Tag Archives: Tituba

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Mar 13: NEWLY ACCUSED: the beloved Rebecca Nurse

Today in Salem: 12-year-old Ann Putnam is caught in the crosshairs. On one side is her mother, pregnant and fearful, demanding to know what specter Ann can see. On the other side is the family’s 18-year-old servant, Mercy Lewis, who’s spent the last two weeks witnessing Ann’s torments and accusations. Who? Who is tormenting you this time?

dying flower

Her grandmother’s empty rocking chair is across the room, and now Ann says she can see a pale old woman sitting in it. But she doesn’t know who it is. Mercy and Ann’s mother lean into Ann’s face. ”Look again,” her mother says, barely breathing. “You must know,” Mercy says.

Maybe, Ann says, it’s hazy but she might remember where the old woman sits in the meeting house. Ann’s mother sits back and thinks. Maybe it’s one of the women who’ve already been accused. But Tituba is enslaved, and sits in the balcony where Ann wouldn’t see her. The beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne don’t go to church, so they wouldn’t have been in the meeting house at all. That leaves the gospel woman Martha Corey, who attends church weekly without fail. It must be Martha.

“Martha Corey!” Ann’s mother says. “It must be her.” But no, Ann says. Between them, Mercy and Ann’s mother can see every person in the meeting house, with Mercy sitting in the balcony with the other servants and slaves, and the Putnam family sitting on the main floor. Now they tick off the name of each woman they’ve seen in meeting until Ann finally agrees wearily to one: the beloved Rebecca Nurse.

Ann’s mother sits back and thinks. Of course. Rebecca is beloved, even saintly. But her husband has been no end of trouble, arguing about land boundaries and recently even winning a well-known dispute in court against one of his neighbors. People say he’s been crowing about it, making sure his other neighbors know where his other boundaries lay, and daring them to push back. It’s easy to believe the Nurses have aligned themselves with the Devil.

WHO was Mercy Lewis?

A traumatized orphan and refugee of the Indian Wars in Maine. She was a servant in the powerful Putnam family. Mercy accused 9 people of witchcraft, testified in 16, and appeared with the other afflicted girls in several more.

Mercy was born and raised in Falmouth, Maine, where her village was decimated by Indian attacks that, early in her childhood, took her grandparents and cousins. Then, when she was 15 or 16, another brutal attack burned her village to the ground and killed most of its people, including Mercy’s parents.

Mercy and the few other survivors took refuge on an island, where the minister George Burroughs took her in as a servant. He was known to be verbally abusive to his wives, both of whom had died years earlier, and he may have been a harsh taskmaster. Perhaps that explains why Mercy would later accuse him of witchcraft.

Over the next few years Mercy served the Burroughs family, then an unknown home in Beverly, Massachusetts, and then finally the Putnam family in Salem Village. It was here that she befriended the 12-year-old Ann Putnam, and began suffering with fits and seizures. Today we might say Mercy had PTSD.

Once the trials were over, Mercy moved 50 miles north to Greenland, New Hampshire to live with her aunt. There she gave birth to an illegitimate child, married a man with the last name Allen, and moved away, probably to Boston. History loses track of her after that. Case files: Mercy Lewis

WHO was Rebecca Nurse?

A weak grandmother and much beloved member of the church. The accusations against her planted the first seeds of doubt in the trials.

Some historians speculate that a handful of women in the Village were suspicious of Rebecca because all eight of her children had survived to adulthood. This was unusual in a time of high infant mortality and diseases like smallpox.

It’s more likely that the animosity stemmed from years of land disputes between Rebecca’s father and then husband against other families, including the Putnams, who were the most powerful family in the Village. Most recently, the Nurse family had been part of a long and loud boundary dispute with a neighbor who claimed that some of the Nurses’ 300 acres were his. The dispute ended up in the General Court, where the neighbor lost, bitterly. The truth was more complicated, though. The Nurses didn’t own their farm; they mortgaged it. So it wasn’t the Nurses who’d won in court and insulted the neighbor: it was the farm’s owner. Still, many people believed it was the Nurse family who’d been so stubborn and argumentative. Case files: Rebecca Nurse 

Tomorrow in Salem: AFFLICTED: the refugee Mercy Lewis

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Mar 10: The bossy gospel woman Martha Corey

black cat

Today in Salem: The two Sarahs are still tightly chained to the wall of their Boston jail cell, and so are their specters. You cannot chain the Devil, though, and now he’s using the specter of the bossy Martha Corey to torture the girls’ leader Ann Putnam. The specter is furious that Ann has accused Martha’s fellow witches the slave Tituba, the beggar Sarah Good, and the sickly Sarah Osborne.

