Constable: 'Greatest witch hunt in American history' resulted in real executions
It's difficult to avoid talk of a "witch hunt" these days. Donald Trump has tweeted or retweeted that phrase 290 times, according to TrumpTwitterArchive.com, casting himself or associates as victims of unfair attacks.
"It's the single greatest witch hunt in American history, probably in history, but in American history," Donald Trump said of the current impeachment process against him, which he also referred to on Twitter Tuesday as a "lynching."
Such comparisons have evoked rebukes.
"It is disturbing when the leader of our great country, one who comes from privilege, uses words such as 'witch hunt' and 'lynching' in relation to himself," says Shari Kelley Worrell, a former resident of Arlington Heights and Lake Barrington. "There are people who have family members who have died under the true meaning of these two phrases."
Worrell is one of them.
Lynching obviously brings to mind the more than 4,000 black Americans murdered since the end of the Civil War in ugly racial violence that remains a stain on our nation. But the original and greatest witch hunt in American history took place in Salem, Massachusetts, near the end of the 17th century and resulted in 19 hangings and another execution by crushing with heavy stones in 1692.
"I descend from 12 people who were accused of being witches. Two of the 12 were hanged," says Worrell.
One of Laurie Sutherland's eighth-generation grandmothers was shackled and imprisoned during that original great witch hunt.
"The glossing over with the strong labels that the president uses is destructive and disrespectful," says Sutherland, a 59-year-old resident of Sugar Grove. "To pull it into the political area today is a deep disrespect and a lack of historical appreciation for the horrors of what happened."
Among those wrongly convicted and hanged was Susannah Martin, Worrell's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Martin, a 67-year-old widow labeled "one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world" by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, was hanged on July 19, 1692, in Salem, after being convicted of being a witch. Mary Towne Estey, another relative of Worrell, was convicted as a witch and hanged on Sept. 22, 1692.
A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution who traced her lineage back to Clovis the Riparian, king of the Franks at Cologne, in about 420 A.D., Worrell also is a member of the Associated Daughters of Early American Witches. As an activist for that organization, Worrell spent years working on behalf of those wrongly accused to right those egregious wrongs. Finally, on Halloween in 2001, the Massachusetts Legislature and governor officially exonerated the last of those executed, including Martin.
Worrell attended a Christian funeral for Martin in 2002, and a bench bearing Martin's name now is part of the Salem Witch Trials Memorial.
Sutherland also is a member of the Associated Daughters of Early American Witches.
"For some, like myself, there's a sadness that stretches back across time to the dark and deeply troubling sufferings of our ancestors," says Sutherland, whose relative Martha Barrett Sparks of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, was accused by a neighbor who was milking a cow and claimed to see a vision of Sparks after "the cow struck her with one horn upon her forehead and fetched blood." That "spectral evidence" was enough to arrest Sparks on charges of using her powers to make the cow injure the neighbor.
"Her story is little known, and her heartache is something I carry," says Sutherland, who says that even though her ancestor eventually was released, the wrongful accusation took a toll. "Martha's mother died two years after the incident, her husband died three years after, and Martha passed away in 1697 at age 40. Between her release in 1692 and her death in 1697, two of Martha's four children also died."
Throwing around words such as "lynching" and "witch hunt" do a disservice to the pain of real lynchings and witch hunts.
"We are blessed to live in a country where we can say what we want without repercussions," Worrell says, "but we must all remember that words matter."