Samuel Sewall: a Witch Judge Who Repented?

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Samuel Sewall: a Real Hero?

Samual Sewall (1652-1730) was a businessman, a landowner and a member of a strict Puritan church community. His marriage had made him a rich man. For more than 30 years, he was also a judge in Boston, a port in one of the British colonies in America, with some 10,000 inhabitants around the year 1700. Despite his busy schedule, Sewall managed to keep an extensive diary for 40 years. However, Sewall would become most famous, or rather infamous, as a member of the Court that, in 1692, sentenced more than 20 innocent people to death for witchcraft.

Five years later, Sewall publicly apologized for his participation in these judicial killings. He was the only judge who repented and for this reason, in two fairly recent biographies, Sewall is portrayed as a hero. After all, in the English language, ‘sorry’ is one of the most difficult words to utter.

This is all very well, but despite its length, Sewall’s diary mentions next to nothing about the proceedings of the witch trials. Was he ashamed of what he had done? But then, why had he participated anyway? In his apology of 1697, Sewall did not address these questions either. Why did he apologize at all? And why did it take him five years to do so? These questions have not been answered. Is it justified to call him a hero just because of his public repentance?

Summer 1692: Witchcraft in Salem

In Salem, a small town just north of Boston, the witchcraft mayhem started quite innocuously, with some teenage girls experimenting with black magic and palmistry just for the fun of it. When adults took their games seriously and labeled their play as witchcraft, the girls got into trouble. In an attempt to avoid further problems, they said they had been the victims of witchcraft. Consequently they had to give the names of those ‘witches’ who had persuaded them to participate.

The girls mentioned more and more names. Eventually, this led to the arrests of hundreds of people suspected of witchcraft. They were literally put in chains and locked up in rat-infested cellars. Because torture was one of the methods the Court used to make them  confess, most of the suspects did indeed admit to witchery. After all, If you confessed, you were not hanged: in such cases conversion was judged to be possible. But more than 20 people who had endured torture and who had not participated in this madness, were judicially murdered. In addition, when people stated that a certain suspect had appeared to him or her as a ‘witch’ in a ‘spectre’ (a ghost or apparition), the accused would be convicted. At the time, the law did not recognize such extraordinary evidence, but the Court rulings were based on it, nonetheless.

The Court needed at least two witnesses before accepting the evidence of apparitions. Strangely enough, enough witnesses always turned up. The interrogation of the suspects took place in public, when the original ‘victims’ of witchcraft were also present. In their fear and anxiety, these young girls played their roles: if one of them said that a certain suspect had appeared to her in the form of a ghost, the accusation was immediately supported hysterically by some of the other screaming girls. Sewall’s biographer, Richard Francis, states that it was a pity Puritans had no experience with the theatre (which they regarded as a pagan practice), for if they had had such knowledge, they probably would have recognized that the teenage girls were role-playing.

Men were also executed as witches. So George Burroughs for instance, who had studied together with Sewall at Harvard and who had been a minister in Salem for a short time. He too fell prey to the witch hunters: in May 1692 he was arrested. Admittedly, he had beaten up both his wives and was of a very liberal persuasion by Puritan standards. During the trial, he was asked when he had last partaken of the Lord’s Supper. Burroughs replied that he couldn’t remember the date. This, of course, didn’t go down well in Puritan Boston. In August he was hanged because he had refused to confess. Sewall voted for the death penalty for his old classmate, but he did not attend the execution. The persecution of witches did not end until members of the elite were accused of involvement in witchcraft.

Why Go Along With the Delusion of the Day?

What can we say in defence of Sewall? It is often purported that Puritans simply believed in the evil activity of the devil: the devil would induce people to work for him and they acted as witches. The witch trials were the logical consequence of this belief. However, this ‘excuse’ is only partly valid: many people did not agree with the way the Salem Court operated.

In July 1692, more than 50 inhabitants of the village of Andover sent a letter to the Court of which Sewall was a member. In this letter, they stated that the women of their village who had been accused of witchcraft, were no witches at all, even though they had confessed. The letter stated that precisely because suspects were promised release after confessing, many of them had been tempted to make a confession. It showed real courage on the part of the  inhabitants of Andover to write such a letter, because standing up for ‘witches’ might well mean being accused of witchcraft yourself. These outsiders in Andover understood that the trials were flawed, so how is it that Sewall did not have any doubts? Why did not he take their criticism to heart?

