The Salem witch trials were a dark period in American history that took place in the late 17th century in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. During this time, numerous individuals were accused of practicing witchcraft and were subjected to a series of trials and interrogations. Many innocent people were wrongly convicted and faced severe punishments, including execution. One particular method of torture that was used during the Salem witch trials was stone crushing. This method involved placing heavy stones on the accused person's body, usually on their chest, until they either confessed to being a witch or were unable to bear the weight any longer. Stone crushing was intended to exert extreme physical pressure on the accused and force them to admit to witchcraft.
Giles Corey: The Unique Story a Victim in the Salem Witch Trials
With the hostility medieval European Christians harbored towards members of the Old Religion and the subsequent Inquisition, Burning Times, and more, it was inevitable that the persecution would make its way across the Atlantic to Puritan New England by the 17 th century. Salem Village in Massachusetts served as a breeding ground for one of America’s most known travesties, later inspiring tales like The Crucible and The House of the Seven Gables.
When Reverend Samuel Parris was called to Salem Village to preach in the newly granted church, he brought with him a Caribbean woman named Tituba, the family’s slave who often times entertained the Parris children with pieces of her country’s culture. As Elizabeth Parris and a group of her friends played one January night in 1692, they tested a voodoo method that Tituba affirmed would let them see the faces of their future husbands in an egg white. The girls crowded next to each other as they watched the egg white be dropped into warm water, excited at the prospects of their forthcoming romances. To Elizabeth’s horror, however, she watched as the egg white morphed not into the visage of a man, but into the shape of a coffin. She was sent into hysterics, convulsing and acting erratically. Her inconsolable behavior seeped into the other girls, leading their Puritan community to believe they were bewitched. The terrified villagers encouraged the girls to testify against the witches who were bringing the Devil into their lives. Thus, the deluge of chaotic accusations towards innocent women and men began, marking the start of the Salem Witch Trials.
Corey being accused of witchcraft.
While it was mostly women who were slandered, Giles Corey, an 80-year-old man, was one of only six men who faced the misfortune of trial. Corey was a hardworking farmer, but the success of his properties didn’t lend to the village’s view of his character. He was a violent man. Scandal seemed to follow him, and he was often a scapegoat for whatever problem arose. Therefore, it wasn’t shocking when one of the afflicted girls, Ann Putnam Jr., named him to the court. Claims against him flooded in. It was then attested that Benjamin Gould saw the specters of Corey and other accused staring at him while he was in bed, pinching him as they vanished. Ann’s father, Thomas Putnam, asserted in court that the witches harassing his daughter had threatened to press her to death—restraining her on her back while slowly adding more and more heavy rocks on top of her. According to his story, a “ghost in a winding sheet” came to Ann, telling her that Corey had killed him in the same manner and made a contract with Satan to protect himself from a death by hanging. On April 18, 1692, official complaints about Corey were given to the court for his “tormenting” the afflicted girls.
Mary Walcott, a friend of Ann Putnam Jr., was one of the girls who slandered Corey.
Corey declined to admit to anything, choosing to leave his inditement unanswered. It was New England law that anyone who refused to answer an issued inditement could not be tried. He couldn’t be found guilty if he was never tried. Even with this loophole, he most likely knew fighting for his innocence was a lost cause. He wrote out a will entailing that his property and possessions be handed over to his son-in-law. The magistrates overseeing the trials were enraged by Corey’s attempts to weasel his way out, so they brought back an archaic law that allowed an individual unwilling to appear in court to be tortured until they either confessed or died. They excommunicated the man on September 14 th , 1692, and set out to pull his declaration of guilt from him shortly thereafter.
An illustration of Corey’s torture.
The form of torture the magistrates chose for Corey was pressing*. He was stripped naked, staked into the ground, and covered by a sheet of wood in a field besides the prison he was kept in. One by one, large stones were placed on top the wood. Between the placement of each stone, the magistrate would demand Corey confess, but as the stones piled and the weight increased to a crushing force, Corey still refused to give an admission. Some lore surrounding the event say that the only words he spoke were a haunting command of “more weight.” Sources conflict on how long he remained buried neck down by rocks before succumbing to the body trauma. Cawthorne’s Witches: History of Persecution , for example, states two days whereas Saari’s Witchcraft in America states nine. Regardless of the exact duration, he proved to be resilient. Giles Corey died on September 19 th .
