The Penguin Book of Witches

by Katherine Howe

  But though this be their main design, to take off people from those evil and bloody ways of trial which they speak so much against, yet this does not hinder to this day, but the same evil ways or as bad are still used to detect them by, and that even among Protestants. And is so far justified that a reverend person has said lately here, How else shall we detect witches? And another being urged to prove by scripture such a sort of witch as has power to send devils to kill men replied that he did as firmly believe it as any article of his faith. And that he (the inquirer) did not go to the scripture to learn the mysteries of his trade or art. What can be said more to establish there heathenish notions and to vilify the scriptures, our only rule, and that after we have seen such dire effects thereof, as has threatened the utter extirpation of this whole country.

  And as to most of the actors in these tragedies, though they are so far from defending their actions that they will readily own that undue steps have been taken, et cetera. Yet it seems they choose that the same should be acted over again, enforced by their example, rather than that it should remain as a warning to posterity, wherein they have missed it. So far are they from giving glory to God and taking the due shame to themselves.

  And now to sum up all in a few words, we have seen a bigoted zeal stirring up a blind and most bloody rage, not against enemies or irreligious profligate persons but (in judgment of charity, and to view) against as virtuous and religious as any they have left behind them in this country, which have suffered as evildoers with the utmost extent of rigor (not that so high a character is due to all that suffered) and this by the testimony of vile varlets as not only were known before but have been further apparent since by their manifest lives, whoredoms, incest, et cetera. The accusations of these, from their spectral sight, being the chief evidence against those that suffered. In which accusations they were upheld by both magistrates and ministers, so long as they apprehended themselves in no danger.

  And then though they could defend neither the doctrine nor the practice, yet none of them have in such a public manner as the case requires testified against either, though at the same time they could not but be sensible what a stain and lasting infamy they have brought upon the whole country, to the endangering the future welfare not only of this but of other places, induced by their example; if not, to an entailing the guilt of all the righteous blood that has been by the same means shed by heathens or papists, et cetera, upon themselves, whose deeds they have so far justified, occasioning the great dishonor and blasphemy of the name of God, scandalizing the heathen, hardening of enemies; and as a natural effect thereof, to the great increase of atheism.

  A CASE OF POISONING IN ALBANY, NEW YORK 1700

  Within Puritan North America, the native populations were associated with the Devil in both figurative and literal ways. Salem, however, was not the only setting for witch anxiety and uncertainty about the non-Christian practices of native populations. The following account conflates both confusions about native practice with lingering Protestant North American anxiety about territorial clashes with Catholic French Canada.1

  An execution for witchcraft took place in Albany, in the year 1700, related in a communication of the Earl of Bellomont to the lords of trade and plantations. As it is sufficiently concise for our purpose, and graphically sketched, it follows in his own words.

  Aquendero, the chief Sachem2 of the Onondaga Nation, who was prolocutor for all the five nations at the conference I had two years ago at Albany, has been forced to fly from thence, and come to live on Colonel Schuyler’s land near Albany. Aquendero’s son is poisoned and languishes, and there is a sore broke out on one of his sides, out of which there comes handfuls of hair, so that they reckon he has been bewitched as well as poisoned.

  I met with an old story from the gentlemen of Albany, which I think worth relating. Decanniffore, one of the Sachems of the Onondagas, married one of the Praying Indians3 in Canada. This woman was taught to poison as well as to pray. The Jesuits4 had furnished her with so subtle a poison and taught her a legerdemain in using it, so that whoever she had a mind to poison, she would drink to them a cup of water, and let drop the poison from under her nails (which are always very long, for the Indians never pare them) into the cup. This woman was so true a disciple to the Jesuits that she has poisoned a multitude of our five nations that were best affected to us. She, lately coming from Canada in company of some of our Indians who went to visit their relations in that country who have taken sides with the French, and there being among others a Protestant Mohawk (a proper goodly young man), him this woman poisoned so that he died two days’ journey short of Albany, and the magistrates of that town sent for his body and gave it a Christian burial. The woman comes to Albany, where some of the Mohawks happening to be, and among them a young man nearly related to the man that had been poisoned, who, espying the woman, cries out with great horror that there was that beastly woman that had poisoned so many of their friends, and it was not fit she should live any longer in this world to do more mischief; and so made up to her, and with a club beat out her brains.

  JOHN HALE, A MODEST ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF WITCHCRAFT 1702

  John Hale was serving as a minister in Beverly, the town just north of Salem, and was one of the first Puritan ministers summoned to observe the behavior of the afflicted girls at Salem Village. He started out as a proponent of the trials, but his tenor changed as the accusations spread, finally touching Hale’s own wife. His change of heart was penned in 1697 but published only after his death in 1700, and represents one of the early cacophony of voices that attempted to grapple with not only what Salem says about witchcraft in general but also what it says about justice.

