The faculties and manifestations which nearly two centuries ago were
deemed to constitute witchcraft, and the mode of eliciting proof of that
crime then, stand forth very conspicuously in the history of the wife and
children of Thomas Carrier of Andover.
_The Examination of Martha Carrier, May 31, 1692._
"_Q._ Abigail Williams, who hurts you? _A._ Goody Carrier of Andover.
"_Q._ Elizabeth Hubbard, who hurts you? _A._ Goody Carrier.
"_Q._ Susan Sheldon, who hurts you? _A._ Goody Carrier; she bites me,
pinches me, and tells me she would cut my throat if I did not sign her
book. Mary Walcott said she afflicted her, and brought the book to
her.
"_Q._ What do you say to this you are charged with? _A._ I have not
done it. Susan Sheldon cried, she looks upon the black man. Ann Putnam
complained of a pin stuck in her. _Q._ What black man is that? _A._ I
know none. Mary Warren cried out she was pricked. _Q._ What black man
did you see? _A._ I saw no black man but _your own presence_. _Q._
Can you look upon these and not knock them down? _A._ They will
dissemble if I look upon them. You see you look upon them and they
fall down. _A._ It is false; the _devil is a liar_. I looked upon none
since I came into the room. Susan Sheldon cried out _in a trance_, I
wonder what could you murder thirteen persons! Mary Walcott testified
the same: that there lay thirteen ghosts! All the afflicted fell into
intolerable outcries and agonies. Elizabeth Hubbard and Ann Putnam
testified the same: that she had killed thirteen at Andover. _A._ It
is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks, who are out of
their wits. _Q._ Do not you see them? _A._ If I do speak you will not
believe me. You do see them, said the accusers. _A._ You lie; I am
wronged. There is a black man whispering in her ear, said many of the
afflicted. Mercy Lewis in a violent fit, was well, upon the
examinant's grasping her arm. The tortures of the afflicted were so
great that there was no enduring of it, so that she was ordered away,
and to be bound hand and foot with all expedition; the afflicted in
the mean while almost killed, to the great trouble of all spectators,
magistrates, and others.
"_Note._ As soon as she was well bound they all had strange and sudden
ease. Mary Walcott told the magistrates, that this woman told her, she
had been a witch this forty years."
The foregoing record shows the fearful ordeal to which any one might be
subjected upon whom an accusation of witchcraft fell, and the
hopelessness of escape where spectral evidence was admitted and held to
be reliable. Here was a woman who, it seems, had been conscious of spirit
presence with her for "forty years," and her constitutional properties
which permitted this were so luminous in the spiritual atmosphere, or
medium of vision by inner eyes, that the clairvoyant girls readily caught
sight of her, readily felt influences from her, and therefore accused her
of tormenting them.
The general character and deportment of this woman prior to her arrest may
not have won public approbation. When in presence of the magistrates she
was self-possessed and not lacking in boldness; for otherwise she would
not have told the judge that his own presence was the only black man she
had seen there. She told her examiners that it was shameful for them to
mind "these folks, who are out of their wits." She said to the girls, "You
lie; I am wronged." Her presence permitted extraordinary visions,
contortions, sufferings, and outcries, and probably emanations from her
were special helps to the unwonted outflow.
_In trance_, one saw thirteen dead bodies, and charged the accused with
having murdered them. It was _in trance_ that this was seen and said. If
_entranced_, was the girl, then, a voluntary seer and speaker? No.
Supermundane force was in action there. Entrancements and obsessions came
upon all those youthful accusers fitfully--and the forms of the girls
generally were tools operated by wills entering from outside. The tongue
of that entranced accuser, like Ann Cole's, probably was "improved to
utter thoughts that never were in her own mind."
Four of Mrs. Carrier's children were brought into court in company with
herself, either as accused ones or as witnesses against some members of
the family. "Before the trial," says Drake, "several of her own children
had frankly and fully confessed not only that they were witches
themselves, but that their mother had made them so." The artlessness and
simplicity of their _confessions_ render them not simply entertaining, but
more instructive than almost any other statements made at the examinations
and trials. Little Sarah was asked,--
"How long have you been a witch? _A._ Ever since I was six years old. How
old are you now? _A._ Near eight years old; brother Richard says I shall
be eight years old in November next.
