Embracing History #2

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Welcome to Embracing History Magazine. This magazine is a production of Our History Project, a nonprofit historical based corporation based in

McDonough, GA. The purpose for this magazine was to generate revenue and continue growing for Our History Project’s outreach, mission and vision of preserving our past in our community and around the world.

We joined forces with American Digger Magazine for this project. Butch and Anita Holcombe were instrumental in providing the guidance and knowledge to bring the thought and magazine to fruition. Bob Roach, came on as editor, not knowing what he was in for. Actually none of us did. We wanted to put out a publication that would have wide spread appeal covering a lot of historical aspects: Cars, coins, antiques, collectibles, everything we could imagine including stories and interviews.

Unfortunately, because of the economy the retail sales did not go as expected and we were forced to put this project on hold, as a retail, mailable and in-print publication. However, true to our word we went forwarwd with all the publicity that was being offered through this magazine subscription and promotion, including a 1840 Cavalry Saber and a 2 hour Seg-way tour of Gettysburg.

We have received some great stories and submissions we want to share. We were honored to receive submissions from a host of professional and new authors. They are not only enter-taining, well researched and informative, but also each story brings out a lost or little known aspect of our nation’s past. As the Publisher what I have decided to do is; after speaking with the authors; release the articles here, bi-monthly 2011!

This project is on hold, but it is not dead by any means. We still think it is viable and valuable concept that we will try again in the future. Until then still join us each Saturday at http://www.ourhistoryproject.com for interviews from authors,

night at 9PM eastern time at http://relicroundup.blogspot.com

that relates to the physical part of our nation’s past. Don’t for-get we will be taking phone calls during the show. So, come on over for our live chat and pick up a phone and give us a call at 678-369-7943. See ya there!

-Craig Anderson - Publisher “Embracing History Magazine”

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The Oxford English Dictionary defines witchcraft as “the practices of a witch or witches; the exercise of supernatural pow-

er supposed to be possessed by persons in league with the devil or evil spirits.” Yet this does not cover witchcraft in all its complexity. Indeed, over the centuries, witchcraft has been defined as a religious and legal crime; as a societal tool for venting frustration; and as a method of gender suppression. Defining witchcraft is in part so difficult because defining what it is cannot be separated from theorizing why it exists. While past events themselves do not change, interpreta-tions of those events can change considerably. In terms of witchcraft, the most commonly ana-lyzed and reinterpreted event is the Salem witch trials of 1692-3. In a span of less than twenty years three highly distinct interpretations of Salem witchcraft were published: Chadwick Han-

sen’s psychological Witchcraft at Salem (1969); Paul Boyer’s and Stephen Nis-senbaum’s economic Salem Possessed (1974); and Carol F. Karlsen’s feminist The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (1987). No historical monograph on Salem can address or answer all the questions inherent in so complex an event. But each insight helps create a more balanced overall perspective. Indeed, Hansen’s Witchcraft at Salem helps lay the perspective groundwork for examining Salem upon which later historians have built. Namely, in the context Karlsen establishes that witch-craft in 17th Century New England was a combat against social insubordi-nation, Boyer and Nissenbaum explain the unique geographic, economic, and political circumstances which made Salem extremely vulnerable to an outbreak of witchcraft accusations.

Furthermore, we can learn from more recent – and even seemingly unrelated – scholarship: “The typi-cal [airplane] accident involves seven consecutive human errors,” notes jour-nalist and best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Thus, the sum of each individual error does

not necessarily equal the net conse-quence. In other words, an error which

when it is one of a sequence of errors. The Salem witch trials, then, are like the typical airplane crash. They were neither inevitable nor probable. They did not result from one catastrophic event. Rather, what happened in Sa-lem, Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693 resulted from several consecutive “hu-

-tory events. Alone, each would have

they proved tragic.By challenging many modern as-

sumptions about Salem witchcraft, Chadwick Hansen helps set the tone for modern Salem scholarship; he em-ploys modern science but not modern biases in examining the accused, the

argument that witchcraft did in fact exist in Salem in 1692 is persuasive and powerful; yet his theory that the

proves unconvincing and ineffective. As Hansen is careful to note, “in a society which believes in witchcraft,

it works.” Salem was such a soci-ety. Firstly, the England society from which the Massachusetts Bay colonists originated believed in witchcraft; even

such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, and Sir Isaac Newton believed in both white magic and “malign spir-

the community in Salem believed in the power of both white magic and witchcraft.

