View source for Samuel Parris

{{Short description|Puritan minister during the Salem witch trials}}
{{Infobox person
| pre-nominals       = [[The Reverend]]
| name               = Samuel Parris
| image              = Samuel Parris.jpeg
| caption            = Portrait of Samuel Parris
| birth_date         = 1653
| alma_mater         = [[Harvard College]]
| birth_place        = [[London]], England
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1720|2|27|1653}}
| death_place        = [[Sudbury, Massachusetts]], Province of Massachusetts Bay
| known_for          = Father and uncle of [[Salem witch trials]] accusers; accuser along with his daughter and niece
| spouse             = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Elizabeth Eldridge]]|1680|1696|end=died}}
* {{marriage|Dorothy Noyes<br>|1699}}
}}
| children           = [[Thomas Parris]]<br/>[[Elizabeth Parris]]<br/>[[Susannah Parris]]
| relatives          = [[Abigail Williams (Salem witch trials)|Abigail Williams]] (niece)
}}
'''Samuel Parris''' (1653{{spaced ndash}}February 27, 1720) was a [[Puritanism|Puritan]] minister in the [[Province of Massachusetts Bay]]. Also a businessman and one-time plantation owner, he gained notoriety for being the minister of the church in [[Salem Village, Massachusetts]] during the [[Salem witch trials]] of 1692. Accusations by Parris and his daughter against an enslaved woman precipitated an expanding series of witchcraft accusations.{{sfn|Gragg|1990}}

==Life and career==
Samuel Parris, son of Thomas Parris, was born in [[London]], England to a family of modest financial success and religious [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformity]].{{sfn|Gragg|1990|pp=1–2}} Samuel emigrated to [[Boston]] in the early 1660s, where he attended [[Harvard College]] at his father's behest. When his father died in 1673, Samuel left Harvard to take up his inheritance in [[Barbados]], where he maintained a sugar plantation.

In 1680, after a hurricane hit Barbados, damaging much of his property, Parris sold a little of his land and returned to Boston, where he brought the woman he enslaved, [[Tituba]], and married Elizabeth Eldridge.{{sfn|Gragg|1990|pp=14–32}} Eldridge was noted by many as being incredibly beautiful, and was said to be one of the most beautiful women in Salem Village.<ref name="acab" />{{sfn|Fiske|1704}} Together they had three children, Thomas Parris, [[Elizabeth Parris]], and Susannah Parris. Although the plantation supported his merchant ventures, Parris was dissatisfied with his lack of financial security and began to look to the ministry. In 1685 he briefly served as minister in Stow Massachusetts. In July 1689, he became [[Religious minister|minister]] of Salem Village (now [[Danvers, Massachusetts|Danvers]]), Massachusetts.

Salem Village was a contentious place to live and was known to be quarrelsome by neighboring towns and villages.{{sfn|Gragg|1990|pp=39–76}} Its dispersed settlement pattern may have resulted in a lack of a sense of common purpose that may have united more orderly and arranged communities.{{sfn|Gragg|1990|pp=45–46}} Parris was the fourth minister appointed in a series of unsuccessful attempts to keep a permanent minister. James Bayley (1673–79) and [[George Burroughs]] (1680–83) each stayed only a few years, departing after the congregation failed to pay their full rates. [[Deodat Lawson]] (1684–88) left with less contention. Further tension was caused by Parris' delay in accepting the position and his inability to resolve his parishioners' disputes. There were also disputes over Parris' compensation. In October 1691, the town decided to stop paying his wages. These issues, and others that were more personal between the villagers, continued to grow unabated.{{sfn|Starkey|1949|pp=26–28}}Samuel Parris had the power to jail the people of Salem and used it on specific occasions.