"Who made you a witch? _A._ My mother; she made me set my hand to a book.
How did you set your hand to it? _A._ I touched it with my fingers; and
the book was red; the paper of it was white. She said she never had seen
the black man ... that her mother had baptized her, and the devil or black
man was not there, as she saw. Her mother said, when she baptized her,
'Thou art mine for ever and ever. Amen.'
"How did you afflict folks? _A._ I pinched them. She said she went to
those whom she afflicted--_went_, not in body, but in her spirit. She
would not own that she had ever been at the witch-meeting at the Village."
The _confessions_ (?) are beautiful and precious; they are robed in all
the appropriate naivete of any school-girl's _confession_ that herself was
a--_pupil_. Not a tinge of shame, sorrow, or humiliation is visible
anywhere about them. Not a sign appears, that, in little Sarah's
comprehension, there was anything more censurable, as in fact there was
not, in her being a witch, than there is in the child of to-day being a
Sunday school scholar. Disclosure of common occurrences at her home, which
inborn faculties there as naturally brought into view, as other faculties
there and elsewhere cause the limbs of childhood to expand and its
intellect to unfold, constituted her confession of the witchcraft that
pertained to her mother and herself.
The common mind, if not cautioned, will almost perforce attach meanings to
the testimonies of Martha Carrier's children which never belonged to them.
The detailings of facts and experiences not rare in that mediumistic
family, were no confession of anything like what the public in any age has
been accustomed to designate by the term witchcraft. In biblical times the
occurrences might have been called prophecies--true or false--and to-day
they would be regarded as spirit manifestations, or near kindred to such.
The little girl's _confessions_ are _precious_ as well as beautiful; they
are instructive comments upon the creed held by the adults of her day;
they give some support to the position that compact with some spirit was
an element in preparation for working marvels. Her mother baptized her,
and made her virtually sign a book, and then claimed her own child as hers
"for ever and ever, Amen." The little child herself seems to have regarded
this ratification of her mother's spirit claims upon her spirit as having
made herself a witch; but such a witch as she was not ashamed to be, and
saw no harm in being. Indeed, how can any other than perverted vision see
harm in the girl's filial compact? Her clairvoyant and other mediumistic
faculties had become so unfolded when she was about six years old, that
she and her mother, as freed spirits, could, in conscious companionship,
roam in spirit realms; and she, no doubt, felt that forces emanating from
the mother aided in her unfoldment, and continued to have much sway over
her in her mental journeyings and operations. She might with much
propriety say that her mother made her a witch. And her case shows that
the process for producing a witch might be much simpler and much less
horrifying than the public in her day had any conception of. Indeed,
witchification was then, and now is, a growth or unfoldment from God's
plantings much more than a manufacture by the devil's or any mother's
hands. She saw no devil, no black man--but only her own mother was
concerned in making her a witch; and the mother probably made her a witch
by processes as natural and legitimate as those by which she had
previously made her a child.
The girl's power for afflicting was mental; her journeyings and pinchings
were mental; and yet, no doubt, her grip was as sensibly felt by the
nerves of those whom she pinched as would have been firm graspings of
their flesh by her fingers of bones and muscles. It is the spirit only
which feels hurts of the body, and a pinched spirit imprints the hurt on
the flesh it is animating. This little girl's statements confirm Tituba's,
and give credibility to the many declarations of the accusing girls that
they were pinched, bitten, and tortured by persons whose outer forms were
remote from them at the time. We live amid mysteries which one by one are
getting revealed as time rolls on.
An instructive instance of the warping force of these prevalent beliefs in
shaping the diction of the most erudite describers of witchcraft facts, is
found in Lawson's summary of events, where, when commenting upon testimony
like that given by little Sarah, he says, "Several have _confessed_
against their own mother, that they were instruments to bring them into
_the devil's covenant_." But the girl's testimony mentioned a covenant
with her mother _alone_, saying that the devil was not there, as she saw.
