TAMUC History Professor Busts Myths 关于 The 萨勒姆 Witch Trials
第三部分 恐怖故事系列
When we think about the 1692 萨勒姆 Witch Trials, 我们可能会在脑海中浮现出可怕的画面:女人被绑在火刑柱上烧死，或者被绳子捆起来扔进水里. 但我们对美国历史上那段离奇时期发生的事情的假设可能是错误的, 和 our mental images may be nothing more than misconceptions.
Dr. John Howard Smith, a history professor at 皇冠体育365赌博&M University-商务, specializes in early American religious history during the 17th 和18th 世纪. As an expert in Puritanism, he has studied 和 taught about the 萨勒姆 Witch Trials. Contributing to October's 恐怖故事系列, 史密斯坐下来打破了一些神话，并分享了对这一奇怪历史事件的迷人见解.
首先，打破流言!
Myth 1: Witches were burned at the stake.
When we think about the witch trials, 我们可以想象一个可怜的女人被绑在木桩上，脚边有一堆燃烧的木头. 然而, this is not accurate. 史密斯解释说，焚烧女巫主要是在中世纪的欧洲. 塞勒姆被指控的女巫被绞死，而不是烧死，但绞刑同样可怕.
“绞刑也不像你在电影中看到的那样——有一个平台和一个活板门，”他说. “They turned victims off a ladder, so they slowly strangled to death. 他们没有像后来的绞刑那样摔断脖子，“熄灯”.”
有, 然而, 有一个例外:一个名叫贾尔斯·科里的人在被指控使用巫术时，因为拒绝认罪而被用石头砸死.
Myth 2: Witch hunting was common during early American history.
许多人认为，发生在塞勒姆的事情并不是那么独特，清教徒在各地的城镇和村庄都经常举行猎巫活动. 这是不准确的.
Although very strict 和 devoutly religious, the Puritans were not usually witch hunters like we might see portrayed in the media. 史密斯解释说，虽然巫术是非法的，一个人可以被指控和审判, there was a proper 和 expected procedure that had to be followed. 这个程序的一个重要部分是必须提供合法的实物证据.
“总的来说, 法庭应该分别仔细审查原告和被告, 所以很容易看出原告是在撒谎，或者是受到正在进行的争议的驱使.”
然而, when the hysteria ensued 在塞勒姆, the citizens of 萨勒姆 threw out the rule book, including st和ard courtroom functions. Rather than conducting an orderly, 法院组织, 塞勒姆的官员允许所有人同时聚集在法庭上提出指控, which then fed into the chaotic hysteria.
“A couple of the men who were judges didn't even have legal training. And there was no such thing as defense attorneys at the time. 有 usually a prosecutor, 但他们甚至没有检察官来审判被指控的女巫. 他们只是有一个法庭，由人来听取所谓的证据，然后做出判决,史密斯解释道.
Because 萨勒姆 broke the rules 和 procedures, 发生的猎巫(与流行的看法相反)是普通清教徒文化中的一种反常现象.
“Witch hunting is not a huge part of Puritan New Engl和 history,” Smith confirms. “塞勒姆是个例外. 这是不寻常的.”
Myth 3: Float tests determined if someone was guilty or innocent.
Stories circulate about 萨勒姆's witch tests, which include throwing a suspected witch into water while bound. 如果它们漂浮, they were proven to be a witch; if they drowned, 太糟糕了, but at least they weren't a witch.
然而, 据史密斯说, this type of test was also a myth carried over from early European history, just like burning at the stake. It wasn't happening in 17th世纪新英格兰. 然而, two st和ard witch tests were still being performed. The first was to see if the accused witch could recite the Lord's Prayer; 然而, there were some doubts as to the accuracy of this test. 另一个被广泛接受的测试是寻找女巫身体上的生理迹象.
“The people of 萨勒姆 believed that if a person had a pact with the devil, there would be physical marks, 和 someone could find them,史密斯说.
So, 塞勒姆的女巫测试主要包括对“女巫乳头”的身体检查,清教徒认为这是女巫的魔宠用来吸血的第三个乳头.
“Woe be unto a woman with skin tags or a weird mole,史密斯说 ruefully.
谣言4:腐烂的小麦会产生大量的幻觉，导致了塞勒姆的歇斯底里.
有一种普遍的理论认为，在塞勒姆发生的事情是由“痉挛性麦角主义”造成的,” a condition that occurs when someone eats bread made from rotten wheat. Symptoms include convulsions, 错觉, 幻觉, 和 even the feeling that something is crawling under one's skin. These were the symptoms that many of the “bewitched” accusers experienced, 所以一些历史学家推测，也许在塞勒姆发生的事情是由每个人都吃的黑麦面包引起的大规模错觉. Smith disagrees with this theory.
“The 萨勒姆 hysteria had nothing to do with convulsive ergotism!” Smith laughed, adding, “This theory came up, not surprisingly, during the 1960's. They thought everyone was tripping back then!”
Smith argued that while ergotism was an issue during the Middle Ages, 到1690年代, 麻萨诸塞州 wouldn't have that problem. Farmers 和 millers would have known how to spot bad rye 和 how to avoid it.
关于事实调查…
Smith has not only cleared up some myths about the 萨勒姆 Witch Trials, but he also brought to light many fascinating facts. These little-known truths may even be more interesting than the fictional myths!
Fact 1: What really created hysteria 在塞勒姆 was a mixture of war trauma, 政治不稳定, 和 a massive 家庭不和.
“What caused the hysteria is complicated,史密斯解释道. In fact, he called it “the perfect storm.”
