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The executions on Gallows Hill were the climax of one of the most famous events in American history, but the hangings themselves are poorly documented. The precise location and events surrounding the executions have been, until this point, generally lost to history. Read here to find out how a team of experts was able to uncover the exact location.

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Giles Cory has the dubious distinction of being the only person in American history to be pressed to death by a court of law. It is one of the episodes in the Salem witch trials that has captured the American imagination.

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On 27 May 1692, Sir William Phips, the newly appointed royal governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, appointed nine of the colony’s leading magistrates to serve as judges for the newly created Court of Oyer and Terminer. When Phips sailed into Boston from London on 14 May, there were already 38 people in jail for witchcraft, and the accusations and arrests were growing daily.

The post The Salem Witch Trial judges: “persons of the best prudence”? appeared first on OUPblog.

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The Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693 were by far the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in American history. Yet Salem was just one of many incidents during the Great Age of Witch Hunts which took place throughout Europe and her colonies over many centuries. Indeed, by European standards, Salem was not even a large outbreak. But what exactly were the factors that made Salem stand out?

In A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience, Emerson Baker places the Salem trials in their broader context and reveals why it has become an enduring legacy. He explains why the Salem crisis marked a turning point in colonial history from Puritan communalism to Yankee independence, from faith in collective conscience to skepticism toward moral governance. Below is an infographic detailing some of the numbers involved in Salem and other witch hunts.

Download the infographic in jpg or pdf.

Headline image credit: Witchcraft at Salem Village. Engraving. The central figure in this 1876 illustration of the courtroom is usually identified as Mary Walcott. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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On 19 August 1692, George Burroughs stood on the ladder and calmly made a perfect recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Some in the large crowd of observers were moved to tears, so much so that it seemed the proceedings might come to a halt. But Reverend Burroughs had uttered his last words. He was soon “turned off” the ladder, hanged to death for the high crime of witchcraft. After the execution, Reverend Cotton Mather, who had been watching the proceedings from horseback, acted quickly to calm the restless multitude. He reminded them among other things “that the Devil has often been transformed into an Angel of Light” — that despite his pious words and demeanor, Burroughs had been the leader of Satan’s war against New England. Thus assured, the executions would continue. Five people would die that day, one of most dramatic and important in the course of the Salem witch trials. For the audience on 19 August realized that if a Puritan minister could hang for witchcraft, then no one was safe. Their tears and protests were the beginning of the public opposition that would eventually bring the trials to an end. Unfortunately, by the time that happened, nineteen people had been executed, one pressed to death, and five perished in the wretched squalor of the Salem and Boston jails.

The fact that a Harvard-educated Puritan minister was considered the ringleader of the largest witch hunt in American history is one of the many striking oddities about the Salem trials. Yet, a close look at Burroughs reveals that his character and his background personified virtually all the fears and suspicions that ignited witchcraft accusations in 1692. There was no single cause, no simple explanation to why the Salem crisis happened. Massachusetts Bay faced a confluence of events that produced the fears and doubts that led to the crisis. Likewise, a wide range of people faced charges for having supposedly committed diverse acts of witchcraft against a broad swath of the populace. Yet, there were many reasons people were suspicious of George Burroughs, indeed he was the perfect witch.

In 1680 when Burroughs was hired to be the minister of Salem Village he quickly became a central figure in the on-going controversy over religion, politics, and money that would span more than thirty years and result in the departure of the community’s first four ministers. One of Burroughs’s parishioners wrote to him, complaining that “Brother is against brother and neighbors against neighbors, all quarreling and smiting one another.” After a little over two years in office, the Salem Village Committee stopped paying Burroughs’s salary, so he wisely left town to return to his old job, as minister of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine).

George Burroughs spent most of his career in Falmouth, a town on the edge of the frontier. He was fortunate to escape the bloody destruction of the settlement by Native Americans in 1676 (during King Philip’s War) and 1690 (during King William’s War). The latter conflict brought a string of disastrous defeats to Massachusetts, and as many historians have noted, the ensuing war panic helped trigger the witch trials. The war was a spiritual defeat for the Puritan colony as they were losing to French Catholics allied with people they considered to be “heathen” Indians. It seemed Satan’s minions would end the Puritans’ New England experiment. Burroughs was one of many refugees from Maine who were either afflicted by or accused of witchcraft. In addition, most of the judges were military officers as well as speculators in Maine lands that the war had made worthless. Some of the afflicted refugees were suffering what today would be considered post-traumatic shock. Used to the manual labor of the frontier, Burroughs was so incredibly strong that several would testify in 1692 to his feats of supernatural strength. The minister’s seemingly miraculous escapes from Falmouth in 1676 and 1690 also brought him under suspicion. Perhaps he had done so with the help of the devil, or the Indians.