Why Did Salem CrashWritten by: Greg Woodburn

“Examination of a Witch” Thompkins H. Matteson, 1853

How Examining Salem Witchcraft Through Different Lenses Reveals its Similarities to an Airplane Crash

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Bridget Bishop provides the most dramatic example that witchcraft was practiced in Salem – and practiced

dismantled the cellar wall of Bishop’s former house, they found “holes in the old wall” in which were “found several puppets made up of rags and hogs’ bristles with headless pins in them.” These puppets do not, in themselves, prove Bridget Bishop’s guilt, but along with the other evidence presented against her, they help prove Hansen’s argument that practicing witches did indeed exist in 1692 Salem. Not only did some Salem residents genuinely practice witch-craft, but others were also genuinely harmed by witchcraft or malicious intent. Certain individuals’ fears of witches, as well as feelings of hopelessness against a witch’s power, could not only make them sick but even kill them. Indeed,

Medical School’s Dr. Walter Cannon, which showed that tribespeople around the world could, while suffering no apparent physical ailments, die from believing black magic was being worked upon them. In other words, belief in witchcraft could have an adverse placebo effect on people convinced they were being targeted. Though fear and hope-lessness rather than magic are the means, the end is the same: witches gain power, and their victims suffer. Thus, Hansen succeeds in his uphill battle against modern-day bias and convincingly proves that when people use “their reputation for occult power to gain illegitimate personal ends,” and when the people targeted to suffer do indeed suffer, witchcraft is a real and powerful force.

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with diagnosing psychological ailments in17th century

girls’ behavior is extremely limited and comes mostly from outside observers. Psychological conditions as complex

-sible to diagnose without personally observing the patients. Additionally, hysteria as a psychological condition was not studied until the late 1800s – two hundred years after the witchcraft outbreak in Salem. Hansen assumes that the fears and unrest felt by rural girls in the late 1600s would manifest themselves in the same symptoms as they did for the middle and upper class European women upon whom Freud, Breuer, and Charcot developed their theories on hysteria. Most problematic of all, however, is that Hansen’s hysteria theory does not explain the many other witchcraft accusations that occurred in New England throughout the 1600s. Therefore, while Chadwick Hansen helps refute modern-day misconceptions about Salem, such as the “as-

sumption that there was no witchcraft practiced,” his hysteria theory neither addresses nor explains New Eng-land’s many other witch accusations.

Carol F. Karlsen, on the other hand, takes a much broader perspective and examines all of New England and all of the 17th century. In doing so, she discerns patterns that transcend what happened in Salem – namely, that fears regarding inheritance patterns sparked many witchcraft accusations, and that women were thus predominantly targeted because they interrupted the traditional transfer of property from men to men. Karlsen makes effective use of a large range of data to make sense of the many witch-craft accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in New England throughout the 1600s. Furthermore, Karlsen complements her depth of numbers and statistics with incredibly researched and detailed biographies on ac-cused witches. In so doing, Karlsen not only expands upon Hansen’s initial framework, but draws provocative new insights about the purpose of witchcraft in colonial New England. Indeed, the numbers and stories alike assert that married or widowed middle-aged women with no brothers or sons were most likely to be accused of witchcraft. This pattern emerges from the fact that women over forty were 1.4 times more likely to be accused as women who were under forty, and 5.4 times more likely to be convicted. The reason such women were targeted was because, by inherit-ing large tracts of land, they created problems and uncer-tainties for colonial New England’s “inheritance system designed to keep property in the hands of men.” 08

While Karlsen at one point claims that “[t]he Salem outbreak only created a slight wrinkle in [the] established fabric of suspicion,” in truth, Salem cannot be so easily swept under the rug. Indeed, despite her words, Karlsen is unable to avoid or hide Salem’s many peculiarities among the already peculiar history of witchcraft. For instance, many of the data tables in The Devil in the Shape of a Woman are divided as “Non-Salem Cases” and “Salem Cases.” While Karslen answers many whys about witch-craft in 17th-century New England at large, she does not answer why Salem was an anomaly.

Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, however, do just that. In their monograph Salem Possessed, Boyer and Nis-senbaum reveal the multigenerational growing economic divide between mercantilists and land-based farmers that made Salem Village extremely susceptible to an outbreak of witchcraft. The historians examine the history of Salem Village in relation to its political and economic dependence on – and independence from – Salem Town; the inter-village disputes over establishing a parish, hiring Reverend

Why Did Salem Crash ~ Greg Woodburn

“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.”Benjamin Franklin

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Parris, and seeking complete independence; as well as the resurfacing of this factionalism in the 1962-3 witchcraft

primarily Pro-Parris, pro-independence farmers from the western part of Salem Village; in contrast, the accused were initially (before the charges spread beyond Salem) anti-Parris, anti-independence mercantilists from the eastern part of Salem Village along the Ipswich Road. The differ-ence among Salem Village’s populace became factionalism because the western farmers were becoming poorer and more limited each generation, while the eastern mercantil-

by year.While Salem Possessed could be accused of economic re-

ductionalism, it is more accurate to view it as an economic focus on the ever present question, why Salem? No one study or monograph can cover every aspect of a historical event; Boyer and Nissembaum therefore choose to examine Salem thoroughly from one angle. Yet, to a greater degree than either Hansen or Karlsen had, Boyer and Nissem-baum blaze the trail toward a more full understanding of Salem witchcraft. For Salem Possessed, with its attention to geographic, political, and economic nuances within the Salem community, highlights several of the unique factors or “consecutive human errors” that led to Salem’s crash.

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the initial accusations of witchcraft, set the precedents for accusing others of being witches and for proving the guilt of the accused. After a disagreement with Mr. Parris, Sarah Good departed from his house muttering. Soon after, Mary

to brand her as a witch. And, while two girls falling ill or hallucinating is worrisome in itself, it does not singlehand-edly lead to witch hunts. The close proximity of these two

pains and drew additional attention to Sarah Good’s un-usual actions. The result: Sarah Good was tried and found guilty of witchcraft on 1 March, 1692.

Good’s trial, born of a series of tragic coincidences, produced tragic repercussions, as well. For Good’s guilty

indeed suffer from witchcraft; and the choices individuals made during the examination set dangerous precedents for future trials. When pressed to name other witches during her trial, for example, Sarah Good singled out Sarah Os-born as a witch. In so doing, Good helped set the prec-edent for accused witches to name names. And, by reward-

ing the judges with the name of a witch, Good encouraged the judges to likewise demand names from other accused witches. Thus, each examination increased the villagers’ fear of witches living in their community – and of being called witches themselves.

The most dangerous precedent set during the examina-tion of Sarah Good, however, was the complete innocence

calling Sarah Good “an enimy [sic] to all good.” Simi-larly, in later witch examinations, Deacon Fry and Captain

confess their guilt. Consequently, it emerged from this series of compounding errors that the safest way to protect oneself from being charged as a witch was to accuse oth-ers. By this point, the small coincidences and precedents were truly beginning to compound, creating a sharp divide

This divide, combined with the immunity given to the

21 March 1692, the Court of Oyer and Terminer examined Martha Corey in response to complaints made against her, found her guilty of witchcraft, and committed her to Salem Prison. Upon Corey’s imprisonment, “she did not so appear

of 1692 Salem (where those not bewitched were in danger of being targeted as a witch) transformed Corey’s impris-onment from a closing curtain into a catalyst; the end of Corey’s examination set the stage for a new antagonist to be found. And, indeed, on 24 March, 1692 – just three days after Marta Corey’s trial – Rebecca Nurse was likewise examined and imprisoned.

