The Forgotten Victims of Salem

We have spent a significant portion of the semester discussing the tragic events in 1692 Salem. Our primary focus has been on the women who were targeted, "othered," accused, and convicted. Through this, we have uncovered various insights regarding the treatment of women and patriarchal society during that time period. While this is particularly important to study, and while women were a large percentage of the victims in Salem, they were not the only ones.

I decided to spend this blog post examining the "forgotten" victims of Salem who were also accused and convicted of witchcraft: men and dogs. In the classroom, we have spent a small amount of time discussing these victims, but I never quite understood the background behind them. I did some research of my own to dig deeper into their stories.

A story that particularly stood out to me was that of John Willard, the deputy constable in Salem. Willard was likely targeted as a witch due to his skepticism of the witch trials themselves. His wife's grandfather developed kidney stones and was told it was due to witchcraft. The grandfather recalled that Willard had looked at him in a funny way, which made him suspicious. When his grandson later died, the grandfather accused Willard! Another family then accused Willard of killing their baby years before. As is the case for many (or all) of the witch accusations in Salem, these ones seem far from logical. Willard was ultimately hanged.

Another interesting set of victims were dogs! A girl accused one dog of bewitching her after she was feeling afflicted, and the animal was shot to death. Another dog was believed to be associated with an accused male witch who fled from Salem, and it also was put to death.

These cases of witchcraft accusations only further the depiction of major hysteria and lack of sensibility in Salem during this time. While studying the importance of most of the victims being women is valuable, these victims also should not be forgotten. They contribute to a whole story of this horrible series of events that should never be forgotten, but also never repeated.