Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting – October 9, 2022
On October 9, 2022, the Madison
County Genealogical Society held a meeting at the Edwardsville Public Library.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the
meeting to order.
GIFT
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE
Do you have a family member that is
interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison
County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will
be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $25.00
Patron Annual Membership $35.00
Institutional Membership $25.00
Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at petie8135@att.net,
about a gift membership.
October Meeting
On October 9, 2022 Dr. Kelly
Obernuefemann, Professor of History and the Coordinator of History, Political
Science, and Geography at Lewis and Clark Community College, presented a
program titled Witchcraft in Colonial America.
There are a lot
of misconceptions about witchcraft in colonial America. Everyone has heard of
Salem and everyone knows something went really wrong in Salem. When talking
about witchcraft in America, we are mostly talking about the New England
Colonies, the Puritan colonies. Those people were looking for witches and the
Puritan life is focused on the morals of everyone in the community … making
sure that everybody was doing what God wanted. Their government went back to
the Mayflower Compact – doing what the church elders told you to do, with no
separation of church and state. If you committed adultery, it was not just a
crime against your family; it was a crime against the community. Because you
brought down God’s wrath and God does not want a community of sinners, you were
publicly shamed and you had to pay fines. The Puritans really felt that God was
watching them and constantly judging them. If things went wrong, it meant that
God was angry, and they had to find a reason for God’s anger. They looked
inward at their community to figure out who was bringing down God’s wrath on
the whole community. Neighbors always watched neighbors, making sure that
nobody stepped out of line. God punished not just one person; He punished the
whole town. Puritan Family values were about keeping your family in line. There
was incredibly strict punishment of children and correction of wives (which
included physical abuse).
In New England
and the colonies, women were brought to court more often than men for moral
offenses, witchcraft, slander, unladylike behavior, and murder. Some men were
brought to court for some of these reasons, but men often could get away with
what women could not. Moral offenses like adultery and fornication were crimes
against the church, crimes against religion, and therefore crimes against God.
It was easier to punish women for moral offenses than men because it was the
woman who got pregnant; and if she did not name the father, she was the only
one punished. In the story of “The
Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester was punished and never named the
father of her child. In Puritan society that is how it was. The woman had a
huge fine put on her, assuming that the father would step forward and pay it,
but if he did not and she kept quiet, the woman was accused of moral offenses.
Occasionally,
men were accused of witchcraft; but it was usually the women who were
accused. Women were watched by the
neighbors and any woman who slandered a man’s reputation was in trouble. If she
said he was a bad husband or he beat his kids, or anything that could damage a
man’s reputation and it was repeated to the church elders, she had to come up
before the church and show remorse. If she did not, a ducking stool was to be
her punishment – we say “dunking” stool, they said “ducking.” They literally
put her on a stool and lowered her down into the nearest stream, made sure she
was under the water for a little bit, and raised her up and said, “Do you
repent?” If she said, “No,” she was put back under the water. They did that until she was
significantly remorseful.
When it came to
slander, men just beat each other up in the street and were done with it. If a woman had been known to slander
her neighbors or the men in the community, she would be another target when it
came to looking for witches.
Unladylike behavior could also make you a target if people were looking
for witches. What was your background? Were you someone who had been punished
for unladylike behavior? So what is unladylike behavior? It is the type of
things that my grandmother would say ladies do not do. It is things like
showing a little too much skin or, in certain times, showing any skin, or
wearing pants. If you wore pants, you were going to be whipped in public. Women
should not be in taverns. If you were a woman and had to have a drink, drink at
home. Do not drink in public or be in a tavern. No cursing or fighting with
another woman. All of those things men could do and sometimes men were even
applauded for defending their family. But, a woman fighting with another woman
in public … no one wanted to see that. It was considered not only unladylike
but uncivilized behavior. People did not like such behavior.
It did not
matter what gender you were when it came to murder; but how you were executed
depended on gender. The common way to execute someone in Puritan times was
hanging. That could be true for women as well as men; but if a woman had
murdered her husband or she was an indentured servant who had murdered her
master, she had committed a crime against people who had authority over
her. Her manner of execution was
being burned at the stake, unless someone stepped in and commuted it to
hanging. Women were supposed to respect authority.
