough cause to suspect that it is witchcraft that has given rise to
the troubles Salem has been faced with, and that the effects of witchcraft are most definitely
real.63 The question remains to what extent Cotton Mather was really involved in the trials.
When looking at the trials within the context of a community anxious about the transformations
it might be about to undergo, the opinion and position of a figure like him is very important. As
a minister Cotton Mather was a leading authority, and he will have had enormous influence over
the people.
Conclusion
Cotton Mather's childhood was marked enormously by his influential father, Increase Mather,
and his influential grandfathers, Richard Mather and John Cotton. They were important figures
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It is not surprising that Cotton Mather went on to be an
influential minister himself. In 1630, John Winthrop's City Upon a Hill had stated that their new
community would be a "city upon a hill", watched by the world. However, in Cotton Mather's
youth - about four decades later - the colony was marked by fear, both of the English crown
and of Satan. There was also a general assumption that the colony was in a process of decline,
which was especially prevalent in the behavior of the younger generations. Increase Mather had
held extensive jeremiads on this topic. In hindsight, these fears and ideas were symptoms of
anxiety about the transformation the colony was facing. It was becoming part of an increasingly
globalized world, with access to more luxury products and more influences from other parts of
the world. The witch scare of Salem can be seen as an outing of this fear – general anxiety
63
Ibid., 35-37.
about the community led people to fear each other, and accuse friend and foe of witchcraft.
Cotton Mather's extensive lectures on the topic will not have kept this behavior in check. It is
safe to assume that Cotton Mather's books and sermons have increased people's fear of
witches, thereby leading to an increase of accusations. His general guide on how to recognize
witchcraft will have led to more “discoveries” of witches, simply because it led people to be
more on the lookout for it. His arguments about New England being Satan's territory will also
not have lead to a decrease of fear among the people. However, this does not mean that Cotton
Mather was an instigator. As argued above, fear of witches was not uncommon in the
seventeenth century. The Salem case can be seen as both a late, transatlantic instance of a
much larger witch scare in Europe, and as an expression of general anxiety in a small, strictly
structured community. As mentioned above, children and adolescents were kept in check by
strict rules and guidelines – the society demanded utter submission from the young. In line with
the ideas of the area being in decline, some cases of “witchcraft” might just have been young
people who were in rebellion. Witchcraft was a much more acceptable explanation, however.
Thus, there were many more forces at work behind the trials of Salem than Cotton
Mather's preaching. Though his work certainly did not discourage witch scare – and it might
even have encouraged it – Mather cannot be classified as an instigator. It is also important to
note that with his opposition of the use of specter evidence, Mather opposed the basic legal
principle of most trials. That means that he cannot have been a real instigator of them. In
conclusion, Cotton Mather's work has probably done a lot of encouragement when it comes to
witch scare and witch hunt. It informed, scared and aided people in their accusations, and in an
anxious time of transformation that was all some people needed in that matter. However,
Mather was not instigator. There were many other motions that led to the events of 1692.
3. Contemporaries
Cotton Mather's role and position were noted many times by several of his contemporaries.
Various fellow ministers, including Samuel Willard and Charles Morton, agreed with his findings
on the supernatural. As mentioned before, they wrote a preface to his Memorable Providences,
stating that they had been “Eye and Ear-Witnesses” to many of the “most considerable things”
in the Goodwin case as Mather described them. Belief in witches and preaching about them was
a very common practice in seventeenth century New England and Cotton Mather did feature a
unique position as such. However, many contemporaries have also stated their critique of
Mather's ideas. This chapter will deal with some of the main opinions that were voiced on
Mather's work and position. They are important, because they shed a different light on the
situation than Mather's own work does. Analyzing them will add important information to the
reconstruction of the story of Salem.
Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World
A very important author and critic of Cotton Mather was Boston cloth merchant Robert Calef,
who published More Wonders of the Invisible World in 1700. Calef was not a scholar, nor a
minister - he was merely a “man of common sense”. As a faithful Bible reader, the witch
persecutions caught his interest in 1693. Dedicated to the subject, he collected fuller records of
the Salem trials than Cotton Mather himself managed to when he wrote Wonders of the
Invisible World. Calef frequently wrote to Mather and other ministers requesting comments and
ideas on witchcraft from them. Most of these requests were treated with either courtesy, refusal
to answer, or – in Mather's case – threatening him with a libel suit. Although a clumsily
constructed and hard to read memoir, Calef's book is very worthwhile and defends an important
argument. He certainly believed in the existence of witches and the possibility of Satan
possessing bodies. However, he stated that Cotton Mather's theories about sin and detecting
witches were mere ideas made up by humans and did not hold any biblical ground. Perry Miller
described this view as following:
the Bible gives no explicit rules for detecting the witch, so learned
theories concerning the nature of the sin or its evidences are
humane inventions – mere traditions of men foisted onto
Scripture, exactly on a par with the superstitions of Rome. 64
Calefs book was published in 1700, far too late to accomplish anything in the trials – they were
dead coal by then. Judge Samuel Sewall had already admitted that he had followed methods
and accepted evidence that might have cost some innocent lives – although he also did not
question the fact that these people were witches or at least required by law to be tried. By
1700, most people in New England agreed with Sewall and wanted to forget the whole affair
ever happened. The reason Calef's book is important, however, is the fact that it became the
source of Cotton Mather's ruined reputation. It spread the myth that portrayed him as the chief
originator of the witchcraft hysteria. Many pages are devoted to denouncements of Mather,
often exaggerating the truth.65
It is clear that Calef was a dedicated believer in the existence of witches, because large
parts of his book, too, are devoted to the description of the events in Salem. For instance, he
describes the case of Margaret Rule, who was one of the many girls afflicted to strange fits. The
chapter describes how she was treated by her community. Very quickly, her neighbors
recognized her fits as signs being “preternatural”, and some them were “forward enough to
suspect rise of mischief ” in a house nearby – as usual, a suspicious women with so-called
supernatural powers lived close by. 66 Calef then proceeds to describe Increase Mather and
Cotton Mather's visit to Margaret Rule. Calef was present during this visit, not entirely
coincidentally, as he stated: “I with some others were drawn by curiosity to see Margaret Rule,
and so much the rather because it was reported Mr. M -- would be there that Night”. 67 Calef
describes Margaret as “of a healthy countenance of about seventeen Years Old, lying very still,
and speaking very little, what she did say seem'd as if she were Light-Headed”. The Mathers
enter the house, and about thirty to forty people were present. They sat by her bedside and
asked her questions. The conversation that followed between the Mathers and Margaret is
rather long, but it is very useful both for the purpose of discovering the tone of such
conversations, and Calef's view of them.
64
65
66
67
Perry Miller quoted by Kenneth Murdock, in his edition of Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americani
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977) 17.
Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americani, foreword by Kenneth Murdock (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1977) 17-18.
Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, or The Wonders of the Invisible World, Display'd in
Five Parts (1700) 14-15.
Ibid., 24.
Margaret Rule, how do you do? then a pause without any answer.
Question. What do there a great many Witches sit upon you?
Answer. Yes. Q. Do you not know that there is a hard Master?
Then she was in a Fit; He laid his hand upon her Face and Nose,
but, as he said, without perceiving Breath; then he brush'd her on
the Face with his Glove, and ruhb'd her Stomach (her Breast not
covered with the Bed-cloaths) and bid others do so too, and said
it eased her, then she revived. Q. Don't you know there is a hard
Master? A. Yes, Reply; Don't serve that hard Master, you know
who. Q. Do you believe? Then again she was in a Fit, and he
again rub'd her Breast, and c. (about this time Margaret Perd an
attendant assisted him in rubbing of her. The Afflicted spake
angerely to her saying don't you meddle with me, and hastily put
away her hand) be wrought his Fingers before her Eyes and asked
her if she saw the Witches? A. No, Q. Do you believe? A. Yes. Q.
Do you believe in you know who? A. Yes. Q. Would you have other
People do so too, to believe in you know who? A. Yes. Q. Who is it
that Afflicts you? A. I know not, there is a great many of them
(about this time the Father question'd if she knew the Spectres?
An attendant said, if she .did she would not tell; The Son
proceeded) Q. You have seen the Black-man hant you? A: No,
Reply; I hope you never shall. Q. You have had a Book offered
you, hant you? A. No, Q. The brushing of you gives you ease,
don't it? A. Yes. She turn'd her selfe, and a little Groan'd. Q. Now
the Witches Scratch you and Pinch you, and Bite you, don't they?
