The Lessons of History

The summer before her 11^th birthday my daughter waited for her letter from Hogwarts. In spite of my assurances that, as muggles, she stood little chance (not to mention that American witches do not go to Hogwarts, only English ones), she lived in optimism until it was clear that her invitation was not to be.

Muggle I may be, but had there been an American equivalent to Hogwarts than perhaps Jamie might get invited to attend. After all, her ninth great grandmother was a witch.

Well, accused of being one. But the context was far from the romantic imagination of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The time was 17^th Century New England. The Place: Salem.

Years ago when we lived in New York, my wife and I made a stop in Salem. There are many interesting things to see in Salem. Although our schedule did not allow us to take in “Dracula’s Castle” or the “Horror Wax Museum”, we did stop at the House of Seven Gables, which Hawthorne made famous in his dark “romance” of the same name. We saw a film on Essex County presented by the National Park Service. We stopped at “Pioneer Village”, a facsimile of seventeenth century colonial life, where a blacksmith forged a nail for us with his hammer and anvil.

And there were witches. There were witches on street signs, witches on doorways, witches on cafes, taverns, and souvenir shops. Each witch recalled Salems infamous legacy; the witchcraft trials of 1692

My (8^th) great grandmother, Sarah Cloyce, was among those accused of witchcraft. So were her sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty. Although Sarah managed to avoid the gallows, Rebecca and Mary were not as fortunate. They were hanged, Rebecca on July 19 and Mary on September 22. I stood at the grave of the magistrate who officiated at my relative’s trials. What must he have been thinking? What were any of them thinking?

I have consulted “The Annals of Witchcraft in New England” published in 1869. It claims to be the first survey of its kind and is notably sympathetic to those accused. I found these entries regarding my (8) great aunts:

Mary Esty…appears to have been a meek and amiable lady, and the judges seemed somewhat staggered when in this character she stood before her accusers. But as yet the monsters (the children who accused her) had met with no check, and their testimony was believed by the imbecile court. After her condemnation, she made a most touching Petition to the judges in which she besought them “not for my life, but, if possible, that no more innocent blood be shed.” All availed nothing.

This entry concerned Rebecca Nurse.

“She was sacrificed in a manner too cruel for belief. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, but the court, by the most barefaced perversion of her answers, sent the jury out again and forced a verdict of guilty from them! There is nothing more memorable, or lamentable, in all the trials and convictions than the case of this poor woman.”

Two hundred years later, history had begun to reinterpret who were the “victims” and who were the “monsters”.

Salem’s witchcraft hysteria is one of the first recorded instances of intolerance and persecution in the new Colony. Since then, the witch trials have served a symbolic reminders that intolerance continues. For example, is was the McCarthyism of the 1950s that prompted Arthur Miller to revisit Salem in his play “The Crucible”

Today intolerance continues to plague our society in many and varied forms. What will history say of us, two hundred years from now, concerning our failures to properly identify the “victims” from the “monsters”. History must live in the present to keep us from creating tomorrow’s shame.