As jolting as this was to the village, the Witch Trials raged on for another year, ending innocent lives, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and staining Massachusetts forever. Joseph Green replaced Samuel Parris as reverend in 1697. He made it a point to do whatever in his power he could to repair the damage the Trials caused to Salem Village. One notion was to formally revoke Corey’s excommunication in 1712. Though it was too late for Corey to feel the effects, the reversal aided in adding peace in the community and protecting the reputation of Corey’s descendants.
Ironic and morbid, Corey’s memorial marker is a large stone.
Salem witch trials stone crushing
Giles Corey was a prosperous farmer with a bit of a dark past. An upright and proud man, he had a few times escaped the punishments of the leaders of Salem, Mass. His relationship with the community was strained and the people of Salem might have wanted revenge, thus the Salem Witch Trials became the perfect cover for getting away with his and his wife, unconventional Martha Corey’s, murder.
Rather than fight for his honor in a court which he felt had already damned him, the proud Corey stood quiet on trial as a witch, a decision which led to a torturous sentence of being crushed to death.
Wikimedia Commons An artist’s rendering of Giles Corey on trial.
Indeed, the cursed fate of Giles Corey also shows that men, not just women, suffered at the Salem Witch Trials.
Stone crushing was intended to exert extreme physical pressure on the accused and force them to admit to witchcraft. The stones used could weigh anywhere from a few pounds to several hundred pounds, depending on the severity of the accusation. The use of stone crushing as a method of extracting confessions during the Salem witch trials highlights the desperation and brutality that characterized this period.
Prosperity In The New World And An Unpunished Murder
Giles Corey, a well-to-do farmer, hailed from Northampton, England where he was born in 1621. Sometime after his first marriage to a woman named Margaret, Corey made the three-month journey to America. He settled in Salem town for a while where the couple had a daughter, Deliverance, on August 5, 1658. In 1659, the small family moved to Salem Village to become farmers.
On the outskirts of town, Giles Corey became a prosperous farmer. Farming was important back then, not only as a source of food for individuals but also for storing crops during harsh winters. As such, Corey became an important figure in the community.
Shortly after becoming a farmer, however, Margaret died. Corey married again to Mary Brite in 1664. The two settled into a peaceful farming and church-going life for the next 12 years.
Then, one fateful event forever changed the fortunes of the Coreys.
One day in 1675, Corey discovered that his farmhand, Jacob Goodale, had stolen apples from his storage area. Incensed, the farmer pummeled his farmhand to death with a stick. Corey maintained his worker fell and broke his arm. Authorities disagreed.
Fellow well-to-do farmer in the town, John Proctor, testified in court that he had overheard Corey confess to having beaten Goodale to death. The testimony was enough to convict the farmer but instead of jail time for this church-going, integral man in the community, town leaders agreed to a fine to make amends for Goodale’s death.
But some town leaders disagreed with this assessment and loathed the notion that Corey had just bought his way out of imprisonment. It didn’t help that Corey had twice before this instance been accused and tried for theft. His prodigal past without punishment riled the establishment of Salem as members of the community began to become ever more suspicious of Corey and to think him a man prone to violence who took the law into his own hands.
This would be the farmer’s undoing in 1692 at the height of the witch trial hysteria.
Accused individuals were subjected to various forms of torture and interrogation in order to secure confessions, often under duress and without proper evidence. It is important to note that the Salem witch trials represented a mass hysteria and moral panic rather than an actual outbreak of witchcraft. The accusations were based on superstitions, fear, and personal vendettas, leading to the wrongful persecution of innocent individuals. The implementation of stone crushing as a means of torture during the Salem witch trials reflects the extreme measures taken by the authorities to obtain confessions and evidence against the accused. This form of torture, along with other methods employed during the trials, stands as a reminder of the dangers of irrationality, prejudice, and the abuse of power..
Reviews for "The Stones That Crushed Innocence: Stone Crushing in the Salem Witch Trials"
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