A. Yes, then be put his Hand upon her Breast and Belly, viz. on
the Cloaths over her, and felt a Living thing. as he said, which
moved the Father also to feel, and some others; Q. Don't you feel
the Live thing in the Bed? A. No. Reply, that is only Fancie. Q. the
great company of People increase your Torment, don't they? A.
Yes. The People about were desired to withdraw. One Woman
said, I am sure I am no Witch, I will not go; so others, so none
withdrew. Q. Shall we go to Prayers, Then she lay in a Fit as
before. But this time to revive her, they waved a Hat and brushed
her Head and Pillow therewith . Q. Shall we go to PRAY, and c.
Spelling the Word. A. Yes. The Father went to Prayer for perhaps
half an Hour, chiefly against the Power of the Devil and Witchcraft,
and that God would bring out the Afflicters: during Prayer-time,
the Son stood by, and when they thought she was in a Fit, rub'd
her and brush'd her as before, and beckoned to others to do the
like, after Prayer he proceeded; Q. You did not hear when we
were at Prayer, did you? A. Yes. You don’t hear always? you don't
hear sometimes past a Word or two, do you? A. No. Then turning
him about said, this is just another Mercy Short: Margaret Perd
reply'd, she was not like her in her Fits. Q. What does she cat or
drink? A. Not eat at all; but drink Rum. Then he admonished the
young People to take warning, and c. Saying it was a sad thing to
be so Tormented by the Devil and his Instruments: A Young-man
present in the habit of a Seaman,reply'd this is the Devil all over,
Than the Ministers withdrew. Soon after they were gon the
Afflicted desired the Women to be gone, saying, that the
Company of the Men was not offensive to her, and having hold of
the hand of a Young-man, said to have been her Sweet-heart
formerly, who was withdrawing; She pull'd him again into his Seat,
saying he should not go to Night.68
While Margaret admitted to Cotton Mather to thinking she was possessed by Satan, what is
most disturbing about this passage is Calef's description of what can very well be seen as
inappropriate behavior by Mather. Margaret did say “the company of the men was not offensive
to her,” but Calef would not have described this situation so detailed if he had not thought
something was not quite right about it. He viewed those actions as “strongly savouring of
Witchcraft.” Throughout the book, Calef denounced Mather's methods. This is an example of
Calef's criticism.
Calef's main critique was, as argued above, that Cotton Mather's methods did not hold
any biblical ground. Mather was a highly intelligent, highly influential minister. Calef questions
his methods of interrogating witches, search for supernatural signs, testing knowledge of the
Lord's Prayer, and therapeutic stroking of bodies, because they had no theoretical background
or real spiritual efficacy. More Wonders of the Invisible World in effect accuses Mather and his
supporters of ritualism: the suggestion was that they must have derived satisfaction from the
process of combating witchcraft. An example is the above described situation with Margaret
Rule. The impression that Calef's summary of that encounter gives is that he thought the
Mathers took a sexual pleasure from the episode. This text encountered much ambiguity in the
Salem community, and Cotton Mather was the first to jump to his own and his father's defense.
He accused Calef of setting out "to make people believe a smutty thing of me" that he must
have known to be false. Calef effectively painted a picture of Mather as a man who made his
community believe in superstitious things and and took advantage of it for his own pleasure. As
a result, the book was of course seen as the “totem of evil:” Increase Mather burned a copy of
it at the Harvard Yard and many pamphlets were written convincing the people of Calef's
mischief.69 Although Robert Calef was not a very important figure in seventeenth century New
68
69
Ibid., 24-25.
Christopher Trigg, “The Devil's Book at Salem”, Early American Literature, vol. 49, no. 1 (2004) 37-65.
England – being a merchant, not a minister or a political figure, nor an expert on theology or
witchcraft - this book has had a large impact on the destruction of Cotton Mather's reputation.
It remains an important work on the subject, and its perspective on Mather has stirred much
thought.
In 1701, an anonymous author published Some Few Remarks, upon a Scandalous Book,
against the Government and Ministry of New-England. This was a protest against Calef's More
Wonders of the Invisible World. Its purpose was “Detecting the Unparrallel'd Malice and
Falsehood. of the said Book; AND defending the Names of several particular Gentlemen, by him
therein aspersed and abused.”70 It set forth to solve any misunderstandings the book created,
since it “as made our worthy Pastors Obnoxious (for ought we know) to hard Censures, among
an unguided multitude.”71 According to this author, many people who read More Wonders of the
Invisible World believed the arguments Calef made in it, which made them lose their faith in
Cotton Mather and henceforth all clergymen. As a result, the ministers had to be more careful
when giving their sermons. This book sought to solve this problem, and also attempted to
defend the persons that were discredited by Calef.