Martha’s specter is an extreme version of Martha herself, who’s always quick to say what she thinks and correct others’ mistakes. She’s always right, in her opinion, and refers to herself as a Gospel Woman; after all, she’s been a full member of the church for two years.

Martha is not without sin, though, and everyone knows it. More than 20 years ago, Martha gave birth to an illegitimate, mixed-race son. He still lives with Martha and her husband Giles, and the gossiping villagers have never stopped talking about it.

LEARN MORE: Was there racism in Salem?

Yes. When the witchcraft hysteria began, the first enslaved people had been brought to the new world 170 years earlier. So racial division and slavery were already firmly in place in New England. But when the West Indian Tituba confessed to witchcraft, it electrified the racial questions around her and other enslaved people. They had dark skin. Many of them had foreign accents and frightening folklore. And now, it seemed, at least one of them was in league with the Devil.

In addition, the colonists were terrified of Native Americans, who also had dark skin and accents. Allied with the French, with both intent on rousting England’s presence, the Native Americans were brutal in their attacks on the English colonists. Many in Salem had lost family members or friends, sometimes watching them die in horrific ways. During the trials, when witnesses said they’d had visions or nightmares about black men, it was Native Americans they were referring to.

WHO was Martha Corey?

As a young woman, Martha had an illegitimate son who was of mixed race. She named him Benoni, meaning “son of my sorrow,” a name usually reserved for babies whose mothers had died in childbirth. Martha lived with “Ben” in a boarding house for several years before she was married for the first time.

words from Martha Corey's examination
From a deposition against Martha Corey, filed during her examination

When her first husband died, Martha married Giles Corey, 80. Her mixed-race son, now 22, was living with them at the time of the trials.

Martha had joined the church two years before the trials began, and had referred to herself as a Gospel Woman ever since. She could be condescending, and was quick to state her opinions. She was respected but disliked, and her scandalous past counted against her. Case files: Martha Corey

Tomorrow in Salem: AWAY with little Betty

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Mar 9: CHAINED: Good & Osborne

ankle chains

Today in Salem: The jail keeper drops eight pounds of chains at the feet of the beggar Sarah Good. Stand back, he says, and pushes her against the wall. Sarah is spitting mad, but she can’t kick, and she won’t drop the baby. All she can do is unleash a string of curses as the jail keeper yanks the shackles tight, then locks them to a hook in the wall.

Until last night the magistrates had assumed that a jail cell would contain the witches and their specters. But after last night’s torments they know that a jail cell isn’t enough. The women may be locked in a cell, but their specters are traveling freely and inflicting great harm. So they’ve told the jail keeper to physically attach the women to the jail cell wall. That should keep their specters at bay.

The jail keeper drops another eight pounds of chains in front of the sickly Sarah Osborne, but she’s too ill to put up a fight. She slides down to sit, then leans against the wall. As weak as she is, though, the jail keeper is still rough as he pulls and locks the shackles. He’s no fool. She may be sick, but her specter is not.

The slave Tituba stands to the side. She doesn’t need to be attached to the walls; her specter didn’t torment the girls last night. Why would she? Tituba has no cause to be vengeful or angry with them. They didn’t testify against her. She’s already confessed.

LEARN MORE: Why were there babies in jail?

History doesn’t tell us why Sarah Good had her baby with her. But we do know that her baby, 5 months old, was still nursing. Puritans were strict about mothers nursing their own babies rather than using a wet nurse; in fact, Cotton Mather, a prominent minister of the time, later wrote that women who refused to suckle their infants are “dead while they live.”

