PRESENTATION SUMMARY
for
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS OF FEMALE LEADERSHIP IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND:
ELIZABETH JACKSON HOWE AND THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS
Research on Women and Education
34th Annual Fall Conference
Arlington, VA
November 7, 2008 (2:15-3:30 P.M.)
The EJH Case Study session analyzes the role of women/girls and the power of education in
Colonial New England. How did Elizabeth Howe’s role as a leader contribute to her execution at
the Salem Witch Trials of 1692? Discussion activities focus on the interaction of class and
gender with the surrounding Puritan culture, using a biographical chronology, historical images,
current issues, PBS’ Colonial House, and internet sites. New perspectives arise from
comparisons of attitudes about the role of women in Elizabeth’s time with the leadership
possibilities for women today.
Presenter: Lloyd Duck, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Education and Human Development
Graduate School of Education (4B3)
George Mason University
4400 University Drive
Fairfax, Virginia 22030
Phone: 703/993-2047
FAX: 703/993-2082
E-Mail: lduck@gmu.edu
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The Setting
Elizabeth arrived at Salem with her parents, William and Joan Jackson, in 1638 at age one
and was executed there as a witch in 1692 at age fifty-five. The Jacksons followed their minister,
Ezekiel Rogers, from his parish in Rowley, Yorkshire. Rogers had left England, rather than
compromise his Puritan principles, when the Bishop of York ordered him to read to his congregation
from the Book of Sports, a treatise on acceptable recreation activities for the Sabbath. Like most
Puritans, Ezekiel Rogers believed the Sabbath should be kept as a holy day for contemplating God’s
Word and not blasphemed as a holiday consumed by recreation (Graystone, 3-5). After spending the
winter of 1638-39 with friends in Boston, Rogers and his congregation established the new town of
Rowley, Massachusetts, in the Spring of 1639 (Graystone, 15).
Elizabeth in Massachusetts Bay
When Elizabeth’s family spent the winter of 1638-39 with friends in Boston, her parents
no doubt heard many things about the colony’s recent history. Perhaps they heard about the
establishment of Harvard, about Anne Hutchinson’s trial, her banishment, and her charges
against ministers and other leaders. Puritans established Harvard to train ministers because they
believed that the right kind of education—not just for ministers but for everyone—was the key to
success for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They wanted the Bay Colony, their exemplary city
upon a hill, to show the world the benefits of Puritanism. The colony was to be proof that God
had made a special covenant with New England Puritans as His new chosen people. Elizabeth
did not fit the Puritan ideal; therefore, it should be obvious from details in her chronology that
she would be reproached by the community.
Elizabeth’s Chronology Analyzed
1. Elizabeth did not display appropriate attitudes of submissiveness expected from a woman.
When she was sixteen, Elizabeth testified in court against a man who was accused of taking his
cattle back after they had been impounded. Impounding cattle was a practice that the colonists
had used in England when the owner failed to keep his livestock from damaging the property of
others. Records do not indicate whether Elizabeth came forward of her own accord to testify or
whether she came at the request of a prosecutor. Either way, this would have attracted much
notice (Graystone, 27).
Elizabeth was living in Rev. Rogers’s household when he complained about the quality of
youthful servants. Rev. Rogers wrote that he had had a rare blessing of servants in Yorkshire,
but that in New England, it was hard to get a servant that is “glad of catechizing, or family
duties,” and that the “young brood doth much afflict me” (Graystone, 24). Although we do not
know if Rev. Rogers was thinking of Elizabeth, this is perhaps another indication that her attitude
was not appropriately submissive.
In 1658, Elizabeth married James Howe, a blind farmer whose family was from Ipswich, a
nearby village (Graystone, 29). James’s blindness might have been seen as resulting from his
parents’ sin(s) or his own (it is not certain whether James was blind from birth), or it could have
been interpreted as an indication that God would glorify Himself through the life of James and
his family. However the community interpreted James’s blindness, the fact that he was blind had
to mean Elizabeth would take on some decision-making roles regarding finances, agricultural
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practices, and household duties, surpassing what would have been expected of other wives
married to sighted husbands (Graystone, 30).
2. Elizabeth’s limited education opportunities would not have prepared her for a leadership
role. In 1647, the same year that her father William was made overseer of the common ways, a
position requiring that he coordinate efforts to keep local roads in good repair, the Massachusetts
Bay Colony passed the “Old Deluder Satan” law, which mandated that towns establish
elementary and secondary schools. Elementary education was for both boys and girls (Duck
1996, 67-68). Elizabeth would have been taught to read and write, but she would not have gone
to a secondary school or Harvard because those institutions were not open to young women
(Duck 1996, 78-80).
