Betty and Abigail were not normal little girls. They never had a childhood because childhood didn’t exist in Puritan New England. Children were just miniature adults who needed to get taller. Nine-year-old Betty was the daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams was her cousin.
They arrived in Salem Village, Massachusetts around 1689 when Rev. Parris became the minister at the local church. He turned to preaching after failing at business. He negotiated a mediocre salary and the loss of the fringe benefit of firewood. He had to forage for his own wood to heat his home.
Abigail and Betty lived like little princesses in the parsonage because the Parris household had two slaves to do the hard work. One of those slaves was a black woman named Tituba. Tituba told the girls about her childhood in Barbados and performed voodoo spells. Abigail and Betty spread Tituba’s tales to their girlfriends.
Girls in Puritan New England endured lives of unbelievable drudgery. They received only enough schooling to be able to read the Bible. They spent their days learning to become mommies, the only role they were allowed in life. They cooked, cleaned, sewed and cared for younger siblings and aged relatives.
Stealing away to sit in the Parris kitchen and listen to Tituba’s stories and watch her voodoo parlor tricks broke the monotony. Voodoo is a respected religion today in parts of west Africa and the Caribbean. But in 1690’s New England it was devil worship.
Witch on way to gallows
People were already on edge in 1680’s and 1690’s New England. A smallpox epidemic had killed many people. Indian attacks were on the rise. Worse, the royal governor had revoked the Bay Colony charter, invalidating all the deeds granted under the charter. Until the charter was reinstated, no one owned their homes or farms.
As all people do in calamitous times, the Puritans searched for the cause of their ill fortune. Many prayed; some believed the end of times had come. Others looked for scapegoats. The social chaos set the stage for the Salem girls.
It began with Betty who sometimes sat staring at nothing rather than working and shrieked in fear when called by her mother. Soon she was making choking sounds during family prayers and barking like a dog. Abigail developed the same symptoms. At first, Rev. Parrish and his wife tried to hide the news but soon the neighbors’ teenage girls were afflicted.
Cotton Mather
Excitable crowds gathered to watch the girls writhe and shriek in a 17th century version of The Exorcist. Medical doctors couldn’t cure the girls. Preachers prayed for the girls, but it made no difference. Most villagers agreed the girls were a textbook example of the possessions described in Cotton Mather’s book about witches.
The girls were having a high old time with their 15 minutes of fame. Suddenly they were the headline news! But eventually, Rev. Parris got a dim clue that strange things had been happening in his kitchen. When questioned, Betty sobbed incoherently about Tituba.
Tituba and two other women were the first to be accused of witchcraft. Sarah Good was the wife of a day laborer. Sarah Osborne was a widow rumored to have slept with her overseer before they married. A slave, trailer trash and a slut. They were throwaway women on the fringes of society.
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Between February 1692 and May 1693, scores of people were investigated for witchcraft. Like the 1950’s communism investigation by Senator McCarthy, every Salem defendant was pressured to simultaneously prove they weren’t guilty and to identify their accomplices.
Tituba played her moment in the spotlight to perfection. She talked freely and offered to perform a few voodoo spells. She was eventually released from prison and faded into obscurity.
Witch services
Others were not so lucky. Sarah Good and 18 others were hanged as witches. Sarah Osborne died in prison of ruined health from her ordeal. One man was crushed to death under a pile of rocks as his interrogators tried to press a confession out of him.
As in all such events, the victims were people whose status made them easy targets. When people of social standing began to be accused, the witch hunt was shut down.
The Devil in Massachusetts, Marion L. Starkey
To get the full story on this fascinating study in mass hysteria and prejudice, see The Devil in Massachusetts, by Marion L. Starkey.
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