Been thinking a lot lately about Early American history, specifically the Salem witch trials. These dark thoughts, and feelings, are due to a recent trip to the Boston area. I set out to tour nearby Salem, that beautiful small New England town … where such horrible murderous crimes against mostly women occurred back in 1692—long before the United States of America was declared a new nation on earth.
From what is learned at the Salem Witch Museum, the town’s witch hunt started when a couple of adolescent girls, preacher’s daughters, swore their African slave was a witch. The female slave, only a few years older than a teen herself, had been telling the girls scary folk tales from her Caribbean culture. The Puritan girls were already living in a territory of Natives whom they naturally feared and considered strange in color, dress, language, music and religion. And the Puritans believed in literal and strict adherence to Bible teachings, and anyone who did not was condemned to eternal hell fire. Many a lengthy Sunday sermon warned of evil forces cast by the devil himself, always out to trick humans in order to damn their souls forever and ever and ever.
Besides the slave’s peculiar tales from the dark side, she was known to make herbal concoctions to cure ailments and reduce pain and suffering. The year 1692 was on the cusp of The Enlightenment, already catching on in progressive Europe. But in many ways Early American life remained entrenched in the Middle Ages. In the New World, many of our colonizing forefathers were an Anglo clan skeptical of new discoveries and philosophical thought that would deem clinging to the Old World ridiculous and ignorant. Nobody wants to be called ignorant.
Hang ’em high
So in 1692 Salem, the black slave girl suddenly found herself jailed and presented in trial where the preacher’s daughters and other adolescent girls in the community accused her of witchcraft: this by displaying before a jury—and in the presence of the alleged witch—convulsions, fits, contortions, hives, even speaking in tongues. The slave was judged guilty of being a witch, thereby creating a community menace, and was summarily hung.
But then there would be another woman and another and another and another who would be jailed, briefly tried and quickly found guilty of practicing witchcraft. By the end of this peculiar period in American history, a good twenty innocent women and a couple of men were killed by the words, actions and hands of their own neighbors. One condemned man was pressed to death. A couple hundred Salem citizens as well as their children remained jailed indefinitely, again for the charge of witchcraft.
The Salem witch trials were halted only when a governing official from Boston found out what was going on. He ordered the ‘witch’ trials to be judged by citizens who were not members of the preacher’s church and to stop hysterical teen testimony (which included their uncanny ability to see the evil spirit of an alleged witch). The Enlightenment of rational human thought and reason finally shined bright upon New England’s shores and ended the witch hunt at least in that neck of the woods.
Today Salem is picturesque with a charming town square centered by a century-old bandstand, shaded by tall aged trees and encircled by a walking track and park benches. The Salem Witch Museum is located right outside the square in a former Unitarian Church, built in spooky Gothic Revival style. A walk through the town reveals Salem residents and shop owners have handled the town’s notorious past with humor, another American trait. There are several New Age, Eastern religion, and ‘witchy’ shops along with psychic readers. The town’s graveyard includes a preserved area for the condemned of 1692 marked by a jagged row of tombstones where visitors leave flowers. Indeed this section of the cemetery is wonderfully fragrant—perhaps indicating the human spirit never dies.
The Museum includes a world history presentation about ‘witches’: from ancient pagan women, who learned the herbal folk trade and midwife duties from their mothers; to practitioners of Wicca, a religion that worships God through nature. Our ancient ancestors were in tune with earthly elements, believing every ailment and disease could be cured by what grows here on earth, and they paid reverence to the ever-changing seasons—Halloween being the most important day of the cyclic year.
Scared senseless
The Salem witch trials are intriguing. I mean, what kind of person would believe another person is a witch, working behind the scenes with the devil just to drag thousands of souls to hell? And what adult today would believe a group of hysterical teens? Isn’t this the stuff of scary fiction and movies like “Rosemary’s Baby?” Or are we all silently screaming like Rosemary upon learning the truth of her devil baby: “No! It can’t beeeee!” followed by whimpers of “Oh God!” only to be scolded by the satanical cult proclaiming God is dead. Oooooo, eerie. Straight from the Bible. Must be true.
Still … the very thought jolts our collective psyche. This is because our brain is emotional as well as intellectual. Time and again, human history reveals us to be equally capable of great intellectual reasoning and empathy toward our fellow man as well knee-jerk irrational, cruel, harsh and fearful … usually before each and every one of us takes the time to think and breathe and rationalize a situation or accusation.
Even with the lessons of 1692 Salem, America continues conducting ‘witch hunts.’ In modern history there was the 1950s communist ‘red menace’ scare. At the time the U.S. Congress called movie stars, show business Jews, and intellectuals to appear before the dead-serious House Un-American Activities Committee. HUAC ruined many lives—and never did find any communist plot to infiltrate Hollywood’s movie industry in order to destroy America. This sorry episode in recent American history was ended by the one man called before HUAC who publicly refused to recognize its right to ask questions about his political beliefs or associations or to force him to name others who may have Leftist leanings.
This American hero was playwright Arthur Miller, who had written The Crucible to draw the obvious comparison between HUAC and the Salem witch trials—both episodes shameful and morally wrong. The point was innocent lives were lost and ruined because of a collective and irrational fear, which still sweeps across America every now and then. “They’re out to get us: the devil, the communists, the Martians, the hippies, the anti-war demonstrators, the Democrats, the atheists, the Illuminati, the illegal aliens, the Muslim terrorists”—always some huge evil force out to doom us all and destroy America. It’s as if we have taken to heart every episode of The Twilight Zone. Yet in time we would learn that communist countries were having financial problems, their Utopian ideals unable to support millions of people with basic necessities like food, medicine, and meaningful livelihoods. Communism would be seen for what it is: a political philosophy that in reality does not work, because of man’s inclination toward greed, selfishness, and one-upmanship … as well as individual freedom.
I’ve lived through several American scares, real and/or imagined, against: homosexuality, abortion, the mentally ill, marijuana, satanic cults, and AIDS victims. In Texas our latest tangent is public restrooms used by transgender students. The line of bull is we should protect our little girls when they go potty. Our state legislature is spending time and tax money on this issue, which is not a big deal to school officials. Superintendents have tried to ensure the rare transgender student is the least of their plethora of problems—doesn’t even make the Top Ten. Here is my own quickly devised Top Ten list of public school problems, if the Texas Legislature is so inclined to fix our societal messes: guns, drugs, gangs, violence, bullying, sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancies, poverty, racial tension, and emotional problems. These are real problems, not tangents. Yet for some reason, these issues don’t have that ‘certain something’ to ignite the righteous indignation of tens of millions of Americans.
So spare me another great American hysterical scare, always found within the gray moral sphere of human existence. ‘Witch hunts’ always reveal the very worst in us; are always proven to have been the wrong thing to do; and leave us all scarred, guilt ridden and trying in some small way to make amends to the very people who were judged, scorned, humiliated, and intentionally misunderstood—without a second thought of their right to basic human dignity. As for supernatural forces like the devil, well let’s try to remember now America is home of the brave. The movies always depict us that way.