  A MODEST ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF WITCHCRAFT1

  Chapter 2. 1. In the latter end of the year 1691, Mr. Samuel Parris, pastor of the church in Salem Village, had a daughter of nine and a niece of about eleven years of age sadly afflicted of they knew not what distempers. And he made his application to physicians, yet still they grew worse. And at length one physician gave his opinion that they were under an evil hand. This the neighbors quickly took up and concluded they were bewitched. He had also an Indian manservant and his wife who afterward confessed that without the knowledge of their master or mistress, they had taken some of the afflicted persons’ urine, and mixing it with meal had made a cake,2 and baked it to find out the witch, as they said.

  After this, the afflicted persons cried out of the Indian woman, named Tituba, that she did pinch, prick, and grievously torment them, and that they saw her here and there, where nobody else could. Yea, they could tell where she was, and what she did, when out of their human sight. These children were bitten and pinched by invisible agents; their arms, necks, and backs turned this way and that way, and returned back again, so as it was impossible for them to do of themselves, and beyond the power of any epileptic fits or natural disease to effect. Sometimes they were taken dumb, their mouths stopped, their throats choked, their limbs wracked and tormented so as might move an heart of stone to sympathize with them, with bowels of compassion for them. I will not enlarge in the description of their cruel sufferings, because they were in all things afflicted as bad as John Goodwin’s children at Boston in the year 1689. So that he that will read Mr. Mather’s Book of Memorable Providences, page 3, et cetera, may read part of what these children, and afterward sundry grown persons suffered by the hand of Satan, at Salem Village and parts adjacent, anno 1691/2. Yet there was more in these sufferings than in those at Boston, by pins invisibly stuck into their flesh pricking with irons (as in part published in a book printed 1693, namely, The Wonders of the Invisible World). Mr. Parris, seeing the distressed condition of his family, desired the presence of some worthy gentlemen of Salem, and some neighbor ministers to consult together at his house, who, when they came and had enquired diligently into the sufferings of the afflicted, concluded they were preternatural and feared the hand of Satan was in them.

 
2. The advice given to Mr. Parris by them was that he should sit still and wait upon the providence of God to see what time might discover and to be much in prayer for the discovery of what was yet secret. They also examined Tituba, who confessed the making of a cake, as is above mentioned, and said her mistress in her own country was a witch, and had taught her some means to be used for the discovery of a witch and for the prevention of being bewitched, et cetera, but said that she herself was not a witch.

  3. Soon after this, there were two or three private fasts at the minister’s house, one of which was kept by sundry neighbor ministers, and after this, another in public at the village, and several days afterward of public humiliation, during these molestations, not only there, but in other congregations for them. And one general fast by order of the general court, observed throughout the colony to seek the Lord that he would rebuke Satan and be a light unto his people in this day of darkness. But I return to the history of these troubles. In a short time after, other persons who were of age to be witnesses were molested by Satan, and in their fits cried out upon Tituba and Goody Osburn and Sarah Good, that they or specters in their shapes did grievously torment them. Hereupon some of their village neighbors complained to the magistrates at Salem, desiring they would come and examine the afflicted and accused together, the which they did. The effect of which examination was that Tituba confessed she was a witch and that she with the two others accused did torment and bewitch the complainers, and that these with two others whose names she knew not had their witch meeting together, relating the times when and places where they met, with many other circumstances to be seen at large. Upon this the said Tituba and Osburn and Sarah Good were committed to prison upon suspicion of acting witchcraft. After this the said Tituba was again examined in prison, and owned her first confession in all points, and then was herself afflicted and complained of her fellow witches tormenting of her for her confession and accusing them, and being searched by a woman, she was found to have upon her body the marks of the Devil’s wounding of her.

  4. Here were these things rendered her confession credible. (1.) That at this examination she answered every question just as she did at the first. And it was thought that if she had feigned her confession, she could not have remembered her answers so exactly. A liar, we say, had need of a good memory, but truth being always consistent with itself is the same today as it was yesterday. (2.) She seemed very penitent for her sin in covenanting with the Devil. (3.) She became a sufferer herself, and as she said for her confession. (4.) Her confession agreed exactly (which was afterward verified in the other confessors) with the accusations of the afflicted. Soon after these afflicted persons complained of other persons afflicting of them in their fits, and the number of the afflicted and accused began to increase. And the success of Tituba’s confession encouraged those in authority to examine others that were suspected, and the event was that more confessed themselves guilty of the crimes they were suspected for. And thus was this matter driven on.

  5. I observed in the prosecution of these affairs that there was in the justices, judges and others concerned, a conscientious endeavor to do the thing that was right. And to that end they consulted the presidents of former times and precepts laid down by learned writers about witchcraft. As Keeble on the common law, Chapt. Conjuration, (an author approved by the twelve judges of our nation). Also Sir Mathew Hale’s trial of witches, printed anno 1682. Glanville’s collection of sundry trials in England and Ireland in the years 1658, ’61, ’63, ’64, and ’81.3 Bernard’s guide to jurymen, Baxter and R. Burton, their histories about witches and their discoveries. Cotton Mather’s Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts, printed anno 1689.