Still, wet nurses were used in Puritan society during the first few days of a child’s life, until the mother was no longer producing colostrum (which the Puritans believed was poisonous, or at least impure). A wet nurse would also be required in the case of maternal death, or other extreme circumstances. But prison probably wasn’t one of them, especially for a beggar.

Tomorrow in Salem: The bossy gospel woman Martha Corey

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Mar 8: Vengeful specters attack the girls

Today in Salem: The gale-force wind continues, blustering north through the streets of Boston, out of the town, over the roiling water, and through the marshes into Salem Village. Heavy clouds hang over naked trees that moan and sway in the gusts, carrying the vengeful specters of the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne. The women are locked in the Boston jail, 20 miles away from Salem Village. But their specters are here, bent on revenge, twisting and choking the girls who dared to testify against them.

The meeting house is in disrepair, and now a board is pried loose in the wind, sailing into the air and smashing against the wall of the parsonage. Inside, little Betty jumps at the sound and nearly faints, then bursts into tears before bending backward and twisting hard toward the fireplace.

11-year-old tomboy Abigail Williams isn’t much better, grasping the table, sobbing and choking at the same time. Across the village at the Putnam home, the 12-year-old Ann is flailing her arms and yelling at the specters that she will not, will not follow them. And, at the home of Dr. Griggs, his 17-year-old servant Elizabeth Hubbard is staring at the hearth fire, wide-eyed and seemingly in a trance, unmoving, even when the wood snaps and an ember flies toward her.

LEARN MORE: Were the afflicted girls really having “fits,” or were they faking it?

Probably both, sometimes maliciously, but also because of stress, past trauma, fear, boredom, and perhaps mass hysteria.

Of the ten main accusers, at least two and probably more were traumatized refugees from the Indian Wars in Maine. These were teenage girls and young women who’d watched as their homes and towns were burned and their family members murdered brutally. The attacks were not small or isolated. In one campaign, 60 miles of Maine coastland were destroyed in five weeks, with not one English settlement left.

Today we would say these girls had PTSD. But the Puritan Church of the time believed that dreams and nightmares carried messages and prophesies. One can only imagine what kind of dreams or even hallucinations these girls were having, and what they were told they meant.

Consider, too, that at least four of the girls – some of them refugees – were orphans who’d lost their parents, and therefore their financial and emotional support, dowries, and social connections. Puritan culture required each person to be “attached” to a family unit. So the orphan was taken in, frequently by extended family, and treated as a servant. Overnight these girls had lost their prospects. They’d never be married, never have children, and never have status in the church. They would be servants forever. Some of these hopeless girls had nothing else to lose, and may have been vengeful or uncaring.

On a larger level, the entire community was suffering tremendous anxiety. They were at war with the Indians, believed that Satan was active and intent on destroying them, and had just endured a brutally cold winter. Even the youngest accuser, age 9, would have picked up on that level of turmoil.

Still, despite any compassionate context, it’s true that some fakery was at play, with staged injuries, dramatic acting, and obvious teamwork. One accuser eventually confessed that she’d lied, and two of them joked that they just wanted to have fun. It was complicated, but not, and leaves us with questions we’ll never be able to answer fully.

Tomorrow in Salem: CHAINED: Good & Osborne

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Mar 7: PAYING FOR THEIR SINS: the slave Tituba, the beggar Sarah Good, & the sickly Sarah Osbourne

Today in Salem: Three horses trot south, each one carrying a constable and a passenger. The slave Tituba, the beggar Sarah Good, and the sickly Sarah Osborne fold in on themselves for warmth as they ride through the blustery cold to a ferry, sail over the frigid bay, then continue riding to the jail in Boston, where criminals are tried and executed. These three aren’t scheduled for trial yet, but Salem is a day’s ride away, and it will save time if they’re already here when the court is ready for them.

The beggar Sarah Good snarls and holds her baby close as the jail keeper locks her into a shared cell with Tituba and Sarah Osborne. None has had anything to eat: the slave, the beggar, and the sick are hardly prosperous enough to bring food with them. Instead, the jail keeper’s wife will give them a simple supper of bread and butter and add the cost to their jail bills. Like any prisoner, each woman will pay the entire cost of her imprisonment. Even if she’s found to be innocent she’ll stay in jail – accruing even more costs – until the bill is paid.

