Rosalyn Schanzer - Witches - The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem

Carefully following Sibley’s recipe, Tituba and John Indian mixed some rye flour with the afflicted girls’ urine, patted it into the shape of a cake, and baked it in the ashes of their fireplace. The trick was to feed this magical witchcake to a dog. Ancient European folklore alleged that dogs were the “familiars” of witches. This meant that dogs were actually imps disguised as animals to help witches do their dirty work. When a dog ate a witchcake, the witches’ spells were supposed to be broken. Then the victims could reveal the witches’ names for all to hear.

But when Reverend Parris and his wife got home and found out about the witchcake, they were absolutely furious. Using black magic was an enormous sin! Though the two slaves were probably just trying to help, black magic could not be tolerated. Parris would later preach that Goodwife Sibley had “a-going to the Devil for help against the Devil.”

Betty and Abigail must have been terrified by now; their fits and strange gibbering grew worse, and the contortions of their backs, necks, and arms were frightful to behold. Maybe Parris and his family still had not been pious enough! Parris and the neighboring ministers prayed together. He and his family fasted yet again. And he made sure that everyone in his household doubled their prayers again, too. But the minute a prayer would end, the girls’ fits began anew.

So Parris, the other ministers, and certain townsfolk pressed Betty and Abigail hard to reveal the witches’ names. Whose evil spirits had ventured forth from the Invisible World to torture them? How could the girls ever get well if the guilty witches were allowed to roam free?

If these two impressionable children were convinced that witches were out to get them, whom should they blame? Maybe their tormentors were the usual suspects, people their family didn’t like or respect. Tituba seemed to be a logical choice. Besides making the witchcake, she was a slave, and an Indian slave at that.

After all, everybody the girls knew was convinced that Indians were in league with the Devil. So Betty and Abigail declared that Tituba was a witch and that Tituba’s spirit, which was invisible to everybody else but themselves, had been pinching them and pricking them and chasing them around the room.

Before long, they claimed that two other women’s spirits had tortured them as well.

First, Betty and Abigail remembered Sarah Good, the muttering beggar woman who had pled for food for her two young children. In Salem Village, nobody liked a beggar, especially an ungrateful, pipe-smoking beggar. She had to be a witch.

And then they pointed the finger at a bedridden old farm woman named Sarah Osborn, whose young second husband used to be her own servant. She had not gone to church for more than a year, and rumor had it that this husband was a wife-beater. Nobody liked Osborn either, especially a certain family called the Putnams, who had fought with her for years over some land and were now leading members of Parris’s church. Betty and Abigail claimed they had seen a bird with a human head that turned into Sarah Osborn! She was obviously a despicable witch.

Tituba said she loved Betty and would never have hurt her, but Reverend Parris seemed not to believe a word she said. It was time to take action. So on February 29, 1692, the first official complaints were filed by two Salem Town magistrates, and the three accused witches were arrested.

Word traveled fast. Even as the arrests were taking place, more people began to say they were tormented by fits. And almost every one of them would claim that it was witches—or the witches’ spirits—that were torturing them.

The first of these new accusers was a clever 12-year-old girlfriend of Betty and Abigail named Ann Putnam Jr. Ann’s parents were the very strongest supporters Reverend Parris had in Salem Village. It seems that Ann was having dreadful fits, and they were all because the spirit of that beggar woman named Sarah Good was pinching her and trying to make her sign the Devil’s evil book.

Then a 17-year-old girl named Elizabeth Hubbard claimed she had been chased by a wolf that turned into Sarah Good and attacked by the bedridden old lady, Sarah Osborn. Hubbard happened to be the niece of Dr. Griggs, the very same physician who had first blamed Betty’s and Abigail’s fits on witchcraft. Not only did Hubbard live in Dr. Griggs’s house, but she was friends with Betty and Abigail, too.

On March 1, hordes of gawkers from miles around rode on horseback or slogged on foot through the flooded coastal roads leading to a tavern in Salem Village. They could hardly wait to find out what would happen at the questioning of the three suspects. Before long, an ugly crowd grew so big that everyone had to move to the church instead.

Today’s plan was to question the suspects and decide if they should appear before a grand jury at a later date. If the grand jury determined that there was enough evidence against these three women, they would eventually face a formal trial.

Nobody could be executed for witchcraft (or anything else) before appearing all three times. But accused people could most certainly be sent to prison. In fact, they would be stuck in the jailhouse for a very long time as the process dragged on.

First, the three accused women were examined for witch’s marks; did they have warts or bumps anywhere on their bodies that could be used as teats to feed their evil animal familiars? Not a mark was found.

Next, the two magistrates began their interrogation. Only one suspect was brought into the room at a time, but even before the defendants spoke a single word, it was obvious that the magistrates thought all three of them were witches. And it didn’t help their cause a bit when all day long the four accusers kept screeching and tumbling around on the floor and crying out that the suspects’ spirits were swooping through the air to torture them.

A man named Ezekiel Cheevers wrote down the questions and answers as fast as he could. Of course he already thought the women were guilty, too, as you can tell from his comments.

THE EXAMINATION OF SARAH GOOD A

Magistrate John Hathorn (H): Sarah Good, what evil spirit is your familiar?

Sarah Good (G): None!

H: Why do you hurt these poor children?

G: I do not hurt them. I scorn the very idea.

H: Then what creature do you employ to hurt them?

G: There is no creature. I am falsely accused!

H: Why did you go away muttering from Mr. Parris’s house?

G: I did not mutter. I thanked him for what he gave my child.

Recorder’s note: Hathorn asked the children to look upon Sarah Good and see if this were the person who had hurt them, and so they said this was one of the persons that did torment them. Presently they were all tormented by fits.

H: Sarah Good, do you not see what you have done? Why don’t you tell us the truth? Who do you serve?

G: I serve God. The same God that made heaven and earth!

Recorder’s note: Her answers were given in a very wicked, spiteful manner, retorting against the authority with foul and abusive words and many lies. Her husband said that he was afraid she either was a witch or would become one very quickly. “And indeed,” said he, “I may say with tears that she is an enemy to all that is good.”