  6. But that which chiefly carried on this matter to such an height was the increasing of confessors till they amounted to near about fifty. And four or six of them upon their trials owned their guilt of this crime, and were condemned for the same, but not executed. And many of the confessors confirmed their confessions with very strong circumstances: As their exact agreement with the accusations of the afflicted; their punctual agreement with their fellow confessors; their relating the times when they covenanted with Satan, and the reasons that moved them thereunto; their witch meetings, and that they had their mock sacraments of baptism and the supper, in some of them, their signing the Devil’s book. And some showed the scars of the wounds which they said were made to fetch blood with to sign the Devil’s book. And some said they had imps to suck them, and showed sores raw where they said they were sucked by them.

  7. I shall give the reader a taste of these things in a few instances. The afflicted complained that the specters which vexed them urged them to set their hands to a book represented to them (as to them it seemed) with threatenings of great torments if they signed not, and promises of ease if they obeyed. Among these D. H.4 did as she said (which sundry others confessed afterwards) being overcome by the extremity of her pains, sign the book presented, and had the promised ease; and immediately upon it a specter in her shape afflicted another person and said, I have signed the book and have ease, now do you sign, and so shall you have ease. And one day this afflicted person pointed at a certain place in the room, and said, there is D. H., upon which a man with his rapier struck at the place, though he saw no shape; and the afflicted called out, saying, you have wounded her side, and soon after the afflicted person pointed at another place, saying, there she is, whereupon a man struck at the place, and the afflicted said, you have given her a small prick about the eye. Soon after this, the said D. H. confessed herself to be made a witch by signing the Devil’s book as above said; and declared that she had afflicted the maid that complained of her, and in doing of it had received two wounds by a sword or rapier, a small one about the eye, which she showed to the magistrates, and a bigger on the side of which she was searched by a discreet woman, who reported that D. H. had on her side the sign of a wound newly healed. This D. H. confessed that she was at a witch meeting at Salem Village, where were many persons that she named, some of whom were in prison then or soon after upon suspicion of witchcraft. And the said G. B.5 preached to them, and such a woman was their deacon, and there they had a sacrament.

  8. Several others after this confessed the same things with D. H. In particular Goody F6 said (inter alia7) that she with two others (one of whom acknowledged the same) rode from Andover to the same village witch meeting upon a stick above ground, and that in the way the stick brake, and gave the said F. a fall. Whereupon, said she, I got a fall and hurt of which I am still sore. I happened to be present in prison when this F. owned again her former confession to the magistrates. And then I moved she might be further questioned about some particulars. It was answered the magistrates had not time to stay longer; but I should have liberty to examine her farther by myself. The which thing I did, and I asked her if she rode to the meeting on a stick. She said yea. I enquired what she did for victuals. She answered that she carried bread and cheese in her pocket and that she and the Andover company came to the village before the meeting began, and sat down together under a tree and eat their food, and that she drank water out of a brook to quench her thirst.8 And that the meeting was upon a plain grassy place, by which was a cart path, and sandy ground in the path, in which were the tracks of horses’ feet. And she also told me how long they were going and returning. And some time after told me she had some trouble upon her spirit, and when I enquired what she said she was in fear that G. B. and M. C.9 would kill her; for they appeared unto her (in specter, for their persons were kept in other rooms in the prison) and brought a sharp pointed iron like a spindle, but four square, and threatened to stab her to death with it because she had confessed her witchcraft and told of them that they were with her, and that M. C. above named was the person that made her a witch. About a month after, the said F. took occasion to tell me the same story of her fears that G. B. and E. C. would kill her, and that the thing was much for her spirits.

  THE TRIAL OF GRACE SHER
WOOD, PRINCESS ANNE COUNTY, VIRGINIA 1705–1706

  Not all witches were found in New England, though the trial of Grace Sherwood in Virginia clearly bears the marks of legal anxiety following the Salem debacle. Sherwood had suffered a poor reputation for some time and was ultimately brought to trial. Several aspects of her trial will look familiar, most particularly the creation of a jury of women to search Sherwood’s body for the telltale witch’s teat where she would have suckled her familiar spirit. The jury went even further, resorting to a diagnostic technique very rarely used in North America: the ducking stool.1 However, they felt unsure of their method or of the best way to interpret their results. Sherwood was found guilty, but without the fatal outcome that she would have incurred only a decade earlier. In effect, Sherwood marks the transition of belief in witchcraft from a legal concern to being a more purely social one.2

  The record here given for the trial of Grace Sherwood for witchcraft was presented by the late J. P. Cushing, president of Hampden Sydney College, to the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society, and published in their collections. While it throws some light on the state of society of that time, it evinces that persecution for witchcraft was not alone in our country confined to the Puritans of New England. There, it will be recollected, was shown a noble example of the strength of moral principle on the part of the accused, for they had only to declare themselves guilty and their lives were spared.3 Rather than do this, many suffered death. Grace Sherwood met a milder fate. The place where she was ducked is a beautiful inlet making up from Lynnhaven Bay, which to this day is called Witch’s Duck.4