Spectral Evidence In The Salem Witch Trials

In January 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, innocent citizens began to be accused of witchcraft. Two young girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams hid under furniture and contorted their bodies into unusual shapes. They screamed and cried out that the spirits of innocent citizens in the town of Salem were torturing them by stabbing them and trying to convince them to sign the Devil’s book. They were thought to have been under witchcraft’s spell, causing the young girls to accuse many people of witchcraft such as their own slave Tituba. More and more people of the town became afflicted with the same symptoms as Betty and Abigail, in the end causing over 200 people to be accused of witchcraft and all found guilty. In Witches!

Spectral evidence was “evidence related to supernatural beings that were invisible to everybody except the afflicted accusers” (Schanzer 76). Due to this, there was no way to know that the afflicted were telling the truth. Increase Mather felt that this was a horrid system to use in court and “...had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence” (Salem Witch Trials 3). None of the judges agreed with Mather even though “... it stated that spectral evidence should never be used all by itself in court” (Shanzer 88). By avoiding this rule, despite all of Mather’s attempts to abolish spectral evidence’s use in court, the judges continued to find the accused guilty of witchcraft and sent them to Gallows Hill to be

To make the accused witches seem more likely to be condemned, “... sometimes the afflicted took Pins out of their own Clothes and thrust them into their flesh” (Schanzer 85). The accusers claimed that the places where they had stuck themselves with pins is where they were “Blinded! Stuck with pins! Pulled by strong forces into a blazing fireplace! Like Ann, Lewis said it was all the fault of Martha Corey” (Schanzer 44). The court believed every word that the accusers said and were very unheeded to the evidence. All of the accuser's accusations lead to more people realizing “... that the innocent were being executed because of hearsay, malicious gossip,and invisible evidence” (Schanzer 105). Due to these fake accusations, 19 people were hanged and buried in