The events which led to the [[Salem witch trials]] began when Parris' daughter, [[Betty Parris|Betty]], and her cousin, [[Abigail Williams (Salem witch trials)|Abigail Williams]], accused Tituba, the woman Parris enslaved, of [[witchcraft]]. Parris beat Tituba until she confessed herself as a witch,<ref>Breslaw, Elaine G. Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies. Page 158. Retrieved on 8 Feb. 2021. "John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin must have known that a day or two before the questioning Tituba had been pressured by the Reverend Parris to extract a statement of involvement with the Devil. She had agreed to confess to prevent further punishment."</ref> and John Indian, her husband, began accusing others.{{fact|date=February 2021}}{{dubious|date=February 2021}} The delusion spread, and many were apprehended, most of whom were imprisoned. During the 16-month duration of the Salem witch trials phenomenon, 19 persons were hanged, and one, [[Giles Corey]], was pressed to death.

During a 1692 sermon, Parris declared that "as in our text [https://www.bible.com/bible/1/JHN.6.10-13.KJV John 6:10] there was one [[devil]] among the 12 [[Disciple (Christianity)|disciples]]… so in our churches, God knows how many Devils there are," encouraging antagonistic villagers to locate and destroy "witches" who, as it happened, were frequently individuals with whom Parris and his key allies, the Putnam family, had taken umbrage.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://historyofmassachusetts.org/reverend-samuel-parris/|title=Reverend Samuel Parris: Was He to Blame for the Salem Witch Trials?|author=Rebecca Beatrice Brooks |date=September 8, 2015|access-date=October 18, 2017}}</ref>

As Parris had been an active prosecutor in the witchcraft cases, in 1693, his parish brought charges against Parris for his part in the trials.<ref name=acab>{{harvnb|Wilson|Fiske|1900}}.</ref>{{sfn|Rines|1920}} Parris apologized in his essay ''Meditations for Peace'', which he presented in November 1694.<ref name=dab>{{harvnb|Stearns|1934}}</ref> [[Increase Mather]] led a church council which then vindicated him.<ref name=dab/>

Parris was then involved in a dispute with his congregation over parsonage land he had seized to compensate himself for the salary he was owed. The dispute found its way to an [[Ipswich, Massachusetts|Ipswich]] court, which, in 1697, ordered his salary to be paid and the land to be returned. By 1696, however, he had found his situation untenable. He resigned that year and left Salem. Records in the ''[[Suffolk County, Massachusetts|Suffolk]] Deeds'' indicate it likely he returned to business in Boston in 1697.<ref name=dab/>

His wife Elizabeth died in 1696. In 1699, he remarried, to Dorothy Noyes, in Sudbury.<ref name=dab/> He returned to preach for two or three years at [[Stow, Massachusetts|Stow]]. He then moved to [[Concord, Massachusetts|Concord]] (1704/05).<ref name=acab/><ref name=dab/> He also preached six months in [[Dunstable, Massachusetts|Dunstable]] in 1711.<ref name=acab/> He died on February 27, 1720, in [[Sudbury, Massachusetts|Sudbury]].<ref name=acab/><ref name=dab/>

==Fiction==
{{Moresources|section|date=August 2022}}
Parris features in [[Arthur Miller]]'s 1953 play ''[[The Crucible]],'' set against the backdrop of the witch trials. In the play, his daughter Elizabeth Parris is the first to become ill because of supposed witchcraft, of which she is accused. In the [[The Crucible (1957 film)|1957]] and [[The Crucible (1996 film)|1996]] film adaptations of Miller's play, he was portrayed by [[Jean Debucourt]] and [[Bruce Davison]], respectively.

Author [[John Neal]] made Parris a character in ''[[Rachel Dyer]]'' (1828), which is the first bound novel about the witch trials.<ref>{{cite book | last = Sears | first = Donald A. | title = John Neal | publisher = Twayne Publishers | location = Boston, Massachusetts | year = 1978 | isbn = 978-0-8057-7230-2 | page = 82}}</ref> In this version of the story his name is Matthew Paris,<ref>{{cite thesis | last = Richards | first = Irving T. | date = 1933 | title = The Life and Works of John Neal | degree = PhD | publisher = [[Harvard University]] | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | url = http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990038995990203941/catalog | oclc = 7588473 | page = 697n2}}</ref> a socially isolated man who is threatened by Tituba's relationship with John Indian and accuses her out of sexual frustration.<ref>{{cite book | last = Fleischmann | first = Fritz | title = A Right View of the Subject: Feminism in the Works of Charles Brockden Brown and John Neal | publisher = Verlag Palm & Enke Erlangen | location = Erlangen, Germany | year = 1983 | isbn = 978-3-7896-0147-7 | pages = 302–303}}</ref>

Parris is also a character in the 1964 novel ''[[Tituba of Salem Village]]'' by [[Ann Petry]] and the 1986 novel ''[[I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem]]'' by [[Maryse Condé]], both books depicting the witch trials.

