Samuel Parris

Samuel Parris (1653 – February 27, 1720) was a 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.

Life and career Samuel Parris, son of Thomas Parris, was born in London, England to a family of modest financial success and religious nonconformity. 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. Eldridge was noted by many as being incredibly beautiful, and was said to be one of the most beautiful women in Salem Village. and John Indian, her husband, began accusing others. 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 John 6:10 there was one devil among the 12 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.

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. Parris apologized in his essay Meditations for Peace, which he presented in November 1694. Increase Mather led a church council which then vindicated him. In this version of the story his name is Matthew Paris, a socially isolated man who is threatened by Tituba's relationship with John Indian and accuses her out of sexual frustration.

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.