Eve LaPlante

As the winner of the 2008 Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction, Salem Witch Judge is being used by teachers at elementary and secondary schools in Massachusetts and beyond. In consultation with teachers, Eve LaPlante developed the following plan for teaching from Salem Witch Judge. The author welcomes questions and comments about this plan. Teachers may also adapt the "Topics to Consider" provided under "Book Clubs."

Goals: Introduce elementary and secondary teachers to the life of Samuel Sewall as a means of understanding Puritan New England. Provide primary and secondary source excerpts related to the biography of Samuel Sewall that teachers can modify for use with students.

Themes and events from the life of Samuel Sewall:

1. Sewall was born in southern England in 1652, immigrated to Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1661, educated at Harvard (class of 1671, Master of Divinity, 1674), married Hannah Hull (the only child of the wealthy Boston mint-master, John Hull) in 1676, accepted as a member of the Third Church in Boston (Old South) in 1677, the leader for many years of the psalm singing at Old South, elected to the colonial General Court in 1683, appointed to the Salem witch court in 1692, appointed to the Superior Court of Judicature later in 1692, chosen as chief justice of the latter court in 1718, and died at home in Boston in 1730, survived by only three of his fourteen children.

2. Eminent historical figures are not infallible; Sewall changed his mind and admitted his mistakes. This makes him familiar and human. In his long repentance he wrote three revolutionary essays on issues that remain current: the evil of slavery; equal rights for Native Americans; and equal rights for women.

3. Slavery in early America. Sewall was the author of America’s first antislavery tract, "The Selling of Joseph," in 1700, when one in five Boston families owned slaves.

4. The equality of Native Americans, African Americans, and women.

5. The development of colonial governments before the Revolution. The concept of an independent judiciary, so important to the American identify, is usually credited to the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution. However, the independent judiciary in fact arose from the ruins of the Salem witch court. The first independent judiciary in the western hemisphere (which still sits in Boston, as the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts) began in 1692. It was created by the same governor who'd created the Salem witch court, and it was comprised mostly of Salem witch judges, including Samuel Sewall.

Suggested texts and sources for teaching from Salem Witch Judge:

1. Infant mortality in pre-Revolutionary America. One in two children died before age five, as happens today in some parts of the world. The book opens with the death of Sewall's newborn son, Henry (p. 9 f). Sewall sings Psalm 21 (pp. 29-30). In contrast, Psalm 51 (pp. 44-45) is more akin to modern hymns. The Puritan/​Calvinist worldview entailed the beliefs that God punishes and rewards people for their behavior; natural events have divine meaning; and parents bear the blame for their children’s deaths (p. 66). Compare Puritan days of thanksgiving and repentance with current Thanksgiving practice. While privileged in some ways, these English Americans had many medieval beliefs, few effective medicines, and no germ theory of disease. Enlightenment thinking did not much influence Sewall and his peers (p. 205).

2. Puritan family life. The book introduces Sewall's first wife, Hannah Hull, at age sixteen (pp. 69-70). Childrearing is discussed (pp. 61-63). Sewall advises his teenage daughter Betty on choosing a husband (p. 241).

3. The role of women in early America. Chapter 19 (p. 251 f). Sewall's essay on women's bodies, "Talitha Cumi," appears in its entirety (pp. 205-311). Discuss his phrase "the right of women" (p. 257).

4. Slavery in early America. Chapter 17 (p. 223 f). Sewall's essay against slavery, "The Selling of Joseph," appears in its entirety (pp. 300-304). Slavery was a standard feature of life in colonial Boston and New England. Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans were victims of slavery.

5. America's native people. Discuss John Eliot's "Indian Bible," which Sewall carried to England as a gift in 1689. Discuss Harvard's Indian College and the college's 1650 charter to educate Native and English men (and the current archeological dig on Harvard Yard). Discuss the famous "Plum Island passage" from Sewall's 1697 essay "Phaenomena," which is considered the first-ever work of "American literature" (pp. 211-213, or p. 298 in the original). Sewall supported equal rights and education for Indians (pp. 218-221).

6. Sewall's repentance for his role in the Salem witch hunt. Chapter 14 (p. 185 f). The notion of change and metanoia (p. 43). Sewall dons a hair shirt for the rest of his life (p. 201).

7. Additional texts and sources to consider for the classroom:

a. Sewall's apology for the Salem witch hunt (pp. 200-201).

b. The 1942 mural of Sewall's apology in the Massachusetts State House. The image appears in the book facing the Introduction, which discusses factual errors in the mural.

c. Old Granary Burying Ground. In the family tomb, Sewall's encounter with corpses of his deceased relatives was "an awful yet pleasing treat" (pp. 196-7).

d. Other sites in "Exploring Samuel Sewall's America and England" (p. 275 f) include the Old South Meeting House in Boston; the Katherine Nanny Naylor Collection at the Big Dig Museum in Dorchester; the Rebecca Nurse House in Danvers; and sites in Salem.