LEARN MORE: Why did prisoners have to pay for their time in jail?

Then as now, it was expensive to keep someone in jail. Taxes were used to keep the building in repair and to support the jail keeper and his family (who usually lived upstairs). Prisoners had to buy everything else, though, including food, blankets, even their own shackles and chains. Wealthy prisoners could pay to stay in the jail keeper’s house, or go to church under guard.

Not much has changed. In fact, “pay-to-stay” is practiced in every state except Hawaii (as of Nov 2020). Depending on the state, prisoners pay for anything from toilet paper to food. In some prisons, more affluent inmates can pay for cells with bigger beds, private TVs, and sofas.

At the time of the trials, prisoners were held until their entire bill was paid. Today, prisoners are released and expected to pay their bills over time. If they default on the debt, the government may seize their savings, paychecks, inheritances, or other sources of income.

jail bill for accused witches
An expense report listing jail costs for some of the accused witches of Salem. The transcription and a large scan can be seen at http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n171.html#n171.14

Tomorrow in Salem: Vengeful specters attack the girls

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Mar 5: CHOICES: The beggar Sarah Good

Today in Salem: The sickly Sarah Osborne will almost certainly be condemned. The only thing standing between her and the hangman’s noose is a trial, which to the magistrates is just a technicality. She’s guilty, they know she is. But they’ve given up waiting for her to admit it, and it was up to God whether to forgive her.

The magistrates have not, however, given up on the pipe-smoking beggar Sarah Good, and now they’re at the jail one last time to pull a confession from her. They know she’s guilty, of course, and just like Osborne she says she’s innocent. But where Osborne is steadfast, Good is evasive, slippery even, and the details of her story keep changing. She’s hiding something. Why does she hurt the children? they ask her. Has she signed the Devil’s book? What evil spirit is she familiar with?

woman peeking through hole

Sarah peers at them through her pipe smoke and laughs, her voice gravelly and hoarse from too many years with a pipe between her teeth. The cruel magistrate Hathorne steps forward and narrows his eyes against the sting of the smoke.

“Will you not profess your guilt?” he asks. It’s a simple choice.

If she confesses, she will live.

If she says she’s innocent, she will die.

Which will she choose?

LEARN MORE: This seems backward. If a crime leads to the death penalty, you wouldn’t confess to it, like Tituba did. You’d deny it, like the two Sarahs. Why was this reversed in Salem? Why were the judges so eager to execute an innocent like Sarah, but slow to condemn a confessor like Tituba?

At the time of the Trials, the Puritan ministers of New England were convinced that the Church had become complacent. They’d worried for weeks that God was about to punish them by allowing attacks from the Devil. Entire congregations had been fasting and praying about it, and the ministers were on high alert for any sign of evil.

When the news exploded that a group of girls could see the specters of witches, the source of the evil was revealed. But the girls weren’t the only ones who could see into the “Invisible World.” Witches could also see and identify each other to the authorities. The longer the confessed witches were alive, the more of their evil friends they could expose.

Tituba was the first of several accused “witches” to realize that she could save her life by confessing, then describing in great detail what – and who – she could see. Those who maintained their innocence either hadn’t figured it out or would rather die than tell a lie.

Tomorrow in Salem: ACCUSED: the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor

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Mar 3: Dorcas, the tiniest witch

broken doll

Today in Salem: The three accused witches are finally behind bars, and 9-year-old little Betty, the tomboy Abigail Williams, and the 17-year-old servant Elizabeth Hubbard are feeling somewhat better.

Ann Putnam is still tormented, though, this time by the specters of a woman and a little girl. Ann doesn’t know who the woman is, but she recognizes the girl: It’s the beggar Sarah Good’s 4-year-old daughter, Dorcas. Sarah has her baby in jail with her, but has left Dorcas behind in the care of her hapless father.

Can it be? Is it possible for a small child to be a witch? If any child could be, it would be Dorcas. In the best of times Dorcas is a wild child, dirty, disheveled, and often hungry. Now, though, with her mother gone, the little girl is frightened and furious, and her specter bites, pinches, and chokes Ann in revenge.

