The Salem Witch Trials: The Devil in Human Form

The trials in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 mark a dramatic event in early American history. This event, known as the “Salem Witchcraft Scare”, resulted in the executions of nineteen people accused of performing witchcraft. This is a relatively conservative number compared to those who were accused and later exonerated, an astonishing 176 people. Not surprisingly, the majority of those accused were women (144 women versus only 44 men). The accusations began when the daughter of Samuel Parris, Betty, began displaying particularly odd behavior after trying to discern the future with the family servant, Tituba and some other village girls. After this experiment the girls (Betty first, followed by others) fell into convulsive fits, complained about “being pinched” as if by invisible fingers, and spoke in a disordered manner. Physicians were unable to determine a cause for the weird behavior, so the villagers in Salem relied on an explanation of their own, witchcraft. Throughout early American history there were scattered accusations, trials, and even executions of supposed witches, but they were mostly small events often having to do with personal motivation (disgruntled neighbors for example). What happened in Salem was significant because it happened on such a large scale that it was like an epidemic. What could have caused such a large number of people to be accused? This is a question that still has not been fully answered, though there are many educated guesses historians have made. The complex issues developing in Salem Village at the time period suggests a multifactorial explanation; the affected girls may have been catalysts that inspired ambitious town patrons to use witchcraft accusations to boost their own political advantages.

The first and possibly most important factor in this theory focuses on the medium that causes the village to erupt in accusations. Though many people have dismissed the afflicted girls as being very convincing actresses who faked all their symptoms, the accounts of their behavior and the way the village reacted to their strange illness makes it hard to dismiss their afflictions as mere acting. Linda Caporael’s research presented in “Ergotism: the Satan Loosed in Salem” presents a strong argument that the afflicted girls were suffering from convulsive ergotism. Ergot is a fungus that grows on cereal grains, especially rye, which was a staple food source in the Salem community. This fungus contains lysergic acid amide, which Linda points out, has “10 percent of the activity of a D-LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide)”, a naturally occurring psychedelic chemical. The symptoms of ergot poisoning match the strange behavior of the girls; vertigo, crawling sensations in the skin, convulsive fits, vomiting, hallucinations, painful muscle contractions, and mental disturbances. This conclusion is also strongly supported by geographical location of the potentially infected rye crop as well as the growing season at the time of the trials. The girls were mainly from the Parris family or their friends, people who were likely to have ingested rye from the same crop. The affected rye was likely grown in the western part of town (where most of the accusers of witches lived) and the weather conditions recorded in 1691 were favorable to the production of the fungus. When the girls first fell ill physicians were brought in and witchcraft hadn’t even been mentioned; interestingly it was only suspected when a neighbor of Parris, Mary Sibley, directed the making of a witch cake. This hypothesis also explains why the first three women accused of witchcraft fit the typical witch stereotype whereas later accusations were less discriminate.