The author of Some Few Remarks thought that the presence of witches at the time was
a symptom of an evil spirit that had fallen over New England. He believed that the clergymen
were doing the right thing by persecuting and setting up trials: “But that God who said, Blessed
are ye when men Revile you, and Persecute you, and speak all manner of Evil of you, falsely for
my sake; will reward them”.72 This author despised Calef and his book for undermining the
clergymen and their trials – he called it “A Fire-brand thrown by a Mad-man”. 73 He argued that
More Wonders of the Invisible World sought to persuade the people to believe that the judges
were “the Unjustest, Cruellest and most Blood-thirsty men”. 74 This author stated that all things
done during the dark times of the witch scare of Salem were done in fullest conscience, and any
mistakes ought to be forgiven:
70
71
72
73
74
Unknown author, Some Few Remarks, upon a Scandalous Book, against the Government and Ministry
of New-England. Written, by one Robert Calef. Detecting the Unparrallel'd Malice and Falsehood of the
said Book; and Defending the Names of several particular Gentlemen, by him therein aspersed and
abused. Composed and Published by several Persons belonging to the Flock of some of the Injured
Pastors, and concerned for their Just Vindication. Truth will come of Conqueror (Boston, N. E: Printed
by T. Green, Sold by Nicholas Boone, 1701) 2.
Ibid.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid.
Ibid., 5.
What was done by them in the dark time of our Troubles from the
Invisible World, all Honest men believe, they did in Conscience of
the Oath of God upon them, and they followed unto the best of
their Understanding as we are informed, the Precedents of
England and Scotland, and other Nations, on such a Dark and
Doleful occasion. When they found the matter carried beyond the
reach of Mortals, they stopt; and the Honourable Lieutenant
Governour, Council and Assembly of the Province, in a Publick
Proclamation for a Fast; called for the Prayers of the Countrey,
That what soever mistakes on either hand have been fallen into,
referring to the late Troubles raised among us by Satan, and his
Instruments, through the awful Judgments of God, he would
Humble us therefore, and Pardon us.75
Thus, all actions were done through best of knowledge and understanding, and all mistakes
made in this quest against Satan would most definitely be forgiven by God. Calef's work, which
condemned Mather and his colleagues for their actions, was therefore a large insult and its
arguments were, according to this anonymous author, extremely inaccurate.
One particular important point of critique that this author had on More Wonders of the
Invisible World was the discrepancy between what Calef stated he would write in his book, and
what he actually wrote. The purpose of the book, as Calef wrote in his preface, was “to prevent
any more such Bloody Victims or Sacrafices, and the Vindication of the Truth”. 76 However, what
he actually did was “lessen the Esteem of those Servants of Christ, (which you make your
chiefelt Butts) among the Lords People”. 77 For instance, Calef was very critical of the fact that
Mather took Martha Goodwin into his home for further observation after she and her siblings
had started their fits. He insinuated Mather did this in order to speed up the trial, as “Within a
day or two after that, the Woman was Executed.” 78 The woman meant here was Goodwife
Glover, who was accused of having caused the Goodwin childrens' fits. The author of Some Few
Remarks was outraged by the fact that Calef would insinuate clergymen such as Cotton Mather
of promoting witch scare or even attempting to convict innocent people. Clergymen were seen
as the wisest of all, and Calef, on the contrary, was only a merchant. In his work, the author
questions Calef's motives of doing so:
75
76
77
78
Ibid.
Ibid., 63.
Ibid.
Ibid., 62.