So why were
they so hard on women? The Puritans looked to the Bible … the sins of Eve. Eve
was a temptress and she tempted all the men into sinning, and brought down
God’s wrath. Women raised their children, so women should be good examples for
their kids. If a woman was immoral, she would raise immoral kids, and that
would be on the community. You had
to make sure that you kept a good eye on her and that she kept a good eye on
the kids. There was a whole list of Puritan rules, such as: “Better to be
whipped than damned,” “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” Puritans definitely
believed in punishing children and correcting wives. The New England colonies
had such a strong religious motivation and religious reason for their creation;
and, life was really, really hard in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island,
and New Hampshire.
Why were people
looking for witches in New England and not in North Carolina or South Carolina?
Every single colony had laws about witchcraft; but very few of the colonies
brought anybody to trial. In
colonial times there were always tropical storms bringing diseases and epidemics,
some of which were water borne, to the Southern colonies. A tropical storm
could come in and pollute your wells with rainwater or flood waters and you
would get sick from drinking brown water. In the South people were used to
drinking bad water every day. New England did not usually have to deal with
brown water because the rivers were usually pretty clean. In New England, it
was an event where suddenly everyone became sick at the same time, so it must
be witchcraft.
You could get
famine when the harvest failed; that was God’s punishment. If God loved you,
the harvest would have been plentiful and people would be plentiful. God would
have made you prosper. Per Abraham and the Bible, God makes his followers have
a prosperous life. Why disease,
why famine, and why were those Indians such a problem? In New England, they
believed that bad Indians were a constant problem. They worried about living
side by side with heathens; and they also had to worry about being captured by
Indians. Before 1675 and King Phillip’s War, if you were captured by Indians,
it was usually by French Indians. They came over the border from Canada as
allies of the French government. The French government said, “Go steal some
people and bring them back to Montreal or Quebec. You can ransom them for
money." Since France and England were always at war with each other, the
Canadian border was always a problem. Life up near the Canadian border was a
life of constant Indian threat.
The number one
most popular reading material in Colonial times was the Bible; number two was
captive tales. Women, and occasionally men, who had been captured by the
Indians were ransomed and brought back to their families and then their story
was written. The church or sometimes non-religious publishers published their
stories, but priests or reverends usually came to take their story. Those
priests and reverends wanted the ex-captives to say God had helped them survive
their days with the Indians. That God had blessed them and that is why they had
survived. Everyone wanted to read these stories because they wanted to know
what would happen if the Indians took them and how they could survive being
captured by the Indians and what to expect if Indians came and burned down
their town and took hostages. The New England colonists worried about the
Canadian border all the time; but the Carolina Colonies did not worry about the
Canadian border.
There was a
really high casualty war called King Phillip’s War from 1675 to 1676. It lasted
16 months; and the casualty rate from King Phillip’s War was higher than our
casualty rate for World War II or The Civil War. The percentage of dead men
versus the population was ridiculously high: 8% for white men. During the Civil
War, depending what state you were in, it was only up to 5%. For Indians, at
least 60% of their people got wiped out. King Phillip’s War was a time of
constant warfare with atrocities committed by both sides in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, to the north getting close to the border in the New Hampshire and
Vermont areas, but not so much in Rhode Island. Eventually, the New England
colonists won against a united Indian army who wanted to kick white people out
of America. The tribes attacked those New England colonists and took their
possessions and their supplies.
Then the tribes ran out of food and were eventually forced to surrender.
The Indians failed in their mission only because they ran out of food.