Tainted by his frontier ties, the twice-widowed Burroughs’s personal life and perceived religious views amplified fears of the minister. At his trial, several testified to his secretive ways, his seemingly preternatural knowledge, and his strict rule over his wives. He forbid his wives to speak about him to others, and even censored their letters to family. Meanwhile the afflicted said they saw the specters of Burroughs’s late wives, who claimed he murdered them. The charges were groundless. However, his controlling ways and the spectacular testimony against him at least raised the question of domestic abuse. Such perceived abuse of authority — at the family, community or colony-wide level — is a common thread linking many of Salem’s accused.

Some observers believed Burroughs was secretive because they suspected he was a Baptist. This Protestant sect had legal toleration but like the Quakers, was considered dangerous by most Massachusetts Puritans because of their belief in adult baptism and adult-only membership in the church. Burroughs admitted to the Salem judges that he had not recently received Puritan communion and had not baptized his younger children (both signs that he might be a Baptist). His excuse was that he was never ordained and hence could not lead the communion service, nor could he baptize children. However, since Burroughs left his post in Maine, he admitted he had visited Boston and Charlestown and had failed to take advantage of these rights there.

Even if he was not a Baptist, as a Puritan minister he was at risk. Burroughs was just one of five ministers cried out upon in 1692. Fully, 30 percent of the people accused were ministers, their immediate family members, or extended kin. In many ways, the witch trials were a critique of the religious and political policies of the colony. But that is another story.

Header image taken by Emerson W. Baker.

The post George Burroughs: Salem’s perfect witch appeared first on OUPblog.

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Jake’s plan for a carefree holiday at a musical performing arts camp in the Windy City hits a sour note when he stumbles upon a long-hidden message from his mother, art historian Karen McGreevy. She had traveled to Chicago thirteen years earlier on a dream assignment, never to return home. With his violin and his mother’s mysterious letter in hand, Jake, his best friend Julie, and new pals Ben and Natalie are heading west, where they will follow the clues and uncover the truth about a missing masterpiece, the meaning of friendship, and the enduring bond between a mother and her son.

Coming in November from MB Publishing!

A thrilling graphic novel adventure that unlocks the mysteries of ancient Egypt!

The Egyptian capital of Cairo is a buzzing hive of treasure hunters, thrill-seekers, and adventurers, but to 12-year-old Ronald “Rocket” Robinson, it’s just another sticker on his well worn suitcase. But when Rocket finds a strange note written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, he stumbles into an adventure more incredible than anything he’s ever dreamt of.

Rocket and his friends soon run afoul of master criminal Otto Von Stürm, who’s planning the theft of the greatest treasure in history—an ancient pharaoh’s fortune, secretly hidden for centuries. To stop him, they’ll have to de-code an ancient riddle, solve a cryptic puzzle, face off hungry crocodiles, and navigate a centuries-old labyrinth full of traps. All while staying one step ahead of Otto’s bloodthirsty goons.

The streets of Cairo come alive in Sean O’Neill’s lively, vibrant, full-color illustrated pages. Young fans of ancient Egypt will immediately be drawn in by the references to hieroglyphics, mummies, pyramids, and pharaoh’s tombs, all lavishly illustrated in O’Neill’s fun, accessible style.

Coming in October from BoilerRoom Studios.

The Survivors: Body & Blood is the third installment of The Survivors Series!

How many answers you seek are just a part of you, waiting to be found?

The game has changed.

Fresh from her first brush with mortality, a fragile Sadie Matthau is playing human with Cole Hardwick while the Survivors endure unimaginable tragedy. Wrought with the first deaths of their own kind, a tyrant who will torture them, and an opponent more terrifying than anyone could have foreseen, the Survivors are facing their end.

Told from three points of view, The Survivors: Body & Blood is a bloodcurdling, mind-bending, heart-stopping ride. As Sadie and the Winters uncover more enemies, more history, and more answers, they find themselves brought closer together and ripped further apart. And all the while, a haunting Alexander Raven lurks at the edge of Sadie s lifeline, at the darkening fringes of her mind.