受创伤的孩子 were one little-known factor in the 萨勒姆 hysteria. It all started with King Philip's War, 这是1670年代殖民者和土著人之间的重大冲突. The violence of the wars drove many displaced settlers to seek refuge 在塞勒姆. Many of the refugees were small children who had witnessed extreme violence, 那些受创伤的孩子长大后会指控很多人使用巫术.
Religious 和 political persecution 是另一个原因. In 1685, King James II became ruler, 和, 正如史密斯所说, “he hated Puritans with a most violent passion,” so he targeted Puritan communities like 萨勒姆. King James II was suddenly dethroned, 和 King William III 和 Queen Mary II were crowned in his place. 新国王和王后有希望恢复清教徒殖民地原有的权力, but it never came to pass.
“So the nasty dominion regime was gone, but there was still a lot of 政治不稳定 和 uncertainty,史密斯说.
This left the Puritans nervous, unsure 和 in a suspicious state of mind.
The third 和 most significant factor was a 家庭不和 在塞勒姆. 萨勒姆 was split into two areas: 萨勒姆 Village, 一个贫穷, 农村农业区, 和塞勒姆镇, 一个富裕的, more developed area near a large port used for importing 和 exporting. 这个村庄想要从城镇中分离出来，要求自治，但遭到了城镇的反对.
每个地区都有一个显赫的家族:来自塞勒姆村的普特南和来自塞勒姆镇的波特.
“The Putnams greatly supported separation from 萨勒姆 Town, 和 the Porters fought it. So even though they were from different parts of town, there was major competition for l和 和 seats in government,史密斯说.
This led to a massive feud between the two families, which spread throughout 萨勒姆. When the witch trials began to surface, the rivalry played a significant role in who was afflicted 和 who was accused.
“Approximately 60 or 65% of the accusations came from people living in the west end, 和 the vast majority of them were somehow connected to the Putnam family. And the bulk of those accused were from the East end of the village, 和 either belonged to or were connected to the Porter family,史密斯解释道.
So all three of these factors—traumatized children, 不稳定的政府, 普特南家族和波特家族之间的恩怨相互助长，最终导致了歇斯底里的局面，也就是后来的塞勒姆女巫审判.
Fact 2: The trials mainly targeted women.
We often see images of women as targets of the 萨勒姆 Witch Trials. Smith said that this idea is historically accurate.
“The default assumption arrived at by male theologians, 男部长, 即使是男性科学家, was that women were likelier to be witches because of Eve [from the Bible].”
然而, Smith quickly added that such a belief didn't entirely exclude men.
“They didn't discount the possibility of men being witches, but they considered it less likely because men were supposedly more emotionally, 精神上, 和 intellectually mature. 所以在近300名被指控的人中，绝大多数是女性。.
Fact 3: The trials only lasted one year.
The trials began in the late summer of 1692 和 ended in the early spring of 1693.
在那一年里, 20 people were executed as witches, which Smith suggested “indicates a certain degree of restraint, considering that nearly 300 people were accused.”
So, what officially ended the year-long hysteria? According to Smith, it was old-fashioned nepotism.
“The thing gets shut down by the 麻萨诸塞州 governor, Governor William Phipps, as soon as his wife started getting mentioned as a possible witch,史密斯解释道. “He told the court, ‘Clear what's on your docket, 和 then we're done.每次他们发现有人有罪并判处绞刑时，他就开始减刑. So, the hangings stopped before 1693.”
事实4:马萨诸塞州在250多年的时间里基本上把这些审判隐藏起来了.
Despite executing 20 innocent people, 塞勒姆镇和马萨诸塞州都没有为受害者和他们的家人伸张正义. There were no repercussions for anyone involved in the 萨勒姆 Witch Trials. 两个多世纪以来，甚至没有官方承认这些错误. 在18世纪早期, 马萨诸塞殖民地开始悄悄地向被处决的幸存者和家属支付赔偿金, but there was no public apology or response until 1957.
“有 never a resolution or 麻萨诸塞州 legislation saying, ‘Oh, 这是错误的, it should have never happened' until much, 很久以后. 审判之后, 萨勒姆 Village quickly got its independence from 萨勒姆 Town, 更名为丹佛斯, 和 did everything it could to say ‘Nope, 这里什么都没发生, 让我们继续,’”史密斯说。.
In current-day 萨勒姆, 然而, it's a very different story. 现在, 萨勒姆, 麻萨诸塞州, embraces its witchy heritage, 那里有玄学的商店和节日，甚至还有一个骑着扫帚的伊丽莎白·蒙哥马利的巨大雕像, the actress who played the starring role in the 1960s sitcom “Bewitched.每年10月，成千上万的游客涌向这座城市，感受“女巫”的氛围.
Smith has mixed feelings about 萨勒姆's Halloween antics. “A lot of it is tacky,” he said, “but simultaneously, it's a beautiful town! There are some lovely houses. On one level, I would love to live there. But on another level, if I did, I would take a vacation every October.”
更清晰的画面
史密斯对塞勒姆女巫审判的专业知识有助于更清晰地描绘美国历史上的黑暗时期, separating fact from fiction. Some things we assumed were truths we now know are myths. Other things that were fuzzy are now clear. And to think—we didn't even need a crystal ball!
If this article interested you, check out Smith's featured courses, especially his special studies course, “HIST 497: The 萨勒姆 Witch Trials” that will be offered in the Spring 2024 semester!
Featured Photo: A painting titled “The 萨勒姆 Martyr,” by Thomas Satterwhite, 1869