After this huge
devastation in the Indian population, the Indians needed to recoup their
population losses. After King Phillip’s War, the New England Indian population
was down 60% to 80%. There was no
way to know for sure because there was no census for Indians. So far as war
captives and other New England colonists were concerned, life was scary in New
England after 1676. It was not
just the French Indians who were after them, it was any surviving tribe from
King Phillip’s War. They were
likely to kidnap your kids because they needed to adopt the children into their
tribes to increase their numbers. Puritans could not understand why, over and
over again, when they could find their kids, the kids did not want to come
home. How could their children
turn their backs on God’s chosen religion and want to live with heathens? What
were the Puritans doing wrong? Why were their captive children not good
God-fearing children? The answer is obvious to us today. Indians did not use corporal punishment
against children. Thus, the children wanted to stay in tribal territory, not
Puritan society. The Puritans
worried about their mortal spirit.
They thought the rough life in New England was God’s challenge here on
earth, that God was punishing them here on earth. They also believed that if they met God’s challenges on
earth, they would go to heaven afterwards.
There were
witch trials in more areas than New England but New England’s were worse
because of the Puritan style of life.
Not counting Salem, there were 93 cases of witchcraft in Colonial
America, spreading all the way down in the Southern Colonies and Barbados. When
you add the six months in Salem, Massachusetts, there were 234 cases and 36
sentences of execution (but not all carried out). What went wrong in Salem and
who was to blame?
In most areas when people started
looking for witches, the accused usually fit a certain profile, but this was
not true in Salem. If you exclude Salem and look at the 93 other cases n
Colonial America, this was the profile of an accused witch. A woman, who was the temptress and the
daughter of Eve, usually 40-60 years of age, what we today call middle-aged but
the colonists called old, not a single person, not a teenager. They were women
who had been married a long time, but had very few or no children; so God had
not blessed them with children. Why did God not favor those women? What was
wrong with those women in the eyes of God?
Everywhere but
Salem, the women were accused of “white witchcraft,” which is associated with
healing. Echinacea, witch hazel, and aspirin were things associated with
healers and “white witchcraft” in colonial times. So was giving tea or a lotion to someone with some kind of
rash. If your cow was not giving
milk, a white witch might have given you a lotion to rub on your cow’s udder to
cause her to begin producing milk. That is what white witches did – things to
make a positive result in people’s lives, not some crazy demonic pact. But
people were not supposed to use magic because God did not like magic. The
Puritans thought people should tough it out if they got sick and pray a little
harder so God so god would save them.
The cure for sickness was prayer, not magic potions.
Women were the
healers, the ones who took care of the kids, the ones who brewed the tea, and
the ones who gave you the lotion. These healers were targeted when looking for
witches. A woman previously
accused of theft or slander would not have a good reputation in their
neighborhood and, therefore, could be a witch. The premier colonial witchcraft
historian, John Demos, said a typical accused witch in America was, “Abrasive
in style, contentious in character, and stubbornly resilient in the face of
adversity.” A witch was a strong
woman who thought she could make her own decisions – that got her into trouble.
These were some of the typical characteristics of witches when Salem broadened
their terminology of what defines a witch. The Puritans started accusing
anybody and everybody.
The Salem witch
trials started in the home of Samuel Parris in 1692. He was a minister who had
lost his congregation. His congregation was taken from him and given to someone
else because he fell out of favor with the church elders. If you were a
minister back then, you were one of the important people of your town and your
family was the most respected family in town. His family would have been
greeted on the street. People would have shown them signs of respect, would
have kind of cleared the way for them, and said hello to them. It was a big
blow to his family when he was demoted and lost his congregation. His daughter
and his ward felt that the vibe in the neighborhood was different. The family
was not popular anymore and they were not respected. The girls wanted attention
because they did not get it from the congregation anymore. Dad was not important anymore.
One night the
girls had a sleepover at the home of Samuel Parris. Those at the sleepover included
his daughter, another teenage girl (his ward, probably his niece or a cousin),
and a third local girl who was staying with them for a few nights. Those three
girls had a sleepover and played sleepover games. And, like most girls today, they wanted to know whom they
would someday marry. The Parris
family had a slave whose name was Tituba.
Slavery was legal in every colony at that time. New England later turned
away from slavery because it was not important to their economy, but at one
time there were slaves in every colony.
Even a minister like Parris could own a slave. Usually they only owned a
small number - one, two, or three. Tituba was from the Caribbean and could
supposedly tell the future. So, the girls decided to ask Tituba to tell their
future as to “Who am I going to marry?”
