Early American Witches – Rebecca Nurse: Mother of Thousands of Millions

By Cathy Hartt, DNP, MS, RN,
Her name was Rebecca Nurse.  She lived in Salem Village in the year 1692 – that was the year of the witch-hunts in that community.  Witch hunts born from many elements – fear, jealousy, change, insecurity, old turf issues over land, and a belief in Halloween-type witches.

Like most Puritan women of that time, little is known of Rebecca’s true role in the community prior to the witch trials.  In a fictional play about the Salem witch hunts called the Crucible (written to compare these witch hunts to the McCarthy Era), Rebecca is clearly portrayed as the community midwife.  Like many older women from that era, she is known to be a healer and did employ herbs to do this work.  

In addition to her role as a healer is the fact that the testimony against Rebecca in the trials included testimony that she had murdered babies.  The actual testimony reads as follows:

” . . . and she also tould me that she and her sister Cloyse and Ed: Bhishop wife of Salem had kiled yong Jno putnams Child because the yong Jno putnam had said that it was no wonder they were witches for their mother was so before them and because they could not aveng themselves on him they did kill his child: and immediatly they did appere to me: six children in winding sheets which caled me aunt: which did most grieviously affright me: and they tould me that they were my sister Bakers children of Boston and that Gooddy Nurs and Mistris Cary of Charlstown and an old deaft woman att Boston had murthered them: and charged me to goe and tell these things to the magestrates or elce they would tare me to peaces for their blood did crie for vengance also there Appeared to me my own sister Bayley and three of her children in winding sheets and tould me that Gooddy Nurs had murthered them (reverse)” Ann Putnam Sr against Rebekah Nurs, Essex County Archives, Salem – witchcraft – Vol. 1 Number 22.   

The English language of that time is a bit hard to decipher.  Still this testimony clearly points a finger at Rebecca for murdering children from the family of the community minister’s primary supporters; the Putnam family.  Because many of the Putnam children were stillborn, this impacted their inheritance negatively. While we do not know for certain that Rebecca was the midwife in attendance at these births, we do know that the Nurse family had few stillbirths and had recently been able to obtain increasing amounts of land in the community.

The testimony (above) gives such a different perspective than one gets of Rebecca while reading scripture that is depicted in the movie “Three Sovereigns for Sarah” as her favorite.   It is Genesis 24: 59 & 60 and reads as follows:  “And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his men.  And they blessed Rebekah and said to her, Thou art our sister be thou the mother of thousands of millions and let thy seed possess the gate of those of those which hate them.”   

When I heard this passage, I immediately thought it was a fitting favorite scripture for a midwife accused of witchcraft, especially one named Rebecca Nurse.  What midwife does not feel a bit like a mother to all those she delivers into the world?

As I read further about the history of witch-hunts, I was reminded that midwives were often accused of witchcraft during times of such crazes in Europe.  And when midwives are accused, they are often thought to have sacrificed to the Devil the very children they had delivered.  Given the Putnam’s testimony against Rebecca, it is very plausible that she was chosen to represent the midwife-witch in the play the Crucible because the testimony against her surely casts a similar light to testimony against European midwives.  Perhaps also fitting to a midwife was her response to the accusations that she was a practicing witch.  She said, “I am as innocent as the child unborn.”  Yet, she was one of many innocent, Christian people who were hung as punishment for practicing witchcraft.  (end part 1)