5 remarkable women suspended at Salem Witch trials
Early in 1692, during the depths of winter in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a group of girls in the village of Salem began to act strangely. The daughter and niece of the local minister, Samuel Parris, claimed to be afflicted by invisible forces that bit them and pinched them, sending their members waving. By mid-February, two more girls had joined them, and the first waves of panic seized the residents of Salem: the girls had been bewitched.
The afflicted girls soon accused three women: the "Indian" Parris slave, Tituba; a local beggar, Sarah Good; and an invalid widow, Sarah Osbourne. As local magistrates began to question the accused, people crowded into a tavern to assist the girls come face to face with the women they had accused of witchcraft.
While the other two women denied the accusations against them, Tituba told vivid stories of how Satan had revealed herself to her. She said that she had signed the devil's book with her own blood, and saw the marks of Good and Osbourne there next to hers.
Tituba's fascinating testimony helped trigger a notorious witch hunt that swept swiftly past Salem and engulfed all of New England. Nearly 200 people would be charged before the Salem Witch trials ended the following year, and 20 of them would be executed by hanging during the summer and fall of 1692. These are five of their stories.
1 Bridget Bishop
When the Oyer Special Court and Finish met in the city of Salem in early June, the first case he heard was against Bridget Bishop, a local widow, as the prosecutor took over his case would be easy to win. Bishop had been accused of witchcraft more than a decade earlier, but was acquitted for lack of evidence. She also adapts to everyone the idea of a witch: the elderly, poor and controversial.
Ten witnesses testified against Bishop, and she was quickly convicted and sentenced to death. On June 10, she was taken to Proctor's Edge near the gallows at Salem and "hung by her neck until she died," according to the report of the sheriff who escorted her.
2 Sarah Good
D'ici là, des signes d'opposition aux procès des sorcières de Salem avaient commencé à faire surface. Plusieurs ministres se sont interrogés sur la question de savoir si la Cour s'est trop appuyée sur la preuve spectrale, ou sur le témoignage des figures fantomatiques que les sorcières auraient envoyées pour affliger leurs victimes. «Tout le monde pensait qu'il y avait des spectres qui pouvaient le faire», dit Margo Burns, un historien du New Hampshire qui se spécialise dans les procès des sorcières de Salem. "Ce n'était pas contesté. Mais ce qui était contesté était de savoir si le diable pouvait envoyer la forme d'une personne innocente à affliger.
Pourtant, lorsque la Cour de Oyer et terminer se sont reconvoquées le 28 juin après son succès en condamnant Bishop, Sarah Good a été rapidement condamnée et condamnée à mort. Plusieurs des filles affligées prétendaient que le spectre de Good les attaquait, et Tituba et plusieurs autres l'avaient nommée comme une autre sorcière dans leurs confessions, affirmant qu'elle volait sur un manche à balai et assistait aux rassemblements de sorcières. Le 19 juillet, Good a été karted à potence Hill et exécuté avec la grand-mère pratiquant, Rebecca Nurse, et trois autres sorcières condamnées.
3 Susannah Martin
Susannah Martin did not even live in Salem, but in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Like Bishop, she had been accused of witchcraft before, but the charges had been dropped for lack of evidence. His bad reputation may have spread to Salem by 1692, when four of the afflicted girls in Salem accuse him by name, claiming that his specter attacked them.
When the court asked them how they knew the specter was from Martin, the girls said, "Oh, she said her name was Goody Martin and she was from Amesbury," Burns relates. "They did not even have to recognize it." Despite the general lack of evidence against her, Martin was also sentenced and hanged on July 19, the same day as Sarah Good.
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4 Martha Carrier
When the Oyer Tribunal and Finish met for a third session in early August 1692, he heard the case of Martha Carrier of Andover, who would be home to more witches accused than any other city. "His family was very unpopular," says Burns de Carrier; It was thought that they had brought smallpox to Andover. After Carrier was charged, the authorities interrogated his two teenage sons, torturing them by confessing witchcraft themselves, and implicating their mother.
In the wonders of the Invisible World, her famous narrative of the Salem Witch Trials, memorable Cotton Mather called the wearer a "creeping HAG" who aspired to be "Queen of Hell". The court sentenced the carrier at the same meeting as two prominent witch-hunt men, John Proctor and Reverend George Burroughs, whom people suspected to be the leader of the Salem witches. On August 19, Carrier went to gallows Hill with Proctor, Burroughs, and two other men-she was the only woman executed that day.
5 Martha Cory
Like Rebecca Nurse, Martha Cory was far from the usual witch suspect, who tended to be a poor pariah. She was a member of her church and was considered a member of the community. But Martha aroused suspicion after trying to stop her husband, Giles, from attending one of the first exams in the witch trials, even hiding her saddle. Shortly after, one of the afflicted girls accused Martha of captivating him and turning her into a blind man.
Martha's provocative attitude turned the court officials against her, and Giles refused to corroborate her testimony, and even testified against her - at least until he was himself charged. Less than two weeks after Martha was convicted and sentenced to death, Giles was pressed to death after he refused to file a plea in his own trial. On September 22, Martha Cory went to the gallows with seven other convicted witches, in what would be the last hangings of the Salem witch trials.
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