3. Elizabeth was not a church member. Only the elect, those who could convince the elders of
the church that God had chosen them for eternal life in heaven, could become church members.
Although God could not be fooled about who the elect were, church leaders could perhaps be
fooled. Because of that fear, church elders took exceeding care with their interviews and
assessments before admitting an applicant to membership (Duck 1996, 64-66). Elizabeth was
not a member in Rowley or in Ipswich, nor was her father (Graystone, 24-25). For men, political
power was connected to church membership. Male nonmembers could not vote until after the
establishment of the Half-Way Covenant in 1662. Under the Half-Way Covenant, applicants who
promised to live a godly life, even though they were not among the elect, could become church
members, and men gaining membership that way could vote (Duck 1996, 68-71). The fact that
Elizabeth did not become a church member, even under the Half-Way Covenant, indicates
potential difficulties.
4. The first accusation of witchcraft against Elizabeth involved neighbors who were connected
to her family by marriage. Friction existed between Elizabeth and Hannah Perley’s family.
Hannah Perley’s mother Ruth was the sister of John Trumble, who had married Elizabeth’s
youngest sister Deborah in 1662. The outcome of the conflict with the Perleys resulted in
charges of witchcraft against Elizabeth during the Salem trials. Charges of witchcraft against a
female neighbor were not unusual. She might be accused of casting a spell to make a neighbor’s
child ill as a vengeful act in an escalating quarrel. That is probably what happened to Elizabeth.
Hannah Perley had been subject to fits. When Hannah had recovered from one of the episodes,
she was asked, in the presence of Rev. Phillips and Rev. Payson, whether Elizabeth had afflicted
her. Hannah denied that Elizabeth had harmed her and added that if, during her spasms, she had
accused Elizabeth, she was unaware of it (Graystone, 37). Phillips and Payson gave testimony
about that incident in their attempts to defend Elizabeth in the Salem trials.
Elizabeth had influential support in the community, even though some of her family members
might be seen in a controversial light. Her father had become involved in political struggles over
the appointment of an assistant minister in Rowley and had opposed a popular candidate. Her
brother John had been brought before the church for Sabbath-breaking (Graystone, 23-24). A
charge of Sabbath-breaking could have involved nothing more than engaging in recreation, such
as playing soccer on a sandy beach outside Rowley, working on Sunday, or other dishonorable
conduct. Charges of witchcraft usually increased when communities were undergoing stresses.
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One such stress had been King Philip’s War, a struggle with frontier Indians that left several
western towns desolate. Elizabeth’s brother John had served in that conflict (Duck 1996, 86-87;
Graystone, 29).
5. Because of death and other difficulties within her extended family, Elizabeth’s support system
was diminished by the time she had to face trial for witchcraft. Her parents Joan and William
Jackson had died by 1688. Her brother John Jackson and her nephew John, Jr. were accused of
witchcraft during the Salem trials. Although her husband James, her daughters Mary and
Abigail, and her father-in-law James Howe, Sr. unfailingly supported her, her brother-in-law
John Howe was among her chief accusers. Elizabeth had assumed that she could count on her
brother-in-law for help and had asked him to accompany her to her preliminary examination.
John refused and reported that immediately some of his cattle were bewitched to death, leaping
three or four feet into the air (Graystone, 40-43). John named Elizabeth as the culprit in the
death of his livestock, apparently believing that she was taking vengeance on him for not
accompanying her to her pretrial examination. (It was not uncommon that charges of bewitched
cattle included reports of their leaping in the air as they died.) Among the most vehement of her
neighbors were the Perleys, who had been largely responsible for bringing Elizabeth to trial.
They charged Elizabeth with bewitching the fence posts of her own husband James. James had
hired Francis Lane to deliver new fence posts and rails. Lane had paid John Perley, Hannah’s
father, to help him. When the delivery was made, all of the new fence posts and rails
unaccountably broke off so that Lane had to produce thirty or forty more, without charge. The
witness believed that this happened because of Elizabeth’s witchcraft and affirmed that the
incident was part of the ongoing ill will between the Howes and the Perleys (Graystone, 41).