Tituba cracked
an egg into a pan of water. She
made sure to break the yolk because she wanted it to be messy so it would form
a letter or shape. Then Tituba looked at the shape of the egg in the bowl of
water; but she did not have an answer to their question right away because
yolks do not make many letters except “I” and “J.” The girls were also looking
in the water and one of the three girls said, “I see a coffin. Someone is going
to die. Whoever we are going to marry is going to die soon.” The girls just fed
on each other’s imagination all night. They each kept coming up with crazier
and crazier things. By morning, they were telling all kinds of crazy stories,
speaking in their own language, and just acting abnormal. So, a doctor was
brought in the next morning. The doctor said, “I cannot find anything wrong
with the girls. Maybe they are bewitched.
Let us ask the girls.” “Girls, did somebody put a spell on you?”
All the adults
were looking at them and here was their chance to be popular again. They
answered, “Yes, we have been bewitched.” Then they named three neighborhood
women: Tituba, and two others who fit the profile of the typical accused witch,
Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. They are easy targets. Especially Sarah Osborne,
who did not have any close family to come to her defense. Sarah Good had also been known to say
nasty things to people because she was ashamed that she was homeless. When people tried to give her charity,
she did not accept it with grace. These three people who fit the profile were
easy targets: a healer, someone who committed a previous crime like theft, and
an older woman. No one would speak
up for them if they were accused because they were lower class. The girls
accused these three women, and that is when Salem’s accusation of witches
began.
Tituba knew
that, as a black slave woman, she was doomed if she did not do something
drastic so she said, “I will name a name. I am not a witch, but I know a
witch.” That is how she got herself off the hook and saved her neck from the
rope. The person Tituba named as a witch also said “I will name a name. I am
not a witch, but I know a witch.” And so the awful cycle began: One accused witch after another claimed
innocence and accused another as a witch; the Puritans rounded up the accused;
that accused person claimed innocence and accused another as a witch until they
had accused all the people who fit the usual profile. After that, they started accusing and arresting people just
because they wanted their property.
At the same
time there was also economic tension between Salem Village and Salem Town.
Salem Town was a port and was making money and starting to turn away from the
very strict black clothing worn by Puritans. They started wearing fancier
clothes and had bigger meals. The Puritans of Salem Town started enjoying
luxury because they were making a lot of money. The Puritans of Salem Village were still poor farmers
and were jealous of the people of Salem Town. The people near the far edge of
the Salem Village started accusing people who lived close to Salem Town as
witches who had turned away from God. They were suspicious of them because they
were not acting in the Puritan style. There were some areas in Salem Village
where neighbors accused neighbors over boundary lines because they wanted that
neighbor’s pasture. There was
hysteria going on and people began acting in ways that were not even remotely
Christian. In six months, more than 150 women are accused, 28 were convicted,
and 19 were hanged. Some of the convicted were waiting to be hanged when
suddenly someone accused the governor’s wife of being a witch. When that person
accused the governor’s wife, what happened? The Governor said accusations of people as witches was to
stop immediately! Accused witches were pardoned and sent home! Ministers were
silenced! The trials where people had been convicted as witches were declared
invalid! The Governor asked what Salem Village was doing listening to teenagers
in the first place and said Salem Village should be ashamed of itself! The trials were over!
But some of the
women who were awaiting execution did not get released. Twenty-eight convicted
people died in prison. The prison system at that time consisted on one room
under the local magistrate’s house.
The women packed in these subterranean rooms to await trial had a huge
sanitation problem, became sick and malnourished, and died. Their families had
to bring them food every day or pay money to the magistrate’s wife so she would
feed them even a little bit. The families also had to pay an iron tax for
making the shackles and chains that bound their loved ones. It was said that iron stopped a witch;
so iron handcuffs were put on the accused witches and they had to pay for them.
After Salem, no one was executed for witchcraft in America.
Today, there is a monument to the women
who were executed for witchcraft in Salem. It is a circle and around that
circle are the names of the women who were executed on that spot.