Meanwhile the magistrates are interviewing the three imprisoned witches at the jail. It doesn’t matter that the two Sarahs have denied being in league with the Devil. The magistrates know they’re guilty, and they must confess.

The beggar Sarah Good has been brought back to Salem, and now she’s twisted at an awkward angle, nursing her baby in one arm. The other is bruised and swollen from leaping off the constable’s horse, and she holds it close, as if it’s in an imaginary sling. In another corner of the jail cell, the sickly Sarah Osborne is sleeping in dirty straw, breathing shallowly. The cruel magistrate John Hathorne prods her with his foot until she rolls over to look at him.

“What promise have you made to the Devil?” He looks back and forth to each of them. None, they both say at the same time. “Have you signed his book? Tell the truth!” The beggar just laughs and holds her baby closer. The sickly Sarah Osborne sighs. No, they say.

As for the slave Tituba, she’s been pacing in a small circle all day. She’s already confessed, but to prove her worth, she adds a new detail: when the previous minister’s wife and child died, it was because of witchcraft.

LEARN MORE: What was the jail in Salem like?

The Salem “Gaol” was only eight years old when the witchcraft trials began. The floor was dirt, and the windows had iron bars. But we don’t know much more about the building, except that it was described as “thirteen feet stud, and twenty feet square, accommodated with a yard.” It’s hard to translate that into today’s measurements. Was the facade of the building 20 square feet? Or did that refer to the length and width? Did it have two stories? What was the distance between studs? Was it built of stone or wood? We know it had a yard, but was it secured to the exterior of the building, or was it a central courtyard?

The most important thing we know is that the conditions were appalling. It was hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and smelled of dung, vomit, dead vermin, and unwashed bodies year-round. It was miserably overcrowded, and prisoners were infested with fleas and lice thanks to vermin, which spread “jail fever” (typhus). An earlier prisoner said he was “almost poisoned with the stink of my own dung and the stink of the prison having never so much as a minute’s time to take the air since I came into this dolesome place.”

WHO was Dorcas Good? Dorcas was the 4-year-old daughter of the beggar Sarah Good. Dorcas was accused of witchcraft, like her mother, and confessed that her mother had given her a little snake that sucked on her finger. The magistrates took this to mean she had a “familiar” and was, therefore, guilty. Dorcas stayed in prison for eight months and was emotionally damaged for the rest of her life.

Tomorrow in Salem: Choices: the beggar Sarah Good

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Mar 1: IN COURT: the beggar Sarah Good, the sickly Sarah Osborne, & the slave Tituba

Today in Salem: the village has turned out in full force to goggle at the slave Tituba, sickly Sarah Osborne, and the beggar Sarah Good, clustered in the middle of the meeting house. The tavern owner’s wife has already examined the accused women for witch’s marks, but hasn’t found any. Now it’s the judges’ turn to look for evidence.

When they’re not staring at the accused witches, the crowd is gaping at the four afflicted girls. Little Betty Parris hides behind her tomboy cousin Abigail Williams, both of them breathing hard through tears. The girls’ leader Ann Putnam stands at the front of the group, gasping and wringing her hands. The servant Elizabeth Hubbard stands back, holding her neck with both hands and choking as if she’s being strangled.

The crowd quiets as the two magistrates intone the opening prayers. Then the Sheriff takes the slave Tituba and the sickly Sarah Osborne out, leaving the beggar Sarah Good behind, her baby in her arms, and her pipe clenched firmly between her teeth.

The aggressive magistrate John Hathorne attacks first. What evil spirit is Good familiar with? None! Have you made a contract with the Devil? No! Why do you hurt these children? I scorn it! The quieter magistrate Jonathan Corwin watches carefully as the girls insist that Sarah’s specter is lunging at them this very minute. But when her own husband tells the judges that she is an enemy to all good, it’s over. The magistrates send Sarah with her baby to stay with a relative, who is a constable and can keep her and her baby under lock and key.