In the novel ''Supernatural: One Year Gone'', Parris is portrayed as having been manipulated by the real witches into starting the trials and also manipulated the girls to accuse his enemies and rivals to get rid of them. At the end of the novel, after the truth is revealed, he swears to put an end to the innocent women.

''Road to Endor'' was written in 1940 by Esther Barstow Hammand. It uses facts from Parris' life and weaves them into fictional life. Hammand tells readers in an author's note, "This book is fiction. Although I have delved into many old records and used all reasonable care to dig up whatever historical facts are available, the research has been hampered by unusual difficulties." The tale begins with Samuel's birth and continues until the dreaded year of the trials.

==Music==
Samuel Parris is portrayed in the [[Jayce Landberg]] song "Happy 4 U", featured on Landberg's 2020 album ''The Forbidden World''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://bostonrockradio.com/forum3/articles.php?article_id=1024&fbclid=IwAR1CBUQqIWGYe9_7oTpi6U4KYWfDsbsGgFOw6w6XU6MET2eTUqdMgsyFHd8|title = Boston Rock Radio - BRR Articles: Interview with Swedish Guitarist Jayce Landberg by Thomas Amoriello Jr}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book |last=Fiske |first=Sarah Symms |year=1704 |title=A Confession of Faith: or, A Summary of Divinity. Drawn Up By a Young Gentle-Woman, in the Twenty-Fifth Year of Her Age |location=Boston |publisher=Benjamin Elliot }}
*{{cite book |last=Gragg |first=Larry |year=1990 |title=A Quest for Security: The Life of Samuel Parris, 1653–1720|publisher=Greenwood |location=New York |isbn=978-0-313-27282-0 }}
*{{Cite Americana|wstitle=Parris, Samuel}}
*{{Cite book |last=Starkey |first=Marion L. |year=1949 |title=The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry into the Salem Witch Trials |url=https://archive.org/details/devilinmassachus0000unse |url-access=registration |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/devilinmassachus0000unse/page/n35 26]–28 }}
*{{Cite DAB |last=Stearns |first=Raymond P. |year=1934 |title=Parris, Samuel }}

'''Attribution'''
*{{Appletons|wstitle=Parris, Samuel|year=1900}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite book |last=Fowler |first=Samuel P. |url=https://archive.org/details/anaccountlifech00fowlgoog|title=An Account of the Life and Character of the Rev. Samuel Parris, of Salem Village|publisher=William Ives and George W. Pease, Printers |location=Salem|year=1857}}
*Gagnon, Daniel A., ''A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse''. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2021.
* [[Charles W. Upham|Upham, Charles W.]], ''Salem Witchcraft.'' Reprint from the 1867 edition, in two volumes. Dover Publications: Mineola, NY. 2000. {{ISBN|978-0-486-40899-6}}
* Webber, C.H. and W. S. Nevins, ''Witchcraft in Salem Village'', (Boston, 1892)

==External links==
* {{Cite NIE|wstitle=Parris, Samuel|year=1905 |short=x}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Parris, Samuel}}
[[Category:1653 births]]
[[Category:1720 deaths]]
[[Category:17th-century Christian clergy]]
[[Category:18th-century New England Puritan ministers]]
[[Category:American slave owners]]
[[Category:Harvard College alumni]]
[[Category:English emigrants to Massachusetts Bay Colony]]
[[Category:Clergy from colonial Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Accusers in the Salem witch trials]]
[[Category:People from Dunstable, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:People from Sudbury, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Witch hunters]]
[[Category:Clergy in the Salem witch trials]]