In our research for our upcoming Canadian Mystery Spectral Evidence, co-writer Jude Pittman and I faced a confounding question:
Why did the witch hunt hysteria of 1692 take over Salem and the New England colonies and not their neighbors and trading partners in Newfoundland?
Newfoundland of the seventeenth century a multicultural society of indentured servants, planters (year-round settlers), merchants and their servants (some of whom were enslaved Africans) and seasonal fisherfolk from England's west country, Ireland, France the Basque region of Spain, and the Netherlands. Joining them were the Mi'kmaq and Beothuk people who had been living on Newfoundland for hundreds of years. All of these cultures had traditions of witchcraft.
Seventeenth century New England was dominated by a society of puritans. Their religion dominated government, ministry, education. The "other" was suspect, whether it be Quakers or Catholics, another country of origin, or another culture. Both Native Americans and the French were looked upon as "devils," especially after devastating raids that were the result of English incursions into lands claimed by the French or Wabanacki Confederacy.
Mix this with territorial disputes among neighbors, children suffering from the trauma of warfare violence, a bad harvest's hunger. The match was lit for neighbors accusing neighbors of witchcraft. Spectral evidence (actions and torments only the accusers could see) was used to hang devout grandmothers, homeless women, neighboring farmers, even one of Salem's former ministers. The accused included a four year old child.
Only when the governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony's wife was accused, did the fever that was the Salem Witch hunt break.
Why Salem? It's a question that's been asked ever since. Jude and I hope to contribute to the debate in our storytelling.