When the sickly Sarah Osborne is ushered in she denies being a witch. But yes, she did have a nightmare once about a black Indian who grabbed her by the hair. And yes, she’d once heard a voice telling her not to go to church. The judges squint. Couldn’t the Devil be the nightmare Indian? And couldn’t the voice she was hearing actually be his? Unlike the beggar’s husband, Sarah Osborne’s husband testifies that she’s telling the truth. The judges aren’t sure, though, and releasing her is risky. So they send her to jail to wait for a trial.

The slave Tituba confronts the same questions and denies all evil-doing, but the judges’ eyes narrow when she pauses. Perhaps remembering yesterday’s beating, she changes course and spills out a partial confession. Actually she did see the Devil, she says in her exotic accent, and four witches, too. And yes, she admits that she agreed to join the witches, but then she changed her mind. And yes, she has hurt the children, but only because the Devil man threatened her.

Judge Hathorne leans in and begins rapid-firing questions. Who were the other witches? She doesn’t know two of them, but the other two are the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne. She pauses, and suddenly the details pour out. She’d seen them around a hog, a black dog, also a red cat and a black cat, plus a yellow bird, she says, with two imps warming themselves by the fire in the parsonage last night. She gives detailed accounts of the witches’ clothing and the Devil man’s appearance, and finally, in the face of the non-stop questions, closes her eyes and says she is suddenly blind, and then mute, and then chokes and gasps just like the afflicted girls. Then, recovering her voice, she says the specters of the two Sarahs are attacking her. Tituba has confessed, so the judges send her to jail to await trial and sentencing.

LEARN MORE: Is a magistrate the same thing as a judge?
In a way, yes, but a magistrate is lower level, a lay judge who deals with minor offenses. They may also hold preliminary hearings for more serious offenses that will later go to trial.

In Salem, the magistrates were local politicians and/or respected merchants. They usually dealt with minor charges like drunkenness. For the Salem Witchcraft Trials, they held examinations, or hearings, for people accused of witchcraft to decide whether a more former trial should take place. If the magistrate decided there was enough evidence to suggest guilt, the accused person would go to jail until a grand jury could convene for a trial.

WHO was magistrate Jonathan Corwin?
Jonathan Corwin — Age 51. Magistrate. Corwin was a wealthy merchant who was elected to the colonial assembly twice, and was an active magistrate of the local courts, hearing cases dealing with petty crimes and minor charges such as drunkenness and burglary. With his friend and fellow judge John hathore, he presided over many of the initial hearings for the witchcraft trials and was relentless in seeking confessions.

Corwin’s personal life was hardly peaceful. Four of his children had recently died when he called the first witchcraft hearing into order, and another had nearly drowned. One of his other children was said to have been afflicted by one of the accused women. Later his mother-in-law would be accused of witchcraft, though she was never arrested.

Corwin never expressed regret or remorse for his role in the trials, and died 26 years later a wealthy and respected man. His house is still standing and is known today as the Witch House. Case files: Jonathan Corwin

WHO was magistrate John Hathorne?
Age 51. Magistrate. Hathorne began his business career as a bookkeeper, but quickly moved to land speculation. Eventually he acquired a ship, a wharf, and a liquor license, and made enough money to build a mansion in Salem Town, plus a warehouse near the wharf.

Hathorne had served the Salem community as a judge for about five years when the trials began. He was fierce in his questioning, always assuming the accused person was guilty and that the afflicted girls were truthful. It was a perfect example of “guilty until proven innocent.”

Hathorne was thought to be an aggressive and even cruel judge, and showed no introspection or remorse after the trials ended. Some of his descendants were ashamed of their connection to him, including his great-great-grandson Nathaniel Hawthorne, who added a W to his name before writing “House of the Seven Gables.” Case files: John Hathorne

Tomorrow in Salem: On the run: the beggar Sarah Good

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Feb 28-29: Parris beats a confession out of Tituba

powder burst

Today in Salem: Rev Parris’s hands are red and swollen from beating his slave Tituba. Parris is done, done with waiting and praying. Little Betty and her cousin the tomboy Abigail are growing worse, not better, and now he’s beaten a confession out of Tituba. Yes. Yes, she’s a witch, she cries. Not just that, but so are the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Saran Osborne, plus two other witches she doesn’t recognize.

Parris relays the confession to a church deacon, who enlists three other men to ride to town and file complaints against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Warrants are immediately issued for their arrest, with orders to appear tomorrow morning for a hearing.

