Signup Form for Witchcraft Trials Assignment
Assignment: On October 6-9, each group
will be responsible for presenting in dramatic form one of the actual transcripts
(listed below) from the Salem Witchcraft trials. Each group should
present a brief introduction to the person or case before enacting the
interrogation of the accused. You will probably want to assign parts:
one person gives the introduction, one acts as the accused, and the rest
act as accusers and judges. If you wish, you can assign one person to talk
about the process, or to sum up these ideas when we discuss all the presentations
as a class.
Think about these questions when preparing your
By what logical or rhetorical strategies did the
accusers seek to make their case?
What strategies did the accused use to defend themselves?
How did each respond to the other's remarks? What
emotions do you see reflected in the words?
How did each side attempt to use Biblical or theological
authority to bolster its position?
How did significant words such as "covenant" and
"book" shift meanings? How did common objects, animals, or actions become
transmuted into "evidence"?
In exploring background material on each person,
what evidence did you find that issues of class, race, or gender affected
the outcome of the trial or the accused's response?
What evidence in the testimony might have accounted
for some of the people being executed and some being spared?
The examination sections themselves are quite short,
so you may, if you wish, choose to present an additional piece of testimony
from the cases of these people.
You can find the transcripts at the University of Virginia site: http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/texts/transcripts.html
|Bridget Bishop (Second Version)
2. Erin Kunkel
3. Hannah Wood
4. Crystal Bale
Mary Wolcott's testimony against George Burroughs
|Tituba (Second Examination)
||1. Kristan Seemel
2. S. Wiest
3. Liz Hanley
4. Ryan Nordlund
4. Ann Mitchke
|Giles Corey. (Note: Corey refused to testify and was pressed to
death by stones placed on his body. See the accusations of several
witnesses and this letter to Judge Samuel Sewall to reconstruct his
2. Meliah Thomas
4. Daniel Wessman
Sites for Research
See the extensive
bibliography on witchcraft compiled by Jeffrey Merrick (U. Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
and Richard M. Golden (University of North Texas) Booth, Sally Smith. The
Witches of Early America. New York: Hastings House, 1975. BF 1573 B
Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed:
The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1974. BF 1576 B6
Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. Salem
Village Witchcraft. Northeastern, 1993.
Demos, John. Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft And
The Culture Of Early New England. New York: Oxford University Press,
Hansen, Chadwick. Witchcraft at Salem. New
York: Braziller, 1969.
Hoffer, Peter Charles. The Devil's Disciples:
Masters of the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1996.
Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a
Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. New York: Vintage, 1987.
BF 1576 K37 1989.
Rosenthal, Bernard. Salem Story: Reading the Witch
Trials of 1692. New York: Cambridge U P, 1993.
Starkey, Marion L. The Devil in Massachusetts.
1949. Reprint. New York: Anchor, 1989.