Escaping Salem

“Escaping Salem provides a corrective to the stereotype of early New Englanders as quick to accuse and condemn. That stereotype originates with Salem, which was […] unlike other outbreaks of witch hunting in New England. Stamford’s witch hunt was much more typical.”

This is the general thesis of the text: Salem’s witch trials are much better known, and therefore our conception of New Englanders, in particular their treatment of witch hunts, is based on Salem. But, Salem’s hunts and trials are not representative; Stamford’s trial, on the other hand, is.

“Kate gave no answer, but fell to the floor, her hands clasped and her body strangely contorted; she wept piteously. Abigail’s eyes narrowed. She neither liked nor trusted the young woman. Was this some trick to avoid completing her chores for the day?” 

Public opinion and reliability were very important for witch trials: later, we see that Stamford was quite heavily divided, which ultimately led to Mercy Disborough’s conviction being overturned. Here, we see early signs that Kate may not be reliable, and, further, that even the Wescots’ opinions may have been divided.

“Abigail understood why the sight of Kate contorted in fear on the floor would remind her husband of Joanna’s affliction, yet their maidservant’s condition was surely different.”

Witch hunts, as is later explained, often devolved into a way to air past grievances, and opinions were often colored by past experiences. While Abigail is skeptical, Daniel sees his daughter’s previous affliction in Kate; rather than examining Kate’s affliction with a more open mind, he is already walking toward the conclusion that something supernatural is behind it.

“Goody Bates had no formal training as a medical practitioner, but she did have many years of experience in observing and treating her neighbors’ ailments.”

An important, recurring theme in the text is that people in positions of power and authority quite often did not have what we would, today, consider to be the requisite training. The magistrates, for example, did not have formal legal training; here, though experienced, trusted, and skilled, we see that Bates is being asked to perform the duties of a doctor despite not actually being one.

“They could hardly send the young woman away, as they had Joanna, to escape the evil eye of whoever was bewitching her: Kate was their servant and they could not spare her labor.”

There appear to be conflicting statements regarding the concern the Wescots had for Kate’s well-being. It is suggested elsewhere that they did, indeed, care for Kate and want her to be better, but here it is suggested that they were only willing to care insofar as it did not disrupt Kate’s duties. This could be seen as the product of a much harsher time period, but it does also make a statement about familial hierarchies and class differences.

“The residents of Stamford were anything but hasty in concluding that witchcraft must be responsible for Kate’s torments: differing points of view jostled and competed for ascendancy.”

This statement reinforces the central thesis of the text. Unlike in Salem, where people were very quick to cast judgment, in Stamford, many did not even want to jump to the conclusion that the tormented girl was actually bewitched. Stamford, in contrast to Salem, was a much more measured affair.

“It was on the following day that Kate first named one of the women afflicting her: Goody Clawson. This revelation came as no surprise to the Wescots. Elizabeth Clawson […] was no friend of the Wescots.”

It’s unsurprising that the Wescots do not interrogate this, as it reinforces a belief they already held. Others, however, do interrogate this, suggesting that it is convenient that the first person Kate names happens to be someone they quarreled with, and that Kate is perhaps merely attempting to please the Wescots. Of course, the Wescots would respond that it only makes sense that the person tormenting Kate would be someone with whom they quarreled. More broadly, therefore, this helps to illustrate the circular logic often employed in these situations.

“Kate cried out during one of her fits, ‘Goody Miller, hold up your arm higher that the black dog may suck you better. Now I’m sure you are a witch for you’ve got a long teat under your arm.’ Both David and Abraham had heard that witches fed demonic spirits in the form of animals—just as mothers fed their infant children, except that witches used a third nipple hidden somewhere on their bodies and nourished the familiars with blood […]”

The Devil’s mark, or witch’s teat, will become central to the case later in the text. The existence of the mark proves to be the only potential concrete evidence any might have on either Mercy Disborough or Elizabeth Clawson. However, it is far from clear, and, in any case, William Jones is told that only a proper physician (i.e., a male one) can ascertain the existence of the mark. Nevertheless, it is based on this evidence that Mercy Disborough is ultimately convicted.

“Several days later when Daniel Wescot returned home from Hartford, he made Kate repeat her description of this third woman. […] Mistress Wescot may well have noted the discrepancy between this answer and Kate’s earlier description of the witch […]”

The author is partaking in some speculation here when he suggests that this may have reinforced Abigail’s own suspicions, but nevertheless, this does suggest to the reader that Kate may not be the most trustworthy source. Alternatively, to the Wescots, this could have simply pointed to the duress Kate was under, or the uncertainty of her visions.

“Kate had now named three women. It was almost five weeks since the onset of her fits and her master decided that the time had come to act.”

It is again important to underscore the patience displayed by Daniel, Abigail, and the others, as this serves to directly counter the dominant narrative of the Salem trials. Here, the Wescots waited more than a month after the first afflictions, and only after investigations and interrogations of their own, to file a complaint against anyone.

“Yet how best to protect the town? Mister Selleck was well aware that allegations of witchcraft could multiply rapidly and plunge entire communities into crisis.”

It’s important to note here that while Selleck and the other Stamford residents were aware of the Salem trials, the madness of those trials was far more abstract to them than it is even to us in the modern day. While we can contrast the differing events, Selleck’s concern was not dependent on Salem, but rather on prior precedent and his own reasoning. This reinforces the author’s argument that Stamford’s response was more typical than Salem’s was, even if Salem’s is better-known.