In fact, in June 1692, one of the nine judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, had resigned in protest against the violations of justice committed by the Court. The so-called evidence of the ‘apparitions’ he found particularly distasteful. From the end of May till mid-July (the period in which the witch trials had reached their peak), Sewall didn’t write one single entry in his diary: as a result Saltonstall’s resignation is not mentioned by him either. The fact that these witch hunts were a local phenomenon, is apparent again when we see that one Mrs. Cary – who had also been convicted by Sewall’s Court – managed to escape and fled to New York. Once there, the governor of that state personally welcomed her warmly.

In the late summer of 1692, Samuel Willard, Sewall’s minister, also turned against the witch trials, in writing as well as in speech, although he had supported them at first. Therefore, Sewall had every reason to have an in-depth discussion with him. And there were plenty of opportunities for him to do so: Willard often visited him. Perhaps such a conversation may have taken place, but it is not mentioned in Sewall’s diary.

The most likely reason for Sewall’s acquiescence may have been the peer pressure exerted on him. This peer pressure was strong because of the character and the age of William Stoughton, the presiding judge of the Court. Stoughton knew no doubts, and was very sure of himself and he was twenty years Sewall’s senior. Sewall may well have looked up to him.

Why Apologize?

Sewall’s public repentance did not come out of the blue. For Sewall, 1696 had been a difficult year. In the year following the witch trials, a newborn daughter of Sewall had died, less than a month old. In May 1696, a little son was stillborn. At the end of December of that same year, Sewall and his wife were dealt another blow. Sarah – she had just turned two yours old – became seriously ill and her condition had deteriorated so rapidly that Sewall and his wife Hannah (who was also very sick) were not present when she died. The nanny did not have enough time to warn them: Sarah died in her arms.

There was another factor too: Sewall suspected that his minister, Samuel Willard, was keeping his distance. During these months, Sewall and his wife were not invited by their minister to attend the Bible study meetings they had always enjoyed. This was, of course, in no way as serious a matter as the deaths of their children, but this social boycott did not fail to have its impact, judging by Sewall’s diary entries.

It is probably with all this in mind that Sewall, on entering the church on Sunday January 14, 1697, handed the minister, Samuel Willard, a note stating his confession of guilt. In the course of the service, Willard read it aloud to the congregation, while Sewall was listening standing up. Afterwards, Sewall bowed his head. Sewall’s apology reads as follows:

“Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and his family; and being sensible that as to the Guilt contracted, upon the opening of the late Court of Salem (…) he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, Desires to take the Blame and Shame of it. Asking pardon of Men, and especially desiring prayers that God (…) would pardon that Sin and all other his Sins, personal and relative; that God would not visit that sin of him or any other, upon himself or any of his, nor upon the Land (…). “(Diary p. 367)

Sewall (and Willard too?) saw the misery that had befallen him as a punishment from God. Had Willard persuaded him to repent after all? Judging by the wording of his repentance, one may venture the conclusion that Sewall’s main concern was not the truth but avoidance of further punishment from his Puritan God. First he mentions the blows God has inflicted on him and his family, and at the end he expresses the hope that God will not punish him and his family anymore for his sins committed in Salem.

It’s not unusual for a Puritan such as Sewall to feel that God has punished him for his sins by taking away his children. After all, in the 1680S he had shown the same fears (see my blog Loving Parents? part 2), but in that period he did not list his sins. In 1697, however, although he did mention his sin, he did not explain why his participation in the witch trials had aroused God’s wrath. Since Sewall did not clarify the reasons for his repentance, neither in public nor in his diary, his real motives remain unclear.

In the same month (January 1697), the members of the jury (in Massachusetts, like in England, trial by jury was common) also apologized. Their wording was more straightforward than Sewall’s: “We sincerely ask forgiveness from all of you whom we have wrongfully offended and we promise that none of us will do so again.” It was to their credit that the jury had on some occasions expressed their initial doubts during the trials, thus incurring the wrath of Stoughton, the Court’s president.

Good People Do Bad Things

In 2005, when Richard Frances’ biography was published, The Times commented that the story of Sewall’s life shows that “good people do bad things”. However, does not a comment like this just cloud the issue? It is true that Sewall was the only judge who apologized. But when you have joined the mob out of cowardice (that seems to be the only explanation for Sewall’s policy) and then apologize later without telling why, does that make you a good person, let alone a hero?

Sources: M. Halsey Thomas (ed.) The Diary of Samuel Sewall 1674-1729 (2 vols. New York 1973);  Peter Haining, An Illustrated Witchcraft (1975); David D. Hall, “The Mental World of Samuel Sewall”, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society Vol 92 (1980) p. 21-44 (downloaded from: www.jstor.org); Richard Francis, Judge Sewall’s Apology. The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of a Conscience (London 2005); Eve LaPlante, The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall (New York 2007). See also: www.salemwitchmuseum.com.

Translated by Ite Wierenga