Women Weren’t the Only Victims of the Salem Witch Trials
Women Weren’t the Only Victims of the Salem Witch Trials
GEORGE BURROUGHS RECITING THE LORD’S PRAYER BEFORE HIS EXECUTION AT WITCHES HILL IN SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. (CREDIT: CLASSIC IMAGE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO)
John Proctor sat in the courtroom, watching his pregnant wife, Elizabeth on the stand. Paranoia was sweeping Salem, and Elizabeth was being examined by a local judge on suspicion of witchcraft. Watching his wife withstand the heated examination was bad enough, but suddenly the tenor of the questions changed. Slowly, John realized that the questions the judge fired at his wife were more about his behavior than hers.
Proctor had spoken out vehemently against the trials—he thought the accusers were liars and had even beaten one of his servants for displaying what the town interpreted as signs of witchcraft.
It was just a matter of time before the 60-year-old merchant found himself in the crosshairs of Salem’s paranoia.
For most, the story of the Salem Witch Trials is one of women—wrongfully accused and convicted in a case of mass hysteria that’s still fascinating people centuries later. But scorned women weren’t the only victims of Salem’s angry mobs. No fewer than six men were convicted and executed. These “forgotten” men of the Salem Witch Trials found their lives in danger when convictions and old rivalries surfaced during a period of distrust and terror.
It’s still not clear why Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams began having fits in early 1692, or why their ailment spread to other girls in Salem. Whatever the cause, mass hysteria—a collective phenomenon in which a group experiences delusions, fear and perceived threat—seems to have been part of the mix.
For the most part, the men of Salem Village were involved in blaming, trying, and convicting the young women whose unusual behavior and outlandish accusations were at the heart of the trials. But soon, men like Proctor were among those being accused, sometimes by neighbors who had longstanding resentments against them. Take George Burroughs. The athletic Puritan minister had borrowed money from the Putnams, a local family, and took years to pay back his loan. Though he did repay it, the rivalry with the family continued and Burroughs moved out of Salem.
When accusations of sorcery and other paranormal behavior began to sweep through his old town, its residents turned against their old minister. They accused him of witchcraft and had him dragged back to Salem, where his physical prowess (a supposed symptom) was used as an excuse to convict him. Before his execution, he recited The Lord’s Prayer—a feat accusers thought was impossible for a witch—causing some onlookers to demand his immediate pardon. He was hanged anyway.
Others refused to participate in trials or accusations–and paid the price. For example, John Willard, Salem’s deputy constable, developed doubts about the guilt of some of the so-called “witches.” When he expressed those concerns, accusers turned on him instead.
Willard’s wife’s grandfather, Bray Wilkins, suffered from kidney stones. When he asked a local woman for medical help, she told him that his ailment was likely due to witchcraft. Wilkins recalled that Willard had looked at him strangely and decided he had caused the ailment. And when Wilkin’s grandson, Daniel, suddenly died, Wilkins claimed that Willard was responsible, an accusation seconded by Mercy Lewis and others.
The Putnams, the same family that harbored a grudge against Minister Burroughs, accused Willard of having killed their baby years before, when she had died at just a few months of age. (Willard was apparently her occasional babysitter.) These longstanding rivalries all led to accusations of witchcraft. He was hanged along with Proctor, Burroughs and another man, George Jacobs Sr.
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