Witch Trials Vs. Present Day

A NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL ACCURACY OF THIS PLAY

by Arthur Miller

"This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian. Dramatic purposes have sometimes required many characters to be fused into one; the number of girls involved in the 'crying out' has been reduced; Abigail's age has been raised; while there were several judges of almost equal authority, I have symbolized them all in Hathorne and Danforth. However, I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history. The fate of each character is exactly that of his historical model, and there is no one in the drama who did not play a similar-and in some cases exactly the same-role in history.

"As for the characters of the persons, little is known about most of them except what may be surmised from a few letters, the trial record, certain broadsides written at the time, and references to their conduct in sources of varying reliability. They may therefore be taken as creations of my own, drawn to the best of my ability in conformity with their known behavior, except as indicated in the commentary I have written for this text."

Because I've been working with the materials of the Salem Witch Trails of 1692 for so long as an academic historian, many people have asked me if I've seen the play or film The Crucible, and what I think of it. Miller created works of art, inspired by the actual events for the artistic/political purposes Miller intended: first produced on Broadway on January 22, 1953, it was in response to the panic caused by irrational fear of Communism during the Cold War which resulted in the hearings by the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. * In Miller's tales (there are slight differences, which I won't bother to get into unless it's a major difference), a lovelorn teenager is spurned by the married man she loves, and in her revenge, she fans a whole community into a blood-lust frenzy. This is simply not history. The real story is far more complex, dramatic, and interesting -- and well worth exploring. This page, however, is only dedicated to separating the fact from the fiction in Miller's work.

Most popular understandings of the tale include their own inaccuracies -- for instance, that the witches were burned to death. People condemned as witches in New England were not burned, but hanged, and in the aftermath of the events in Salem, it was generally agreed that none of them had actually been witches at all. Some modern versions cast the story as something that has to do with intolerance of difference, that the accused were really just oddballs that the community tacitly approved getting rid of, but most of the people who were accused, convicted and executed in Salem were remarkable by their very adherence to community norms. In the 1970s, a theory was put forth that the afflicted had suffered from hallucinations from eating moldy rye wheat -- ergotism -- and although that theory has generally been refuted, its life continues in the popular explanation of the events. (A recent biological theory which also fails to hold up under the scrutiny of medical and Salem scholars alike, however, is that the afflicted suffered from encephalitis lethargica.) Lastly, Rev. Parris' slave woman, Tituba, is usually assumed to have been of Black African descent, but recent research indicates she was Amerindian, probably South American Arawak, always being referred to in the documents of the period as "an Indian woman." Had she been African or Black, she would have been so described.

As for Miller's tellings of the tale, I am always distracted by the wide variety of minor historical inaccuracies when I am exposed to his play or movie. Call me picky, but I'm not a dolt: I know about artistic license and Miller's freedom to use the material any way he chooses to, so please don't bother lecturing me about it. This page is part of a site about the history of 17th Century Colonial New England, not about literature, theater, or Arthur Miller, even though you may have landed smack dab in the middle of the site thanks to a search engine hit for information about Miller.

One reason I am providing this page is because 1) actors contact me about making their portrayals of characters in the play "more accurate" -- when that is impossible without drastically altering Miller's work because the characters in his play are simply not the real people who lived, even though they may share names and basic fates, and 2) students are given assignments in their English classes to find out more about what really happened. (American high school juniors in honors and AP classes seem to be the most frequent visitors.) I can be an ornery cuss when it comes to being asked the same literature questions that I've already said I don't care to answer because I am an historian, so before you even think of writing to ask me a question about the play, please read through my list of frequently-asked questions where I will give you what answers I have to offer to the most questions I am most commonly asked -- be prepared: they may not be the answers you want to hear. I am not an on-line encyclopedia.

Here's my list of historical inaccuracies in the play/screenplay:

Betty Parris' mother was not dead, but very much alive at the time. She died in 1696, four years after the events.

Soon after the legal proceedings began, Betty was shuttled off to live in Salem Town with Stephen Sewall's family. Stephen was the clerk of the Court, brother of Judge Samuel Sewall.

The Parris family also included two other children -- an older brother, Thomas (b. 1681), and a younger sister, Susannah (b. 1687) -- not just Betty and her relative Abigail, who was probably born around 1681.

Abigail Williams is often called Rev. Parris' "niece" but in fact there is no genealogical evidence to prove their familial relationship. She is sometimes in the original texts referred to as his "kinfolk" however.

Miller admits in the introduction to the play that he boosted Abigail Williams' age to 17 even though the real girl was only 11, but he never mentions that John Proctor was 60 and Elizabeth, 41, was his third wife. Proctor was not a farmer but a tavern keeper. Living with them was their daughter aged 15, their son who was 17, and John's 33-year-old son from his first marriage. Everyone in the family was eventually accused of witchcraft. Elizabeth