Carrier, Martha

Martha Carrier

Calling her a "rampant hag" and the "Queen of Hell," the Reverend Cotton Mather harbored no doubts that Martha Carrier deserved to

be executed as a witch during the Salem outbreak on August 19, 1692. The Salem documents themselves, however, reveal that her

crime was not witchcraft but an independence of mind and an unsubmissive character. A daughter of one of the founding families of

Andover, Martha married a young Welsh servant, Thomas Carrier, in 1674, by whom she had four children. The Salem accusation

against Martha came only two years after the selectmen of Andover blamed a smallpox epidemic on her witchcraft. Although

historians have blamed her accusation on causes ranging from a conspiracy against Andover's proprietary families to reaction

against threats to patriarchal inheritance, her contentious spirit and the earlier charge of witchcraft seem the most plausible

explanation.

Anonymous