It was Lawson, and not the girl, who brought the devil into this case.
The same writer further says, "Some girls of eight or nine years of age
did declare that after they were so betrayed by their mothers to the power
of _Satan_, they saw _the devil_ go in their _own shapes_ to afflict
others." But the statement of Sarah is, that she herself went forth and
afflicted in her spirit-form, and not that the _devil_ went in her shape.
The cultured of that generation had _devil on the brain_ so severely, that
they persistently brought him in even where the facts as presented by the
witnesses plainly excluded him.
Richard Carrier, eighteen years old, son of Thomas and Martha, was
examined.
"Have you been in the devil's snare?--Yes.
"Is your brother Andrew insnared by the devil's snare?--Yes.
"How long has your brother been a witch?--Near a month.
"How long have you been a witch?--Not long.
"Have you joined in afflicting the afflicted persons?--Yes.
"You helped to hurt Timothy Swan, did you?--Yes.
"How long have you been a witch?--About five weeks.
"Who was in company when you covenanted with the devil?--Mrs. Bradbury.
"Did she help you afflict?--Yes.
"Who was at the Village Meeting when you were there?--Goodwife How,
Goodwife Nurse, Goodwife Wildes, Proctor and his wife, Mrs. Bradbury, and
Corey's wife.
"What did they do there?--Eat, and drank wine.
"Was there a minister there?--No, not as I know of.
"From whence had you your wine?--From Salem, I think it was.
"Goodwife Oliver there?--Yes; I knew her."
Statements by this witness, and also his probable circumstances and
condition, seem worthy of special note. Frankness glows on all that he
said. He was stating facts, which, in his apprehension, were harmless, and
why should he not let them out? He knew, probably, that his mother had all
through his life been accustomed to see and act through other than her
physical organs, and was conscious that during the last five weeks at
least himself had been doing the same. The abilities came unsought into
action--were outgrowths from the natures of his mother and himself, and
were not crimes. His long familiarity with the ostensible workings of such
powers through his mother had shown him that they were neither diabolical
nor censurable; and why not admit possession of them, and the acts they
produced, whether through himself, his mother, or any one else? Neither
the mother nor children in that family were afraid of ghostly beings,
because able to confer with them intelligibly and sympathetically; and the
ready admission by Richard that he had aided in hurting Timothy Swan, and
been at a great witch-meeting, where they ate, and also drank wine, was no
confession of any crime, but simple statement of facts. He was a medium,
and also a frank and truthful witness.
He granted that he had been in the devil's snare. How much did this
import? He and his brother Andrew both had been caught in it--one about
four, and the other five, weeks prior to his statement. As certain
atmospheric and other physical conditions often produce epidemic or
wide-spread physical health or disease either, and certain public mental
and moral states often act powerfully upon many minds, the great public
excitement engendered by the arrest and prosecution of witches may well be
deemed adequate to have unfolded latent mediumistic susceptibilities very
widely; and it is not surprising that the children of a Martha Carrier
should have such susceptibilities suddenly brought to their own
cognizance, nor that they should as suddenly become well-fledged
clairvoyants competent to wing their way widely and rapidly in the airs of
a world in which spirits dwell; nor that they should be psychologized by
spirit beings, and made to take part in any work, malignant or benevolent,
which their controllers were bent upon executing. By being caught in the
devil's snare, they probably meant neither more nor less than that they
became mediums. All conditions like theirs the public was charging the
devil with producing, and the young Carriers assented to that being done
in their own case. Most things not of the earth, earthy, were then charged
to the devil; and the mental powers of these children were not competent
to show that their slippings out from their hampering bodies were effected
without his aid.
Frequent mention occurs of witch-meetings at Salem Village, on the Green,
or the minister's pasture, near Deacon Ingersoll's.
If any accused one had been seen in the company of assembled witches
there, the fact was excessively damaging. Richard Carrier acknowledged
having been there, and freely mentioned what persons were in the
assemblage--but did not see a minister.