Surely, it was not to Prove your Principles about Witchcraft: that
would discover the Weakness of your cause, which we don't desire
to meddle with, thinking it fitter for wiser men. Neither was it (we
would hope) to gratify the Ungodly: that would be to appear on
the wrong side. We would gladly suppose, it was not to raise your
your own Credit upon the fall of Theirs, was it? If so, the stone
rolls upon your self.79
Thus, the author was convinced that Calef wrote his book mainly for selfish reasons, to enhance
his own reputation. Being a merchant, this author clearly thought Calef would not be capable of
making a well grounded argument against a man such as Cotton Mather. He continues to
emphasize throughout the text that the clergymen were “the wisest of all men” and that it was
their word that should be trusted. This being an anonymous author, it is not possible to retrieve
any information about his background. However, what can be said is that he was strongly in
favor of the clergy side and possibly a proponent of the trials. It is interesting and important to
note that such a boldly written work, purposely going against Calef, was published only one
year after the publication of More Wonders of the Invisible World.
Critique from the Old World
Francis Hutchinson, who was Bishop of Down and Connor in Northern Ireland, wrote Excerpt of
The Witchcrafts at Salem, Boston, and Andover in New England in 1718. Hutchinson was a
known opponent of witch-hunting. Although he, living in the United Kingdom, had never been
to New England, his arguments are still worthwhile to analyze. Europe has a much larger history
of witch-hunting, and thousands of witches have been burned at the stake in the United
Kingdom. Hutchinson studied several cases of witchcraft and witch trials, and criticized many of
the procedures. He also wrote a book that ended the persecution of witches in England. His
knowledge was thus extensive and he was able to compare many cases to each other. Since
Hutchinson was a part of the Church of Ireland, his opinions will be vastly different from his
Puritan counterparts. Hutchinson argues that many parts of Mather's work were either incorrect
or largely exaggerated. Being a very prominent person, Cotton Mather's words were, according
to Hutchinson, almost always believed: “And, First, It is manifest, that Mr. Mather is magnify'd,
as having great Power over the evil Spirits. A young Man in his Family is represented so holy,
that the Place of his Devotions was a certain Cure of the young Virgin's Fits.” 80 Thus, with his
79
80
Ibid., 63.
Francis Hutchinson, Excerpt of The Witchcrafts at Salem, Boston, and Andover in New England. (in his
Historical essay concerning witchcraft) (1718) 2.
own position and his family's reputation, Cotton Mather was seen as the perfect person to cure
the possessed. This is even reinforced, Hutchinson argues, when taken into consideration that
both he and his father Increase Mather wrote books about witchcraft. They were thus seen as
authorities on the field. That made people very eager to believe them.
Hutchinson had extensive knowledge about witchcraft. This can be seen in his critique of
Mather's episode with Martha Goodwin. According to Hutchinson, Mather's description of
Martha's behavior does not signify symptoms of possession. For instance, he mentions Mather's
description of Martha acting like she was riding an invisible horse. That, he stated, was not a
sign of witchcraft – it was a mere childish fantasy, it definitely did not mean she was possessed.
The same went for Mather's description of Martha imagining she was attending secret witch
meetings. Witches and those possessed, Hutchinson argues, did not imagine secret meetings –
they actually attended them. There was no sign of that with Martha in Memorable Providences.
Witches also had to have made a compact with the Devil, because “Those that have made no
Compact, and are not Witches”.81 There is also no sign of that in Martha's situation, and thus
Hutchinson states: “Those Journeys and Rendezvouzs are not real, but fantastick Things like
Dreams”.82
Furthermore, Hutchinson was known as a fierce opponent of the use of specter
evidence. Mather was also not in favor of them, but Hutchinson presents an even bolder
argument, thereby also going against Mather's methods. Martha imagining riding a horse, and
imagining to attend secret witch meetings, was specter evidence by default. “Mr. Mather, and a
House full of Witnesses often stood by, and saw her at home in her Chair, all the Time that she
thought herself at their Meetings”.83 Thus, it was very clear that those things completely
happened in her imagination – there was no evidence of physical meetings. Hutchinson's
argument against the use of specter evidence was as following: “Courts of Justice may as well
hang People, upon their Confessions, for the Murders they think they commit in their Dreams,
as for what they fancy they do in these Trances.” 84 Hutchinson thus thought the use specter
evidence in court was wrong on about the same level as execute people for crimes they
committed in their dreams would be. He thereby presented an even strong argument against
than Cotton Mather did.
81
82
83
84
Ibid., 5.
Ibid.
Ibid., 5-6.
Ibid., 6.
