Diary Entries of Samuel Sewall by Samuel Sewall
Diary Entries of Samuel Sewall
Apology of Samuel Sewall
Both reprinted in Early American Writing in 1994
Samuel Sewall (1652–1730; see biography entry) was a prominent Boston businessman who served on the panel of judges for the Salemwitch trials. He is best known today for his diary, which provides an eyewitness account of the internal workings of the procedings. The trials were conducted by a group of elite Puritan leaders who were convinced that they were following the will of God. Sewall was a member of that group. Selected diary entries from April, August, and September 1692—at the height of the trials—show that judges and other Puritan officials regularly consulted about strategy, and they were determined to obtain confessions from suspected witches. Yet they were also anxious to justify their decisions. For instance, interrogators piled stones on Giles Corey for nine days until he died because he would not admit to the charges against him. Sewall apparently needed to defend this act because he noted that Corey himself had crushed someone to death eighteen years earlier. As proof against Corey he cited spectral evidence: Corey's "specter" (spirit) appeared to Ann Putnam, Jr.
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