As the Survivors descend into chaos, Sadie realizes a painful truth: the deepest of secrets leave the darkest of marks.

Caught between a terrifying fantasy and her own grim reality, Body & Blood is the story of Sadie s dance with her demons, future, past, and present.

Released July 2013 from Chafie Press, LLC.

 

Filled with terrific suspense and budding romance, Daughter of Camelot is a fast paced adventure set against the turmoil at the end of the Arthurian era.

Raised in the shadow of a fort dedicated to training Knights of the Round Table, Deirdre thirsts for adventure.

Instead, at 14, she is sent to court to learn the etiquette and talents of a young woman.

Court life, however, is more fraught with danger than she expected, and Deirdre finds herself entangled in a deadly conspiracy that stretches deep into the very heart of Camelot.

All Deirdre thought she knew and believed in—loyalty, love, bravery—is challenged when she embarks on a quest to defy Fate and save the King.

Coming in September 2013 from Mabon Publishing.

 

 

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This Day in World History - In the fatal climax of months of turmoil, six women and two men were hanged in Salem, Massachusetts, after having been found guilty of witchcraft. The eight were the last victims of a witchcraft hysteria that gripped Salem and other towns in Massachusetts in 1692. The tumult began in February 1692, when several young girls began to behave strangely and complained of physical torments. Soon, the girls were accusing women in the village of being witches. Witchcraft was a capital offense at the time, and colonial leaders set up a court to investigate. In all, about 140 people—86% of whom were women—were accused of witchcraft in Salem.

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Does anyone know of some good books (fiction or nonfiction, but preferably fiction) concerning the Salem witch trials? I've got The Witch of Blackbird Bond, which I'm about to read, but this subject intrigues me and any other suggestions would be most welcome.

Thank you...!

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Alicia Gaspar de Alba has done it again, created an incredibly arresting novel, Calligraphy of the Witch. It’s a deeply emotional story with some of the same flavor as Gaspar de Alba’s important 1999 novel, Sor Juana’s Second Dream. In Calligraphy of the Witch, a character from Sor Juana’s convent—the nun’s scribe, in fact—frees a slave from the sadistic Mother Superior and they flee hopefully to freedom they seek in a black colony near Vera Cruz. But Aléndula, the slave, and Concepción Benavídez, the amanuensis, are captured by a Dutch slaver and carried into rape and captivity, up to Boston.

The pirate captain’s surname, de Graaf, is too much for the British tongue, so he’s been christened Seagraves by the Boston merchants. When he sells Concepción as a slave, her given name is irrelevant and the Greenwoods name her Thankful Seagraves, in honor of her freedom to be their slave.

Gaspar de Alba partitions Concepción’s story into manageable parts. An introduction in a daughter’s voice. The brutal voyage from New Spain, her earliest years in Boston, a middle passage when Thankful Seagraves is married to the old man Tobias Webb--Goody Greenwood’s father-- Concepción’s trial and imprisonment as a witch, and the end story. Several passages are typeset in script in the manner of a scribe. Fortunately, the script font is entirely legible, thus adding to the reading experience.

The voyage to New England for the twenty-something Concepción is one rape after another followed by beating and all manner of brutality. Unknown to the dark-skinned de Graaf, he’s impregnated the girl with his blonde genes. That’s what Concepción’s daughter looks like, far more resembling Rebecca Greenwood’s blonde blue-eyedness than the mestiza birth mother’s brown skin and bi-colored eyes.

The merchant Greenwoods have been unable to sire another offspring, so Rebecca starts a devious program to steal the child and raise the girl as her own daughter. This entails turning the child against the mother in truly horrific ways. The culture of the Visible Saints breeds hatred into the child, and when the mother Thankful Seagraves is arrested for witchery, her Popery, the devilish Spanish tongue the mother speaks provide persuasive evidence of guilt. Even more persuasive is the brainswashed daughter has provided the most damning evidence, such as the devil’s own creed embroidered on a cloth the mother lovingly insisted the child memorize:

Hombres necios que acusáis
a la mujer sin razón,
sin ver que sois la ocasión
de lo mismo que culpáis:

si con ansia sin igual
solicitáis su desdén,
¿por qué queréis que obren bien
si las incitáis al mal?

