Kate was lucky, as far as servants go. Her master and mistress were wealthy., and she lived a comfortable life working for them. The last thing she would want would be to jeopardize her job with them and be cast out on the streets for some bizarre ailment she'd become afflicted with that couldn't be explained. Rather than risk losing her job and the life she'd grown accustomed to, and realizing that the attacks were increasing in intensity and frequency and could no longer be hidden, Kate may have consciously chosen to blame it on a couple of women she knew her masters didn't get along with. Or maybe she truly believed she was bewitched; it didn't take much to make one believe such a thing in those days. At any rate, Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough were brought to trial, and the entire community became involved in the outcome.
Preceding is a passage from Haunted Connecticut: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Constitution State.
The Stamford Witch Trials of 1692 have very much been overshadowed by those occurring in Salem, Massachusetts to the north in the same year. In terms of inherent drama, this is understandable. Still, the Connecticut trials were pretty fascinating in themselves. What distinguishes them is the relatively happy ending that resulted. Innocent people were accused and convicted, but they weren't put to death. In fact the people of Stanford, or at least enough of them to make a difference, seem to have concluded that this system of accusation and punishment was no longer right for the society they wanted to build. Witch trials were discontinued.
2 comments:
It's a good thing the Stamford Witch trials were treated so differently and it's a shame that isn't more widely known. Apparently the Salem hysteria didn't end until the governor's wife was accused resulting in him putting his foot down.
What doesn't seem to be understood in general even today is that the original English settlers to the colonies who had no doctors, certainly as far as medicine is understood now, went to local practitioners (cunning men and women) to have their futures foretold, and healing from natural and supernatural ills. Many of the women accused and punished for witchcraft were midwives who weren't always successful - unsurprisingly.
No doubt the more lurid and tragic aspects of the Salem Witch Trials have helped them be remembered better. Although the affair between a teenage accuser and middle aged accusee was entirely Arthur Miller's invention. No doubt also Stamford was also acting on Salem's negative example.
Midwives have always been easy scapegoats in cases where the birth didn't go as planned. What's also true was that these events reflected the isolated state of the colonies. Witch burning in Europe had peeked in the Middle Ages. Puritan intolerance in England had seen a rise under Oliver Cromwell. But the Cromwells had been out of power for decades by 1692. The fact that their sympathizers were now living on the edge of wilderness an ocean away really rankled some of them.
Post a Comment