Cauldron Confusion and Broomstick Blunders

From paper to fire, from fire to ash, from ash to ember, I curse this member. At least, that is what the population thought that I was doing.

In truth, most of us were just housewives going about our day in Salem Village. That didn't stop my little village from turning against most of us. Some were hanged, and one of us was even stoned to death.

I was happy until Reverend Samuel Parris became our first ordained minister. Let me tell you our story.

First Minister

I don't remember the day Parris arrived; quickly, he showed the village his rigid ways and greedy nature. It wasn't soon before some villages talked about him working for the devil.

In January 1692, Parris' daughter, known to all as Betty and his niece Abigail, started having fits. Betty was only nine, and her cousin eleven. They would scream, throw things and utter peculiar sounds.

The local doctor was quick to blame this on the supernatural. The village may not have believed everything had another twelve-year-old, Ann, started with the same fits.

Magistrates

Jonathan Corbin and John Hathorne are two gentlemen you would never hope to meet. They were tasked with investigating the cases.

When they interviewed the three girls, they blamed three women for inflicting them with the curse. One was the Caribbean woman who worked for the Parris family called Tituba, the other was Sarah Good, poor Sarah was homeless and down on her luck, and the last was elderly Sarah Osborne.

All three women were hauled to the magistrate's office and interrogated for days. It was not surprising that Tituba, in the end, broke and admitted devil worship and many other practices. The poor Sarahs maintained their innocence, but it was to no avail.

Village Accusations

Once the village was convinced that the three of us were witches, they believed everyone was. Paranoia spread, and accusations followed for most people over the next couple of months.

The most shocking was poor Martha Corey, a loyal church member. If she was accused of being a witch, we all could be. Do you know they even questioned Sarah Good's daughter? She was only four.

The questioning and finger-pointing got worse in April. The colony's deputy governor attended the hearings. Dozens of people from Salem and other nearby villages were brought in for questioning.

Special Court of Oyer

On 27 May 1692, Governor William Phips ordered a special court to rid the village of all witches. I was there that day. They brought in poor Bridget Bishop. Bridget was elderly and known to go with anyone, but still, she did not deserve what happened to her.

She claimed she was innocent, but it made no difference; she was found guilty and hanged on 10 June. She is quite well known now as the first person to be hanged in Gallows Hill.

The evidence they took into account was ludicrous. They examined our dreams or visions and used this against us. Minister Cotton Mather wrote asking them not to allow this evidence, but they ignored him.

I kept a list of the deaths. Five people were hanged in July, five more in August and eight in September.

Mather Family

Mather senior, a lovely man named Increase, became everyone's hero. Following in his son's footsteps, he denounced the evidence used. He was the president of Harvard, so people tended to listen to him.

It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned. - Increase Mather

They responded by arresting his wife and accusing her of being a witch.

It did work, though; on 29 October, the court was dissolved and replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, which would not take evidence of a spectral nature. Only three defendants were found guilty out of fifty-six.

Pardoned

By May 1693, everything had settled down in the village. Phips went on to pardon all those imprisoned for witchcraft; it was the least he could do.

My beautiful village was destroyed, though; nineteen men and women had been hanged on Gallows Hill, and poor Giles Corey, Martha's seventy-one-year-old husband, had been pressed to death with heavy stones when he refused to attend his trial.

Five of those who were accused had also passed away in prison before the pardoning.

It would be funny if it were not so tragic. The village even killed animals they said were linked to the devil. In 1702, the trials were declared unlawful.

Nine years later, the accused were given £600 restitution, not that many of them collected it most was collected by their heirs. I am sure they would like their relatives to be alive more. Overall, they killed nineteen of us.

Who am I

My name is Elizabeth Johnson. I was the last woman convicted of being a witch in Salam. I am still waiting for my name to be cleared.

How am I telling this story? I contacted a writer from the afterlife. We women have our ways.