John Hale, A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft
Another very important Puritan author on witchcraft was Reverend John Hale of Beverly. Hale
played an important role during the trials, as he was one of the most prominent and influential
clergymen associated with them. He is noted as initially being supportive of the trials, but later
on he changed his mind and published a critique. Hale changed his mind about the trials when
his own wife was accused of witchcraft in the fall of 1692 – that made him convinced that the
trials had been a ghastly mistake. It is difficult to find any information about what happened
to Hale's wife, Sarah Noyes Hale, and how her trial went. However, on the website
www.findagrave.com, I found her grave memorial and the dates and locations of her birth and
death. Sarah Noyes Hale died on May 20, 1697, in Beverly, Massachusetts. Since this was nearly
five years after her arrest, and when the witch scare was long over in Massachusetts, it can be
assumed that Sarah Noyes Hale was not executed as a result of her witch trial.
In his book, John Hale tried to draw lessons from the tragedy of his wife's arrest. Perry
Miller described it as a “sad, troubled and honest book, in which one can see the tortured effort
of a devout man who, lacking the arrogance of Mather or the anger of Calef, tried to arrive at
the truth.”85 The full title of this book is A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, and
How Persons Guilty of that Crime may be Convicted: And the means used for their Discovery
Discussed, both Negatively and Affirmatively, according to Scripture and Experience . Hale wrote
this in 1697, just four short years after after the trials ended and Cotton Mather wrote Wonders
of the Invisible World. Remorse about his actions during the trials and the tragedy around the
accusation of his wife led Hale to write a book that informed the reader of betters ways to
determine whether someone was innocent or not. The book also describes the events during
and before the trials and it argues against the use of spectral evidence. He considers it to be
unreliable, as it is difficult to tell whether a case describes mere dream or vivid imagination, or
an actual spectral vision.
John Hale considers Memorable Providences a faithful account of what happened to the
Goodwin children. He describes their sufferings as too cruel to write about, and refers to
Mather's work as a good source for somebody who is interested in finding out about them:
“read Mr. Mather's Book of Memorable Providences, page 3. and you may Read part of what
these Children, and afterwards sundry grown persons suffered by the hand of Satan, as Salem
Village, and parts adjacent, Anno 1691”. 86 However, a large part of A Modest Inquiry is a
85
86
Mappen, Witches & Historians. Interpretations of Salem. 27.
John Hale, A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, and How Persons Guilty of That Crime may
personal account of the trials, as Hale himself was eyewitness to many of the episodes. It is
therefore a view of the events of Salem from the perspective of a very important figure. This
book is not a revengeful piece full of havoc intended to bring down Cotton Mather, which is
what More Wonders of the Invisible World is mainly comprised of. Hale describes his own
experiences and also truly values the work done by Cotton Mather, his fellow minister. Mather
and Hale were in similar positions, as they were both very educated and very influential
ministers, who played an important role during the trials. This is where the key difference
between A Modest Inquiry and More Wonders of the Invisible World lies. Robert Calef was not
educated in theology and did not have the type of background that Mather and Hale had. When
he looked at the trials of Salem, all he could see was the cruelty and perceived injustice and
corruption. He conducted an impressive amount of research, but he looked at it from an entirely
different frame of reference. It was entirely his intention to destroy Cotton Mather's reputation.
John Hale, however, did look at the evidence and the events through the same frame of
reference as Mather. Therefore, he did not scold his actions or his work. It is possible that the
anonymous author mentioned above was also a part of the clergy, thereby looking at Mather's
work with the same eyes. This does not mean that either of them is right or wrong. It is very
important to consider an author's background and perspective.
Samuel Sewall's apology
Another example of a contemporary who drastically changed his opinion over time is Reverend
Samuel Sewall. Samuel Sewall was one of the nine judges appointed to hear the trials in 1692;
five years later he stood up in church in front of fellow members of the congregation while the
ministers read out his apology. None of the other judges followed suit. At first, Sewall was glad
to be chosen as part of the court – glad to be able to to help save the community of Salem of
the wrath of Hell. But as time passed, there were more and more occurrences that made him
disagree with the trials. He did not at all agree with Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World.
