SALEM WITCHCRAFT AND COTTON MATHER. A REPLY.

LETTER TO STEPHEN SEWALL. "WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD." ITS ORIGIN AND DESIGN. COTTON MATHER'S ACCOUNT OF THE TRIALS.

Torture

There is reason to apprehend that much cruelty was practised upon the Prisoners, especially to force them to confess. The statements made by John Proctor, in his letter to the Ministers, are fully entitled to credit, from his unimpeached honesty of character, as well as from the position of the persons addressed. It is not to be imagined, that, at its date, on the twenty-third of July, twelve days before his trial, he would have made, in writing, such declarations to them, had they not been true. He says that brutal violence was used upon his son to induce him to confess. He also states that two of the children of Martha Carrier were 'tied neck and heels, till the blood was ready to come out of their noses.' The outrages, thus perpetrated, with all the affrighting influences brought to bear, prevailed over Carrier's children. Some of them were used as witnesses against her. A little girl, not eight years old, was made to swear that she was a witch; that her mother, when she was six years old, made her so, baptizing her, and compelling her "to set her hand to a book," and carried her, 'in her spirit,' to afflict people; that her mother, after she was in prison, came to her in the shape of a black cat; and that the cat told her it was her mother. Another of her children testified that he, and still another, a brother, were witches, and had been present, in spectre, at Witch-sacraments, telling who were there, and where they procured their wine. All this the mother had to hear.

In other words, using torture to extract confessions is not something that is new to suspected terrorists prisoners; it was used on regular, every-day type people to extract confessions about demonic activitites.

Thomas Carrier, her husband, had, a year or two before, been involved in a controversy about the boundaries of his lands, in which hard words had passed. The energy of character, so strikingly displayed by his wife, at her Examination, rendered her liable to incur animosities, in the course of a neighborhood feud. The whole force of angry superstition had been arrayed against her; and she became the object of scandal, in the form it then was made to assume, the imputation of being a witch.

This is something that is very important. More modern materials are examining the nature of how neighborhood feuds had an influence on the trials. Also, any woman that tended to stand out in her behavior, and not behave in a meek and submissive manner, was an open target.

Her Minister, Mr. Dane, in a strong and bold letter, in defence of his parishioners, many of whom had been accused, says: 'There was a suspicion of Goodwife Carrier among some of us, before she was apprehended, I know.' He avers that he had lived above forty years in Andover, and had been much conversant with the people, 'at their habitations;that, hearing that some of his people were inclined to indulge in superstitions stories, and give heed to tales of the kind, he preached a Sermon against all such things; and that, since that time, he knew of no person that countenanced practices of the kind; concluding his statement in these words: "So far as I had the understanding of any thing amongst us, do declare, that I believe the reports have been scandalous and unjust, neither will bear the light.'

Her own minister defends her.

Atrocious as were the outrages connected with the prosecutions, in 1692, none, it appears to me, equalled those committed in the case of Martha Carrier. The Magistrates who sat and listened, with wondering awe, to such evidence from a little child against her mother, in the presence of that mother, must have been bereft, by the baleful superstitions of the hour, of all natural sensibility. They countenanced a violation of reason, common sense, and the instincts of humanity, too horrible to be thought of.

The unhappy mother felt it in the deep recesses of her strong nature. That trait, in the female and maternal heart, which, when developed, assumes a heroic aspect, was brought out in terrific power. She looked to the Magistrates, after the accusing girls had charged her with having 'killed thirteen at Andover," with a stern bravery to which those dignitaries had not been accustomed, and rebuked them: 'It is a shameful thing, that you should mind those folks that are out of their wits;' and then, turning to the accusers, said, 'You lie, and I am wronged.' This woman, like all the rest, met her fate with a demeanor that left no room for malice to utter a word of disparagement, protesting her innocence. Mather witnessed her execution; and in a memorandum to the report, written in the professed character of an historian, having great compassion for "surviving relatives,' calls her a 'rampant hag.'

Bringing young children to swear away the life of their mother, was probably felt by the Judges to be too great a shock upon natural sensibilities to be risked again, and they were not produced at the trial; but Mather, notwithstanding, had no reluctance to publish the substance of their testimony, as what they would have sworn to if called upon; and says they were not put upon the stand, because there was evidence enough without them.

This is, of course, getting about as low as you can get; torturing a child until she is willing to denounce her own mother.