In the face of such unpleasant reversals, it must have been especially comforting that her husband
James and her daughters visited her twice a week, in spite of James’s blindness and the
considerable distance that they had to travel (Gragg, 127). In addition to the overcrowding and
discomfort of prison, families had to bear the financial responsibilities of providing food,
blankets, firewood, and other provisions, including the cost of leg irons, for their loved ones
(Graystone, 43). Gov. Phipps had ordered leg irons to be used on many prisoners, subscribing to
a common belief that witches could do less harm in casting spells or appearing as specters
(ghosts) if they were manacled. Some believed that the devil could assume the form of an
innocent person to afflict harm or bewitch. Others believed that only those guilty of witchcraft
could appear as specters. Still, using spectral evidence remained controversial (Gragg, 86).
6. Elizabeth refused to confess to the sin of witchcraft, making her execution almost a certainty.
From the beginnings of witchcraft troubles in Salem, all those who confessed were spared
execution. That had been the case with Rev. Parris’s maid Tituba, who had told Elizabeth Parris
and her cousin Abigail Williams stories about witchcraft in her native Barbados. Rev. Parris’s
daughter and her cousin had asked Tituba to make predictions about their future husbands. From
their interest in Tituba’s predictions, the witchcraft troubles arose. Tituba confessed, and her life
was spared. All who confessed were seen as capable of redemption (Duck 1996, 72-74; Gragg,
132). Often distressed family members put extreme pressures on their loved ones to confess, but
the confessions usually were recanted because many of the accused determined that they did not
eventually want to face God having lied about the sin of witchcraft. Elizabeth refused to confess.
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She knew she was innocent, no matter how deluded the afflicted might be (Graystone, 41).
7. Elizabeth’s execution can be related to conflicts over gender, political, religious, and
economic issues in the Puritan Commonwealth. Throughout Elizabeth’s chronology, there are
hints of gender, political, religious, and economic conflicts. Women, not men, were typically
accused of witchcraft. Accusations of men, as in the case of Elizabeth’s brother John and his
son, usually came through their associations with accused women (Gragg, 11). This was also the
case with George Jacobs, accused by his granddaughter as part of her own confession to
witchcraft. (See information about the Matteson painting of George Jacobs’s trial, and his
subsequent execution, in the internet references below.) Older women who were not thought to
be appropriately submissive, especially those known for their healing powers using home
remedies, were most likely to be accused (Duck 1996, 63; Gragg, 12). Puritanism’s demand for
female submissiveness has today become the focus of a prevalent medical explanation for
witchcraft—that the accusers in Salem were suffering from clinical hysteria. Since the 1800s,
physicians have documented cases of hysteria, including all the symptoms (bodily contortions,
sensations of choking and being pinched) exhibited by the accusers at Salem. In societies in
which women are not allowed to express their emotions and desires, the women may
unconsciously attempt to gain control over authority figures by clinical hysteria. Caregivers
surrounding such women are so concerned about their welfare that the caregivers often attempt to
meet the needs of the afflicted in any way possible. The afflicted youngsters in Salem attained
power by expressing their emotions and desires, through clinical hysteria, in ways that ordinarily
would not have been permitted (Hill, 26).
Local political struggles, especially those involving church politics, can be inferred from
William’s opposition to a popular candidate for assistant minister in Rowley. Political upheavals
were prevalent because Salem Village had been unsuccessfully seeking independence from
Salem Town since mid-century. In 1672, the Town allowed the Village to have its own church,
but otherwise, Salem Village was not autonomous. The Salem Village church struggled with
division. Supporters of Rev. Bayley and Rev. Burroughs (ultimately accused of witchcraft and
executed in 1692) opposed the supporters of two later ministers, Rev. Lawson and Rev. Parris, in
whose family the witchcraft troubles began. Divisions over hiring ministers were so contentious
that the Salem Village church had sought the help of outside arbitrators from other churches.
The split over ministers matched the split between afflicted and accused during the Salem trials
(Gragg, 29-34). There was also terror that God’s judgment had fallen in 1684 when the Crown
revoked Massachusetts Bay’s charter, the basis of the colony’s self-governing status. Although
Rev. Increase Mather and his delegation succeeded in restoring the charter by 1689, Puritans
could not forget the trauma of how God had dealt with them (Duck 1996, 72).
Paralleling the political struggles between Town and Village were powerful economic fissures.
In general, Salem Town had become much more commercial and capitalistic in its outlook.