practice of targeting outliers as witches in the early ac-cusations of witchcraft likewise set dangerous precedents that compounded the series of “human errors” that had already transpired in Salem. Indeed, “The Number of the

to “Ancient” to a large group including men such as the 76-year-old William Batten and the 38-year-old Edward Putnam. Those targeted as witches were outliers either by their physical characteristics or by their dissenting opin-

-ample, was the slave, Tituba. Additionally, Sarah Good was “destitute,” Rebecca Nurse was 71 years old, and Martha

made individuals outliers and thus targets for accusation. For instance, Rebecca Nurse’s sister, Sarah Cloyse, stormed out of Salem’s meetinghouse in protest against the witch


“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”James Dean

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accusations and “was afterwards seen by some in their Fits.” Many “human errors” in the examinations – such as ac-

cepted types of evidence and judges’ biases – also com-pounded tragically, making the witch trials entirely one-

initially accused a person of tormenting her, adults would bring up events from years past as evidence of the accused person’s witchcraft. Samuel and Mary Abbey, for example, charged Sarah Good with killing their cattle, sheep, and hogs three years earlier because at the time she had been angry with the Abbeys for denying her residence at their home. Similarly, William Stacy accused Bridget Bishop of being a witch on the grounds that after “being gone about 6 Rod from her the said Bishop; with a small Load in his Cart: suddenly the off Wheels Slumped or sunk downe [sic] in a hole upon Plain ground.” If an accused person’s child had died, that could be considered as evidence; if someone else’s healthy child had grown sick and/or died, that too could be considered as evidence.

In addition to this type of “memory evidence,” spectral evidence was also permitted in the witch trials, further stacking the odds against the accused. Spectral evidence, or holding a person accountable for what their specter is seen doing, cannot be proven. It also makes the logical fallacy of confusing simultaneity for causality. Yet, it was the most frequent form of evidence used in Salem against many people accused of witchcraft. Bridget Bishop, for instance, was found guilty based on the testimony of people who had

specter as wearing the same clothes she wore in court.The judges overseeing the examinations were also highly

biased, assuming the accused were guilty until proven in-nocent. They asked loaded questions that evidenced their biases; Rebecca Nurse, for example, “was required to give

-ing to Thomas Brattle, the “chief Judge [was] very zeal-ous in these proceedings.” All the judges became “angry” with those friends and advisors who disagreed with them, and are “apt to speak very hardly of them.” In short, as Governor Phips writes, the judges took “Councill [sic] of Passion” rather than reason, and in so doing provided the capstone to the many “human errors” and unfortunate oc-currences that had already taken place.

end to the Court and stopped the proceedings” because he discovered that “severall [sic] persons who were doubtless innocent and to my certain knowledge of good reputation” had been accused of witchcraft – including his wife. Phips suspended the court, stopped any printing for or against the proceedings to prevent the emotions surrounding the trials

the proceedings for examining witches. Eventually Gov-ernor Phips released those imprisoned for witchcraft and pardoned those “witches” scheduled to be executed.

The historiography of Salem witchcraft illustrates great change and great continuity. Witchcraft at Salem aims to re-fute the “traditional interpretation” of Salem in 1962-3; Sa-lem Possessed likewise asserts a revolutionary understand-ing of the socio-economic causes originating generations before the outbreak of witch accusations; and The Devil in the Shape of a Woman exposes demographic patterns of the accused and accusers which in turn illustrate the fears of fe-male insubordination in 17th century New England. While these books have strikingly different focuses or agendas, at root their questions are the same. All three monographs

why? And, in part, all three conclude that a series of minor events or characters made Salem crash. “There are several points at which, had circumstances been slightly different, the course of events at Salem might have changed entirely,”

demographic ‘accidents’ account for most of New Eng-land’s female witches,” Karlsen observes. And, according to Boyer and Nissenbaum, “accidents of geography,” as well as the “unlikely convergence of a set of chance factors in the early 1690s” led to the Salem witchcraft outbreak. These three books may not fully answer the question, why, but they bring us three steps further on our journey to answering that deceptively clever, devilishly simple, and continuously fascinating three-letter word. What is more, in bringing us closer, these three monographs also lead to unexpected insights – such as the similarities Salem shares with the typical airplane crash.

