The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

Hubbard) and four grown and married women: Bethshaa Pope, Sarah Bibber, Goodwife Goodall, and
Ann Putnam Sr. herself. These afflicted had by now named another communing Church member:
Rebecca Nurse, whose reputation was spotless, whose heart appeared to be full of grace, and whom
nobody would have suspected of witchcraft before the crisis began. It is an indication of how far the
community had fallen pray to paranoid fears of secret diabolism that Nurse's denunciation would have
had any traction in the minds of the people – and when Nurse was informed of the charges leveled
against her, her response was modest in the extreme: “Well, as to this thing I am as innocent as the
child unborn; but surely what sin hath God found out in me unrepented of, that he should lay such an
affliction upon me in my old age?” (Hansen, p. 51)
While Nurse's examination by Hathorne and Corwin raised significant (and as it turned out,
long-lasting) doubt over the reliability of the afflicteds' testimony, another suspect questioned at the
same time confessed in detail: Sarah Good's five year old daughter Dorcas. Not only did she
acknowledge her mother a witch, she admitted having a familiar – a snake – that would suckle from a
'witch's tit' between her fingers. (ibid. p. 54-55) That an apparently innocent child could confess freely
to witchcraft had the perverse affect of making Nurse's protestations of innocence less believable: both
were held for trial.
The circle of accused continued to grow as the afflicted started naming more and more of their
neighbors as witches. But the accusations were not random. Those accused tended to come from two
overlapping camps: those who were related to an accused or confessed witch, and (crucially) those who
had begun speaking openly against the proceedings. Sarah Cloyse had the misfortune to be both the
sister of R. Nurse and a doubter of the proceedings: when Rev. Parris gave a sermon on April 3 rd on the
nature of the diabolical threat, Cloyse stood up and walked out of the meeting, slamming the door
behind her – by the next day, she had been accused, and two village men associated with the Putnam
family (Johnathan Walcott and Nathaniel Ingersoll) entered a complaint against both her and Elizabeth
Proctor (whose husband John was associated with the Porter clan). 48 Warrants were issued by the 8 th ,
the examination held on the 11 th , and by now the afflicted had grown to include John Indian – Tituba's
husband. Both suspects were ordered held for trial.
48 It was Israel Porter (the patriarch of the family) and his wife Elizabeth who had informed Nurse of the accusations
against her, and swore testimony to the effect that she did not appear to know about the business before they had done so
– evidence that she did not have the knowledge of the future a witch would be supposed to have. Similarly, John Proctor
had named Israel his “loving friend” and trustee of his estate in 1689. (Boyer & Nissenbaum, p. 184)
50