Fear + Trigger = Scapegoat
Have you ever experienced something that left its mark on you, maybe a movie, a book or a place? When you think of it, you conjure a distinct memory or feeling. Now, have you ever experienced that same thing later in your life when you are in a different headspace and now it doesn’t quite fit with the memory you’ve been carrying for it? Maybe that movie or book isn’t as great as you once thought, or perhaps now you see it with fresh eyes and it’s even more relevant! That was my experience lately visiting Salem, Massachusetts and the Salem Witch Museum.
When I was in high school, I took a trip to Salem and visited the Salem Witch Museum. The memory that has stuck in my mind all these years later is the audio/visual performance of the Witch Trials that you get to see, which depicted the pressing of Giles Corey. The auditorium goes dark and, suddenly, a scene of Corey lying under a pile of heavy rocks is lit by a spotlight. He’s gasping to his soon-to-be executioners, “More weight…” I could never wrap my mind around how one human could treat another so cruelly. No death during the Witch Trials was a good death by any means, but some of the others were at least quick. It took Corey days to take his final breath, all while contemplating his life and society. It’s unimaginable and exactly why history and museums like that are so important. It’s just like author George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
This summer I came full circle and returned to Salem for my 30th birthday. My friends and I were really excited to go to the Salem Witch Museum, and I was especially psyched for them to experience it since they had never been there before. The performance of the Witch Trials was just as I remembered it, but some new things really stuck out to me this time now that I’m a little older and wiser:
I forgot how the Witch Trials started with one girl being the catalyst for the pandemonium and that she most likely did it, (at least in the beginning) out of boredom: Ann Putnam Jr. The total number of people accused of witchcraft during that time varies between 200 and 300, but Ann Putnam Jr. personally accused 62 people. She was a busy girl.
My initial reaction is to always judge Ann, especially because the people who were affected by her actions were innocent victims and her apology was so unemotional (maybe not in the delivery, but in the content). I think about how she basically said ‘I’m sorry I caused so much hysteria. I hope God will forgive me someday.’ Super casual. But, then another part of me reflects about what life was like for Puritan girls and women. They had no lives or freedoms like women today. The Puritans’ religion was so restrictive that it ultimately sent Ann’s mother into a great depression. I’m in no way justifying Ann’s actions, but her environment was a pressure cooker that forced her to act out.
Lastly, I really understood this time how messed up society was before, during and after the trials. There were people accused of witchcraft who were later found to be innocent in court, but had to pay legal fees for their time spent in jail. Basically, they had to pay for room and board. A lot of the accused were poor and couldn’t afford to pay their legal fees, so they just had to remain in jail! Absolutely crazy. Think about our justice system here in the USA today. If someone is acquitted of a crime or their verdict is reversed later, they get to go home. If that person spent time in jail and it was proven they did not commit that crime, a lot of times, those people will be given reparations. They can sue the jail and the place they live in civil court. It’s completely opposite to the system in the Puritan colonies. In fact, Ann's father (and the church) became a fiend by acquiring and selling off innocent people's valuables and land while they were in jail (because that's totally just, right?).
I know that I had heard a lot of this same information during my first visit in high school. The museum itself and its programs remain mostly unchanged today, but this time it hit differently. The lens which I was viewing it from was completely different. This time, instead of walking away and thinking only about Corey and his excruciating death, I can’t get the formula out of my head that the museum has painted on the wall as the last thing you see when you exit the tour. It says: Fear + Trigger = A Scapegoat
Those three summary points take on a whole new perspective when you consider the formula. Ann and her friends were really bored. Heck, even her mother was bored. Their lives consisted of sewing, cooking and chores but not much else. That is a pretty bleak existence. Ann and some of her friends, including Elizabeth Paris and Abigail Williams would spend time with a woman who worked for the Paris family named Tituba. Tituba was a Native American slave and to pass time, she would play silly superstitious games with the girls. One of the games was to drop an egg white into a cup of water and the shape of the egg could predict the future. If the girls saw a face, that could be the face of their future husband! That was the dream, to find your husband because a woman’s sole life purpose was to become a wife and mother.
I’m in no way hating on the dream of wanting to be a wife and mother, I’m just saying that at that time, that was the only thing a girl could grow to be. They were not encouraged to have any personal passions. I would be really sad if that was my mom’s only identity. She is a person first and my mom second. I don’t know what the future has in store for me as it pertains to marriage and children, but I can assure you that there are a lot of things and people that I care about right now, just as I exist today without those titles.
As we said, this restrictive lifestyle was a pressure cooker. Eventually the girls started acting out and when they were questioned, the conclusion was that they must be witches and working with the Devil. People in the community of Salem were really afraid. For people who devoted their lives to their religion, sometimes attending church services that lasted upwards of eight hours, the idea of the Devil walking among them and taking control of their loved ones was truly terrifying. But, instead of dealing with the fallout of telling the truth, that they were just restless because of the restrictions imposed on them, the girls lied and said that Tituba had possessed them and taught them the ways of witchcraft.
Being a slave and woman of color, Tituba was the first scapegoat. She was easy to blame. So were a lot of the other people that were eventually accused. Giles Corey even accused his own wife! People were willing to label their family members as witches because they hoped it would draw suspicion away from themselves. In Corey’s case, he was later accused himself but refused to profess if he was innocent or guilty, because doing so (either way) would have caused him to lose his land to the corrupt and hysterical judicial system. He may have called his wife a witch, but he suffered so that his children could keep their inheritance.
It was also more complicated, I learned, than people just being scared of witches. The economy in 1692 Salem wasn’t great. A lot of people were really struggling, particularly through the harsh winters, so it was easy for people to believe that the Devil had cursed them all. That’s why they were having such a rough go of it. Just more fear that was flamed, eventually leading to the blaming of a scapegoat, the “witches.”
As amazing as this story is, I think the reason it's been lingering so heavily on my mind since I got home from vacation is because the formula, Fear + Trigger = Scapegoat, doesn’t just apply to the Salem Witch Trials. We can see it in action throughout our American history. In fact, the museum has a spot on their website where you can enter your own examples. I really encourage you to check it out. Maybe take a stab at entering whatever comes to your mind when you hear it. I also hope you’ll come back for our next post so we can talk more about why it’s so important that we continue to study events like this in our history, because they can predict our future if we are not careful.