Indeed, like its causes, the results of the Salem witch trials also parallel a plane crash in their lasting results. Yes, there is great loss. But there is also the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past in order to ensure a safer future. From the “human errors” which led to the deaths of twenty people and the imprisonment of dozens more, we learn to be vigilant against situations in which outliers

(especially fear) are unchecked by reason. And, perhaps most importantly, we learn to dearly cherish and fervently defend the American principle that people are innocent until proven guilty.


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Works Cited

Brattle, Thomas. “Letter of Thomas Brattle, F.R.S.” Electronic Text Center, University ofVirginia Library, 8 October 1692.http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BurNarr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2008.Lawson, Deodat. “A Brief and True Narrative.” Electronic Text Center, University ofVirginia Library, 1692. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BurNarr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1.

Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, editors. “Bridget Bishop.” Electronic Text Center,University of Virginia Library, 1692. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BoySal1.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/oldsalem&tag=public&part=9&division=div1.

Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, editors. “Mary Easty.” Electronic Text Center,University of Virginia Library, 1692. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BoySal1.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/oldsalem&tag=public&part=41&division=div1.

Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, editors. “Sarah Good.” Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 1692. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BoySal2.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/oldsalem&tag=public&part=7&division=div1

Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed. New York, NY: Harvard UniversityPress, 2002.

Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem. New York, NY: George Braziller, 1994.

Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman. New York, NY: Norton, 1998.

Phips, William. “Letters of Governor Phips to the Home Government.” Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 12 October 1692. http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=BurNarr.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/English/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=3&division=div1.

Often used as an illustration of the Salem witch trails, this illustration depicts the execution of Ann Hibbins on Boston Commons in 1657.

Source: Lynn and Surroundings, by Clarence. W. Hobbs, Lynn, Mass.: Lewis & Winship Publishers, 1886.: 52. Artist: F. T. Merrill



01-Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2008), p. 184. 02-Chadwick Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem (New York: George Braziller, 1994), p. 10.

03-Ibid, p. 7.

04-Ibid, p. 65.

05-Hansen, p. 81.

06-Ibid, p. 72.

07-Hansen, p. 86.

08-Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (New York: Norton, 1998), 101.

09-Ibid, p. 116.

10-Ibid, pp. 65-67, 70, 72, 74.

11-Deodat Lawson, “A Brief and True Narrative,” Narrative, p. 153.

12-Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, editors. “Sarah Good,” p. 355.

13-Boyer and Nissenbaum, “Sarah Good,” p. 357.

14-Ibid, p. 357.

15-Thomas Brattle, “Letter of Thomas Brattle, F.R.S.,” p. 180.

16-Lawson, pp. 154-157.

17-Lawson, pp. 158-9.

18-Ibid, p. 155.

19-Ibid.

20-Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, “Sarah Good,” p. 370.

21-Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, editors. “Mary Easty,” Edward Putnam v. Mary Easty, p. 301.Boyer and Nissenbaum, “Sarah Good,” p. 368.

22-Lawson, p. 161.

23-Boyer and Nissenbaum, “Sarah Good,” p. 368.

24-Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, editors. “Bridget Bishop,” William Stacy v. Bridget Bishop, pp. 92-93.

25-Brattle, p. 182.26-Lawson, pp. 158-159.

27-Hansen, p. 54.

28-Karlsen, p. 115.

29-Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed (New York: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 181.

More online resources

http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/

Foot Notes


“A leader leads by example, whether he intends to or not.”John Quincy Adams

About the Author:

Greg Woodburn, 20, is a junior at the University of Southern California where he runs track and cross country, and serves on the Trojan Athletic Senate. Greg is a History major with a concentration in United States History, and is also double-minoring in Entrepreneurship and Painting. He is a Trustee Scholar and member of numerous academic honor societies, including the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society.

As the founder and president of the non-profit organization “Give Running” that donates shoes to disadvantaged youth, Greg is a recipient of two national awards for volunteerism and public service: the Jefferson Award and the Congressio-nal Award Gold Medal.

To learn more about Greg and contact him, please visit www.giverunning.org.

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