“Religious doctrine and the legal code invited accusations of witchcraft, yet court officials were often much less impressed by the evidence presented in such cases than were the accusers and their supporters.”

This will be revisited later in the text, but this reinforces the theme of public sentiment versus legal precedent. For legal purposes, particularly for capital crimes, magistrates generally insisted on concrete evidence, emphasizing logic and reason, whereas it is suggested that the public was concerned only with catharsis. These competing interests were held in check in Stamford, and this, again, can be held in sharp contrast to Salem, where they were not.

“‘Neither Mercy, nor Goody Miller, nor Hannah, nor any of these women whom she impeaches, are any more witches than I am,’ proclaimed Mistress Wescot. […] Daniel Wescot had apparently boasted that he could control Kate’s convulsions. Some townsfolk wondered if he was also influencing whom she accused.”

While the author never seriously follows this line of inquiry, it is suggested in several spots—and here, prominently—that Daniel, as well as Kate, may not have been trustworthy. Abigail seems to lack faith in his judgment, and Daniel’s own statements are suspicious.

“The evidence must satisfy specific criteria established by legal experts on both sides of the Atlantic.”

This reinforces the measured, logical approach of the Connecticut magistrates. They were not acting on emotion or, generally, attempting to appease public sentiment; rather, they were attempting to craft a trial that relied on precedent and expert legal scholarship (even if, again, they were not themselves legal experts).

“It made good sense to folk […] that they should explain their misfortunes in terms of bewitchment by vengeful neighbors. Much that occurred in their lives was mysterious and unnerving […]”

Then, as now, people sought explanations; the difference is that we have much better explanations for a much greater number of things. Whereas the people of Stamford, in 1692, frequently dealt with unexplained illnesses and deaths, such things might be easily explained and remedied by medical professionals now. This reiterates that even if Stamford’s actions do not seem logical to us now, they were logically consistent with the period, and it is important to bear that in mind.

“Similar resentments and suspicions swirled around Mercy Disborough as the residents of Compo recalled disputes with their sharp-tongued neighbor and the misfortunes that ensued.”

We frequently return to the quarrelsome and argumentative nature of the accused, in particular Goody Clawson and Goody Disborough. In one sense, this is logical: people believed that bewitchment followed disputes, so the quarrelsome were more likely to have a dispute followed closely by their opponent’s misfortune. However, this is also gendered: no one in Stamford seems to be taking issue with quarrelsome men—only women. This echoes modern discussions of gendered descriptions in the workplace, where, for example, an outspoken man may be viewed as assertive, while an outspoken woman may be viewed as bossy or short-tempered.

“He strode over to Mercy Disborough’s house and told her without ceremony to come and unbewitch his uncle’s child. ‘Or else,’ he declared, ‘I’ll tear your heart out.’”

It’s unclear why a witch who has the power to sicken or kill people from afar would be particularly frightened by a mere mortal, but the logic of the stories is often lacking. In this case, insult is added to injury, as Mercy’s genuine concern for the child is interpreted as further proof that she did, in fact, bewitch the child.

“Presiding over any case that carried the death penalty was a daunting responsibility. New England courts insisted on judicial rigor in capital cases: they demanded clear proof of guilt and required two independent witnesses for each incriminating act. In many cases where the evidence was circumstantial or problematic in some other way, magistrates handed down a sentence short of death, even as they voiced their suspicion that the defendant was, in fact, guilty.”

As with previous examples, this undermines our notion of early New Englanders being quick to sentence the convicted to death; rather, the author argues, those involved took the death penalty seriously and insisted on a level of certainty. (Again, of course, this should be considered with the understanding that the death penalty was common during the era.)

“Magistrates sometimes tried to contain public anger by recognizing quite openly in their formal judgments that legal innocence did not necessarily mean actual innocence.”

Interestingly, this could have backfired and contributed to public anger. Rather than drawing a clear line between guilty and innocent, the magistrates essentially reinforced the public’s anger by asserting that they, too, believed the accused to be guilty, and only the law prevented them from ruling so. It isn’t hard to see how some may have used this to justify taking the law into their own hands.

“But Mister Jones and his colleagues had good reason for their preoccupation with this particular kind of evidence: if truly diabolical, the markings [i.e., the Devil’s mark] constituted hard physical evidence, which was all too often elusive in a witchcraft trial.”

This suggests the difficulty in obtaining a conviction if the proper guidelines are followed: this particular trial rested almost entirely on a physical marking that we would now understand simply to be a birthmark.

“There is no surviving account of the mood in the meetinghouse up to that point. Nor do we know how Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough behaved under interrogation.”

What’s missing from a narrative is often just as important as what’s present in a narrative, and what we find here is that we have records of a great many things leading up to the trial, but no record of rather important details of the trial itself. It’s worth questioning why the details of their interrogation were considered to be unimportant.

“The evidence was assuredly impressive in quantity, but its substance was problematic. It soon became clear that his [William Jones] concerns were fully justified.”

This echoes the issue of legal precedent versus public sentiment, as the public was wont to believe the quantity to be enough without truly considering the quality of the evidence being presented. This might call to mind conversations about the “echo chamber” we experience in the modern era.

“In convicting a murderer without due process, the authors were hinting, those responsible were themselves guilty of murder.”

Although there were many differences between Stamford and Salem, this statement could easily be applied to the latter, as well, and is in fact how many in the modern era think about it. As a result, although their approach was more measured on the whole, the special committee appointed to review the trial was essentially drawing the same conclusion. Fortunately, that conclusion was drawn before Mercy Disborough was executed.