Tonight, according to the girls, the beggar Sarah Good’s specter torments the 17-year-old servant Elizabeth Hubbard. The specter of the sickly Sarah Osborne manifests as a human-headed bird and torments Betty, age 9, and Abigail, age 11. And the specters of Osborne and Tituba try to cut off 12-year-old Ann Putnam’s head.

LEARN MORE: How could Rev Parris beat his slave? Wasn’t slavery just during the Civil War?

No. The first enslaved Africans were brought to America more than 150 years before the witchcraft trials, and nearly 300 years before the U.S. Civil War.

The Body of Liberties title page
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 was the first legal code established in New England. It outlawed slavery but legalized the slave trade at the same time.

About 50 years before the trials, the Puritans outlawed slavery with two exceptions: prisoners of war (most often Native Americans), and strangers who were sold to them or sold themselves. So, ironically, the very law that outlawed slavery also legalized the slave trade between America, the West Indies, and Africa.

In Salem at the time, we know of at least five enslaved people: In the Parris household were Tituba and John Indian with their daughter Violet, who’s age and birthplace are unknown. Two other women, Mary Black and Candy, both named in the trials, were enslaved by other families.

While Rev Parris “owned” Tituba because of legal loopholes, beating her was immoral and outside the law. In fact, the Puritan minister Cotton Mather later promised that if owners mistreated their slaves, “the Sword of Justice” would sweep through the colony.

Tomorrow in Salem: IN COURT: the beggar Sarah Good, the sickly Sarah Osborne, & the slave Tituba

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Feb 26: ACCUSED: Tituba

Today in Salem: Rev Parris thunders as if he’s behind the pulpit. Except he’s not behind the pulpit. He’s in his own kitchen, raging at Tituba, Betty, and Abigail and waving his fist in the air. You’ve opened the door to the Devil, he rages. You’ve used magic to counter-magic, and now God’s wrath will be unleashed!

Several other ministers are standing behind Rev Parris, holding their hats and looking first at Tituba, then at Betty and Abigail as the girls sob and contort their arms and legs into impossible positions. The girls have already choked out the story of the witch-cake, and now they gasp for breath, as if they’re being strangled. “It wasn’t us!” they cry. “It’s Tituba! She’s a witch!”

When Parris demands an explanation, Tituba looks at the floor and confesses to making the witch-cake. “But I am not a witch,” she says. Her owner in Barbados was a witch, she says. That’s where she’d learned how to use counter-magic. “But I am not the cause of evil. I am no witch.”

After yesterday’s visit from the doctor, Rev Parris had invited other ministers to see the girls for themselves and render their opinion. Now they’ve seen the full unraveling, and they step outside with Parris. They agree that the hand of Satan is on the children, but they still aren’t sure if it’s a witch that’s involved. “Be careful,” they say. “Don’t do anything. Just wait and see.”

Lightning

LEARN MORE: What is counter-magic? Was it good or bad?

Page from the book of Charms
The Book of Magical Charms is a handwritten book from the 17th century. It contains charms for things like healing a toothache, recovering a lost voice, and talking to spirits.

Counter-magic can be thought of as “good magic,” or superstitious behavior that prevents or protects against evil. People today practice counter-magic without even realizing it. When you hang a dreamcatcher, throw salt over your shoulder, burn sage, or whisper to a child “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” — you’re keeping evil forces at bay with counter-magic.

In the 17th century, any kind of magic was demonic. That’s what the Puritan ministers believed anyway. Lay people weren’t so sure. In the 20 years before the trials in Salem, witchcraft cases were usually dismissed by the courts for lack of evidence. This left people feeling defenseless against people they knew were witches. Something had to be done, even if it was just to protect themselves. Witch bottles were filled with urine, nails, wine, or other objects and hidden under hearths. Poppets were tucked under floorboards. Horseshoes were nailed to walls.

Those objects are sometimes uncovered in today’s archaeological digs, and can be surprisingly similar to the objects we use today – more than 300 years later.


Tomorrow in Salem: ACCUSED: the beggar Sarah Good and the sickly Sarah Osborne