For instance, Mather argued that the Indians who settled into Mexico were guided by the Devil,
and that their journey imitated God's conducting of the Israeli through the wilderness. The Devil
took the form of the idol Vitzlipulitzli, and was carried into Mexico on an ark of reeds and
housed at night in a temple. This is part of a tradition of seeing the Native Americans as Simia
Dei, the Ape of God. While Sewall was also fascinated by such parallels, he did not see them as
be Convicted. And the means used for their Discovery Discussed, both Negatively and Affirmatively,
according to Scripture and Experience (1697) 24.
dark parodies – he saw them as evidence of common spiritual ancestry and portents of future
convergence. Marther, on the other hand, argued that this established a crossover with the
alleged witches, who were also aping Christian observances such as baptism and the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper. This did not sit well with Sewall, who was an advocate of Indians rights
and even personally schooled an Indian boy for his admission to Harvard. The trials became
more and more controversial. The debate around spectral evidence flared up, and many people
questioned whether everybody who was accused, was actually guilty. The witchcraft judges
were on trials themselves. Cotton Mather's book was the case for defense. 87
Besides disagreeing with some major points of the justification of witch persecution,
during the first couple of years after the trials several dramas occurred in the family sphere that
made Sewall reconsider his participation in the trial. The house of Samuel and his wife Hannah
caught fire, and part of the roof burned down. A month after the fire, an English naval force
arrived in Boston from the West Indies, en route to attack the French and their Indian allies in
Canada. Fever had broken out on the ships and killed many of the sailors and infantry on board.
It spread into the town of Salem, and Sewall recorded deaths and consternation, people
packing their bags and leaving. A couple months later, Sewall's daughter Jane was born, she
only survived a month. The same had happened to Cotton Mather: his first son was born
severely handicapped and died after three days. More such events occurred in the following
years: Sewall's son Sam was having trouble learning; a newborn daughter, Sarah, began having
fits' another son was born still; a harvest failed, which lead to a scarcity of bread – it went on
and on. Eventually, daughter Sarah became ill and died. Sewall blamed himself for her death,
and decided to deal with his feelings of guilt about the trials of Salem head-first. 88
Five years had passed since the girls of Salem started to behave strangely. During those
five years, the woes of New England and of Sewall's own family seemed to have multiplied
inexorably. Sewall was deeply implicated in the tragedy and had come to feel singled out by
God and man as a cause of the troubles that had descended on his community. A fast, meant
as an attempt to fix the abuses of the witchcraft cases, was coming up. That would be an
occasion for self-examination, an opportunity to confront the sins of the past. It would be the
perfect opportunity for Sewall to present his apology. On the afternoon of January 14, 1697,
Sewall took his place in church. When the minister passed him on his way to the front of the
87
88
Richard Francis, Judge Sewall's Apology. A Biography. The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an
American Conscience (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005) 155-156.
Ibid., 167-178.
meetinghouse, Sewall gave him a paper to read out on his behalf. During the course of service,
Willard duly read it to the assembled people, while Sewall stood up in full view of everybody. 89
Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon
himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the Guilt
contracted, upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer &
Terminer at Salem (to which the order for this Day relates) he is,
upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of,
Desires to take the Blame & Shame of it, Asking pardon of Men,
And especially desiring prayers that God who has an Unlimited
Authority, would pardon that Sin, and all other his Sins; personal,
& Relative: And according to his infinite Benignity, & Soveraignty,
Not Visit the Sin of him, or of any other, upon himself or any of
his, nor upon the Land: But that He would powerfully defend him
against all Temptations to Sin, for the future; and vouchsafe him
to the Efficacious, Saving Conduct of his Word & Spirit. 90
The fact that Sewall apologized was not, in itself, unique. Other people who had been involved
in the trials apologized in their own ways for the parts they had played. Samuel Parris, who was
faced with demands for his dismissal from his post, had addressed his parishioners two years
before Sewall, stating that “God has been righteously spitting me in the face.” He took blame in
himself:
I do most heartily, fervently, and humbly beseech pardon of the
merciful God through the blood of Christ, of all my mistakes and
trespasses in so weighty a matter: and also of all your forgiveness
of every offense in this or other affairs, wherein you see or
conceive I have erred and offended.91
Parris was on one leg about this, however. He was prepared to concede errors that were
attributed to him, but was hardly aware that he had done anything wrong himself. What made
Samuel Sewall's apology unique was not just because of what it revealed about him – his
conscience, his integrity, his sense of responsibility – but because of the way it crystallized and
defined the cultural shift that was taking place in New England during the 1690s. His gesture
represents a moment when an individual's experience merges with that of the community as a
whole, when a single person manages to speak for his generation. None of the other witchcraft
89
90
91
Ibid., 180-181.
