In my family tree, are grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and inlaws who were involved in the Salem hysteria. These include George Jacobs, Margaret Jacobs (who accused her own grandfather), Sarah Lord, Susannah North, Mary Osgood, Mary Perkins, Mary Towne, Rebecca Towne, and others, as well as the accusers and judges, John Hathorne, Thomas Danforth, Thomas Putnam, Ann Putnam, Joseph Ring, et al.

Each of these has a unique part in the hysteria. What actually happened and what motivation/events ensnared them, we may never know.

However, historical fiction is a way to engage others to consider, perhaps, contemplate our past. Many of us wish to view them (our forefathers and mothers) with a degree of nobility. However, they were in fact human, subject to the frailities of the human condition.

In my opinion, the Salem hysteria involved a mixture of greed, venality, revenge, adolescent angst, and power-mongering. It is a classic example for the need to separate church and state. Another is the treatment of Quakers (Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick are my grandparents). Another is the treatment of Anabaptists.


And yet, when Whitman composed "Cassandra Southwick," the fact that Whitman gives Provided Southwick, her mother's name, does not dimish the poem in any way. Yet it speaks loudly about the character of our Puritan leaders and their willingness to sell young Quakers into slavery (so long as those masters were christian).

When Matteson painted the "Trial of George Jacobs, August 5, 1692," he did so in 1855 with no way of knowing how the participants truly looked like. Still, his rendition evokes emotions with only the slightest bit of historical authenticity.

Or even still, Michael Shaara's "Killer Angels" written a century after the Civil War. His depictions of long dead heroes and common soldiers, won him the Puliter Prize.

These post-event attempts to memorialize our ancestors, seeking out the noblest ideals in them, helps to keep our history alive. What is difficult are the depictions which choose to focus values and behaviors which we disagree with. However, I think that I can safely say, that there were in 1692 some who believed my ancestors and yours were witches and warlocks and their deaths were justified.

Whether our ill-educated brethren of today can discern fact from fiction is the same problem faced in Danvers/Salem of 1692.

Ken