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

partners in their own (apparent) destruction. As we have seen, it was precisely these last two necessary
(and interconnected) behaviors that eventually weakened sufficiently to bring the trials to a dramatic
halt.
3.6. The Strategic Logic of Coercive Interrogation
In order for a deceptive cycle to continue, the authorities must not become aware that they are
in one. The captives must lie, and the torturer (or coercive interrogator) must continue to believe them.
How did this happen in Salem? Let us begin with the afflicted. The most obvious incentive for the
women and men who made the accusations was to punish their enemies – either because they sincerely
believed these enemies to be at the root of their suffering (and there is no doubt that at least some of the
afflicted were sincere in this belief – see the case of Mercy Short of Boston, whose afflictions were
long-lasting and prevented her from eating for as long as twelve days at a time), or because they were
willing to cynically use the trials to attack enemies they knew to be innocent (as implied by Mary
Warren's recantation before being accused herself). 59 This incentive helps to explain the spread of the
accusations, not only as the original afflicted kept naming names, but also as the number of afflicted
continued to grow, with the perverse result that as the untapped potential victims in Salem village
diminished (as the low-hanging fruit were snatched), new accusations around the territory (and farther
afield in Connecticut) kept the process going, validating the older accusations (and the afflicted who
made them).
Furthermore, as the accusations and ranks of the afflicted grew, some of these accusers began to
find themselves possessed of incredible power to condemn individuals as they saw fit! Abigail
Williams and Ann Putnam Jr. in particular became quite famous and influential: they were called upon
by diverse members of the community from around the territory to discern with their powers the cause
of others' afflictions, and those they named were very likely to find themselves arrested for suspicion of
witchcraft. The influence of these very young girls in a society that valorized men and age over women
and youth must have been quite disturbing to the elites in New England – and were certainly
exasperating enough for Increase Mather (President of Harvard and the most influential religious man
in the English colonies) to berate a fellow member of the Boston elite (a “man of no small note”) for
bringing his sick child to Salem village to find the source of the child's afflictions. “When Increase
59 Short's afflictions began after visiting the accused in Boston jail around the end of May – after an altercation with Sarah
Good, Short was unnerved enough to break down in convulsions which lasted off and on until 1693. (Roach, p. 126)
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