Salem Witch Judge, by Eve LaPlante.

(NY: HarperCollins, 2007. 352 pp. $25.95, ISBN 978-0-06-078661-8)

Biography/American History

One of the fiercest criticisms leveled against politicians comes when they are perceived to “flip-flop.” It is a common strategy to display an incumbent candidate’s voting record on an issue “then” and “now,” implying that because they flip-flopped they cannot be trusted, but is that what flip-flops prove?

Eve LaPlante’s book “Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall” tells a different tale. Sewall is one of the many judges who participated in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, and she quotes from this politician’s diary, “Men think ‘tis a disgrace to change their mind … But there is not a greater piece of folly than not to give place to right reason.”

Sewall knew what he was talking about; he was the only judge from the Salem Witch Trials to ever publicly repent of his part in the hysteria.

The opening chapters unfold slowly and may be tedious for those not passionate about American history, but they effectively lay the groundwork to understand the mind set of 17th century New Englanders in such a way that you can almost understand how things got so bad.

How bad was it in 1692 New England? “In total 185 people – 141 women and 44 men – were accused of witchcraft. Of the 59 people tried, 31 were convicted and 20 were executed,” LaPlante writes.

Somewhere around 50 people confessed, several (including children) under torture, to escape the death penalty. What may surprise the reader is how forward thinking the judges thought themselves to be!

Judge Hathorne (the great-great grandfather to Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of “The Scarlet Letter,” whose deep shame at his ancestor’s involvement caused him to change the spelling of his last name) was particularly proud of the proceedings because they weren’t using the European method of testing witches by “tying a suspect’s thumbs to her toes and throwing her into deep water.” In Europe, those who floated would be executed as witches, those who drowned were posthumously declared innocent.

As the book unfolds the reader is captivated by the struggle of Judge Sewall as he begins to doubt the righteousness of the trials and then to grieve with him as he comprehends the true evil he participated in.

Though his public confession in 1694 is a turning point, Judge Sewall realizes that true repentance is a process, not a one time action.

The process leads him to write on many topics considered to be “firsts” in defending the rites and privileges of others. He is the first to publish a booklet against slavery in America, which stops not at abolition but argues for racial equality (no he didn’t own any slaves)!

A popular question of the age was whether or not women would be in heaven after resurrection “since they were no longer needed.” He wrote in his diary how the very question “irritated him” and wrote a book, “Talitha Cumi,” that defended women’s place as partners in creation and equal before God.

His writings on the environment have been compared to Emerson and Thoreau and called a “harbinger of the environmental movement.”

Sewall’s “flip-flop” seems sensible to us but he was shunned by his fellow judges when he made his confession and he was not exonerated by historians in own time even though he had confessed.

When the madness stopped and the histories began to be recorded almost 30 years later Sewall was shocked to find entries about himself as a Salem Witch Judge in David Neal’s 1720 book, “History of New England to 1700.”

They may not be popular but perhaps what we need today are more politicians like Sewall, ready to flip-flop when reasons demands.

“Salem Witch Judge” should be required reading for every American public servant.

Geri Williams is a local book fancier.