Forced to translate, Concepcíon recognizes how Sor Juana’s satire could turn itself into evidence before the clouded evil of Cotton Mather and his ilk:

Whose is the greater fault
In an errant passion?
She who falls for pleading,
Oh he who, fallen, pleads?
Who is more to blame,
Although both be guilty of transgression,
She who sins for a commission,
Or he who for sin will pay?

Hence with much logic do I unravel
That men’s arrogance wins the battle
For in ways direct or subtle
Men are the sum of world and flesh and devil.

With Concepción’s differences with her world viewed therein as not mere deficits but signs of evil, the reader is not surprised at the tragic consequences that befall the Mexican slave. Yet, the author keeps the reader hanging on every incident and development. Despite foreshadowing the story’s most tragic elements—the novel’s introduction in the estranged daughter’s voice, the seer’s vision that daughter would be stolen by the barren merchant’s wife and turned against mother, Concepción’s education at Sor Juana’s hand plopped in the middle of superstitious Puritans—Gaspar de Alba keeps a reader in thrall through every incident and stomach-turning violation.

Against these fearful pressures, Alicia Gaspar de Alba builds an almost unbearable tension. Will the innocent woman be hanged as were others? Will the daughter discover the truth, and if discovered, accept it? What could possibly save Concepción from the inevitable? So intense does the author build the tension that the reader keeps turning pages repeating the incantation, “it’s only fiction, it’s only a story”.

An excellent story, and, as one would expect, more than a mere historical exercise. There’s a strong contemporaneity in Concepcíon Benavídes’ Thankful Seagraves story that reflects our times or echoes themes of earlier literatura chicana. An uneven struggle for identity caught in the conflict between the weaker Spanish-speaking culture and the dominant English-speaking world creates strength in the parent but a burning desire of the daughter not to be seen as her mother’s child. As the witch hysteria begins to cool, the validity of confessions won through torture takes on a clarity for some that others refuse to accept. An underlying greed and covetousness masked by the guise of righteousness infects the rise and ebb of injustice.

Concepcíon is one of those flies to wanton gods who bounces helplessly from powerful enemy to powerful enemy until the abuse grows too great. Much of the tension in Calligraphy of the Witch grows from the seemingly total helplessness of women and the evil of men. What’s a woman to do? When Greenwood’s lust turns to rape, in a blind rage Thankful Seagraves wraps a rope around her former owner’s neck and throttles him good. The reader’s heart leaps with joy, so completely evil a character Gaspar de Alba has crafted, then sinks in dread. Had she killed him, there could be no possibility of reprieve. But what of hope? When a woman is battered so much that her only recourse seems to be murder, what should she, what can she do?

Among Concepcíon’s practices is writing letters to Sor Juana, Aléndula, and Concepcíon’s mother, only to burn them later, in the woods. This deviltry becomes evidence against her in her witchery trial. But in one such letter, the scribe offers a lesson she hopes her daughter might one day profit from:

“Aléndula once told me that there are always four choices to every decision: the wise choice, the foolish choice, the safe choice, and the choice that someone else makes for you. “

In the end, Hanna Jeremiah Greenwood, née Juana Jerónima Benavídez, is faced with this logic. It is 1704. Her mother has been gone a decade, and Mama Becca has died, too. Hanna Jerónima, la bebita de Concepcíon is a mother of twins whom she’s named in English after herself and her unknown Mexican grandmother. Daughter comes to a point in her life when she can finally shed herself of all that heritage and go on with her English life. She will make one of those four choices, either leaving the reader frustrated, or completely frustrated, either a little joyful or fully relieved. In that welter of emotions will be a bit of sadness accepting that the story did have finally to end.

La Bloga welcomes your comments and observations and this or any column. Equally welcome are guest columnists. Please express your interest in being our guest by clicking here, or leaving a comment during the week.

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Chicago Sun-Times book editor Teresa Budasi writes about selecting titles for review: "In some cases I know which titles to look out for, but mostly I'm surprised by what I find." On her new she is choosing a Book of the Day on the basis of "what catches my eye, whether it be a colorful book jacket, provocative titles or subject matter, the size or shape of the book or even a funny-sounding author's name.” Read the resulting blog here.

And I think it’s true that an eye-catching color or a great book jacket can make or break a book, like this gorgeous book that never quite lived up to its jacket. (Oddly enough, they colored it green for the paperback, which I don’t think did it any favors.) But it was still pretty good, a clever idea with a bit less engrossing execution.





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