The records have not led us to suppose that Mrs. Carrier ever stood very
high in public estimation. It is not improbable that influences from
outside of her had often, during the forty years through which she had
experienced them, made her life eccentric, and many of her actions
mysterious. Even the aged and charitable Francis Dane said, "That there
was a suspicion of goodwife Carrier among some of us before she was
apprehended, I know; as for any other persons, I had no suspicion of
them." We must infer from that statement that she was noted for some
peculiarities which were not universally regarded with favor; suspicions
hung around her.
She was accused by one of causing grievous sores in himself, of sickening
his cattle, and working many injuries; by others also of hurting and
bewitching them, and of having attended a witch-meeting. The accusing
girls, as seen above, were most excessively agonized when in court with
her. She may justly be regarded, we think, as being socially among the
lower class of persons then accused; and yet we have met with nothing
which will justify an inference that she was altogether unworthy of
esteem, or even that she was emphatically bad in any respect. Mather
called her _rampant hag_, and hence much of Christendom has been
influenced to contemplate her with aversion. But whatever may have been
her character, the sufferings of herself and family draw forth our
sympathies.
If she said she had been a witch forty years, she meant only that for
"forty years" she had been conscious of the ongoing of occult processes
within and around herself. We doubt whether she applied the word _witch_
to herself, but can readily believe that she confessed to such experiences
and performances as were in her day often called witchcrafts. That she
detailed some experiences to Mary Walcott, which the latter termed
witchcrafts, is highly probable. Neither the accused nor the accusers were
accustomed to speak of seeing the devil; but it was the black man, or some
other defined spirit,--not the devil,--according to their own statements.
Yet when recorders and reporters undertook to give us either the substance
of what was said, or a nearly verbatim report, they generally substituted
devil for black man, or for any other unseen occult operator, whatever
his, her, or its moral purpose or character. So, too, all specially
marvelous works were called witchcrafts.
The little Carrier children were very instructive witnesses. Too young and
inexperienced to do otherwise than answer simple questions directly in
such language as was common, they show us of to-day, better than do older
witnesses, what was probably common application of some terms of very
frequent use in descriptions of things marvelous. When by implication
charged with being themselves witches, their answers conceded the truth of
the charge. One of them, eight years old, said she had been a witch ever
since she was six. Another, eighteen years old, had been a witch about
five weeks, and said that brother Andrew had been such "near a month."
Little did these frank and no doubt truthful young confessors of family
and personal experiences deem that they were exposing themselves, and
their mother also, to punishment by death. What they confessed to were
frequent sights and sounds in their home, which came as naturally and
innocently before them as the visits and words of friends and neighbors.
Community called such matters witchcrafts, and why should not these
children do the same? Their mental powers were not expanded enough to even
entertain the slightest apprehension that what they were saying could
imply that they had made a compact with the devil, or that a simple, true
statement of their unsought experiences could bring harm to themselves or
any one else. Equally incompetent were such little ones to comprehend the
nature of that devil who existed in the conception of the magistrate when
he asked whether the devil had insnared the witness and brother Andrew.
They, no doubt, held the common notion that any worker whatsoever from
realms unseen by the external eye was the devil; and having had
experience--at least one of them had--that her own spirit had gone forth
from her body and pinched certain persons, she understood that she had
performed a part in works which were imputed to the devil. Still neither
of these children confessed, or could be "insnared" to own, that they had
seen _the devil_.
They, obviously, and their mother, we do not doubt, often as naturally and
innocently beheld spirit forms and scenes, and just as innocently held
converse with spirits, as they surveyed the scenes and forms of the outer
world, or went in company with embodied people to their congregations in
the meeting-house or elsewhere. The words of babes and sucklings, at a
witchcraft trial, revealed the existence of finer natural laws and forces,
and their operation also, upon and through some human beings, than science
then dreamed of, or is yet quite ready to recognize. Very much in
witchcraft times was charged to the devil which should have been credited
to God. The erroneous entry of many heavy items on the great
account-books, in the days of the fathers, calls for immense labor and
study for their proper and equitable adjustment now. Martha Carrier and
her children were probably posted on the wrong side of the moral Ledger
when Cotton Mather labeled her "Rampant Hag;" and there they have stood
ever since.