Those in the eastern sector of Salem Village were influenced deeply by the more mercantile
orientation. Because Salem Village did not have its own government, the more influential
families from the eastern side of the village involved themselves in the politics of the Town,
including becoming candidates for Town Selectmen. The western sector of Salem Village was
more agricultural and had little sympathy for mercantile interests. Most of the accusers of
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witches in the Salem trials came from the western sector of the village, and most of the accused
witches came from the eastern sector. (See information about locations for the accusers and the
accused in maps from the UMKC website below.) The dividing line was Ipswich Road, a
thoroughfare that had spawned taverns and businesses indicative of the growing mercantile spirit
(Davidson and Lytle, 46-53). Elizabeth lived in Ipswich, which was on the eastern side of the
Village. As a sidebar to this agricultural and mercantile division, some believe that ergotism (a
physical condition that produces hallucinations and symptoms of pain similar to those described
by the afflicted) caused the witchcraft troubles. Ergot is a fungus that grows on grains during wet
seasons. The year before the Salem trials was especially favorable to the production of ergot.
Because ministers and others were often paid in grain, a hypothesis can be made that the afflicted
had been exposed to contaminated grain and were actually suffering from ergotism (Mappen, 6382).
In addition to the economic struggles between Town and Village, there were conflicts over
property and inheritance, as indicated by brother-in-law John Howe’s failure to support
Elizabeth. Because James and Elizabeth had no sons, at James’s death, his property would go to
Elizabeth. If Elizabeth were executed as a witch, John might have believed he could ultimately
inherit his brother’s estate (Graystone, 40). The preponderance of references to the accused
women as Goodwife, or Goody, indicates another economic tension: most of the accused came
from lower socioeconomic levels. They were certainly economically inferior to Lady Phipps, the
governor’s wife, who was ultimately accused of witchcraft. Gov. Phipps at that point decided to
release the accused and end the work of the special court handling witchcraft cases (Gragg, 175177).
Gov. Phipps’s decision matched the growing concern that several clergy had voiced about the use
of spectral evidence. Using spectral evidence meant that judges accepted reports about the
ghostly appearance of an individual as evidence of wrongdoing. In a special document, Cases of
Conscience, Rev. Increase Mather pointed out that it was possible for devout Puritans to disagree
about procedures used in the Salem trials. Puritans had, from the beginning, insisted on
government by consensus, asserting that when God is in control, He would cause all leaders to
reach consensus on a course of action. Leaders came to understand that in “cases of conscience”
(those matters on which consensus could not be reached), disagreement could be tolerated as
long as the disagreement did not undermine the basis for the colony’s government. No one
disagreed that the devil’s servants should be ferreted out and executed; however, there was
disagreement about appropriate procedures, especially the use of spectral evidence (Duck, 75;
Gragg, 175-177). Publicly asserting that the witchcraft trial proceedings involved a “case of
conscience” made it possible to end the Salem trials.
Lessons about Female Leadership—Then and Now
Among Puritans in Colonial New England females were expected to have an appropriately
submissive role, as defined by theology, society, and tradition. The prevailing interpretation of
submissiveness was fully applicable to Elizabeth, who lived in a setting where all earthly events
were interpreted as aspects of a spiritual struggle between good and evil. But the prevailing view
of submissiveness did not apply to the afflicted girls; they were seen as aiding in spiritual
struggles against the sin of witchcraft. These afflicted young ladies, the accusers, were heard and
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heeded. It is left to us today to hear and heed Elizabeth’s message. That message points to the
liberating influence of leadership possibilities open to females now, in a setting that John Naisbitt
calls “a technologically intoxicated zone,” where religious interpretations are still important but
where no single theology dominates. I suspect Elizabeth would be very pleased to know her
story can teach us many things about how far we have come since the days of the Puritan
Commonwealth.
References
Davidson, J. W., and M. H. Lyttle. 1982. After the fact: The art of historical detection.
New York: Knopf.
Duck, L. 2005. Teaching about religion’s power in colonial New England: The case of
Elizabeth Jackson Howe. The Social Studies 96(2): 72-78.
Duck, L. 1996. Understanding American education: Its past, practices, and promise.
Burke, VA: Chatelaine Press. (Available through bookstor@gmu.edu)
Gragg, L. 1992. The Salem witch crisis. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Graystone, P. 1993. Elizabeth Jackson of Rowley. Hull, UK: Lampada.
Hill, F. 1995. A delusion of Satan: The full story of the Salem witch trials. New York:
Doubleday.
Mappen, M. 1980. Witches and historians: Interpretations of Salem. Malabar, FL:
Krieger.
Naisbitt, J., N. Naisbitt, and D. Philips. 2001. High tech/high touch. London: Nicholas
Brealey.
Websites
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/salem/generic.html
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/salem/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/
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