The Salem witch hunt linked Blackness to criminality permanently

Evidence

The number of afflicted and accused spread over the next few months, swelling the public uproar and turning public attention from political to religious strife. And in nearly every instance, the Devil who was preying upon innocent White Puritans was described as Black. One Puritan accuser described the Devil as “a little black bearded man”; another saw “a black thing of a considerable bigness.” A Black thing jumped in one man’s window. “The body was like that of a Monkey,” the observer added. “The Feet like a Cocks, but the Face much like a man’s.” Since the Devil represented criminality, and since criminals in New England were said to be the Devil’s operatives, the Salem witch hunt ascribed a Black face to criminality—an ascription that remains to this day. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 153

Categorization

• SHARE: Send to anyone into racial history or the visual iconography of evil: the specific 1692 testimony describing the Devil as a black monkey-faced creature.