Ibid., 181-182.
Ibid., 183.
judges ever made a public apology, which makes Sewall's insistence on taking the blame on his
own shoulders – instead of in a collegiate context, them being a team of judges - even more
remarkable.92
Conclusion
Various opinions were voiced on Cotton Mathers work and his role during the trials. Some of
them were extremely critical, such as Calef's, and eventually, Samuel Sewall's. Others were
more positive and even agreed with him for a large part, such as John Hale's. Overall, it can be
said that fellow clergymen were more likely to agree with Mather. Being a minister, Hale did,
and being a merchant, Calef definitely did not. An exception is Francis Hutchinson, who was a
member of the clergy but still very critical of Mather. However, since he was a member of a
different church - the Church of Ireland -, this rule might not fully apply to him. Background
definitely played an important part in the opinions of Cotton Mather's contemporaries. Since
several, very strong opinions are voiced, it can be argued that he was not seen as an instigator
by “the main group of people”. Clergymen were more apt to stand on his side, and their
influence on the rest of the community was significant. The fact that Calef, as a merchant, was
a firm opponent of Mather does not mean that all merchants thought of him in the same way.
Calef did extremely extensive research of the trials. This was very exceptional, and will not
apply to most people. Thus, I conclude from this chapter that Calef's opinion was not shared
with most people. Most people will have listened to Mather, Hale, and the other ministers, since
they belonged to the most important and most influential people of Puritan society.
92
Ibid., 183-186.
Conclusion
Cotton Mather played an important part in Puritan history, as did most of his family. His direct
ancestors included Increase Mather and John Cotton, both of whom were extremely important
and powerful figures during the first century of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The witch trials
of Salem were an event that had the entire community shaking on its foundations. Peoples'
worst fears had become reality, and it soon turned into mass hysteria. Friends, neighbors, and
family turned each other in and accused each other of terrible things. Cotton Mather's part was
can certainly not be denied. When looking at his written work, it becomes clear that he was
deeply involved. He had done extensive research, and was also very involved on a personal
level. He had taken young Martha Goodwin into his home to study her behavior, and made
personal visits to many of the afflicted girls. He had written a book in which he tried to explain
why this was happening to Salem, and in which he instructed the people how to act and react.
Cotton Mather's contemporaries held varying opinions. His main critic was cloth
merchant Robert Calef, who accused him of making arguments for witchcraft that did not held
any biblical ground, and of acting inappropriately towards the girls he visited. John Hale, on the
other hand, mostly agreed with Mather. He thought that his work was a faithful account of
witchcraft, and he supported Mather's methods. Hale himself actually went on to regret his
involvement in the trials, and there are others among those involved who did the same thing. A
famous example is Samuel Sewall, the only judge who ever apologized for his actions.
According to Perry Miller in From Colony to Province, Cotton Mather himself also deeply
regretted the way he acted in 1692.
The witch trials of Salem were mainly guided by fear, and the concept of witch
persecution itself has very deep roots in the Old World. The mass hysteria that resulted out of
the fear caused by the first outbreaks, caused the trials to get as out of hand as they did.
Cotton Mather played a very important part in the situation – leading, guiding, informing, and
probably also a little bit of encouraging. However, based on my research I have concluded that
he cannot be seen as an instigator or as the reason the trials got as serious as they did. Witch
scare has very old roots that are both cultural and religious. Culturally, before the Scientific
Revolution most people sincerely believed that all evil – disease, death, discomfort – was
caused by evil forces or by other people seeking revenge or havoc. They did not yet know
about natural death and disease, because science was not as far developed yet. Religiously, in
Christianity – Catholicism, Protestantism, Puritanism, etc. - the Devil has always existed as a
force personally responsible for everything that went wrong in the world. It was strengthened
both by the Reformation and the Catholic Inquisition, and it was deeply rooted in Puritan
religion. The witch scares that occurred in Europe before the one in New England were far more
intense – they encompassed huge areas, and hundreds of people got executed by burning at
the stake. With the religious and cultural connections, witch persecuting was bound to find its
way across the Atlantic. Cotton Mather cannot possibly have done much to change the course
of those events, either in the way of encouraging them, or preventing them. However, some of
his contemporaries – especially Robert Calef – have cast him that way, which has caused the
general public to believe he was an instigator for many several centuries.
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