The Storm

In the middle of January 1629, strange events began to take place in the Salem Village parsonage.

Reverend Samuel Parris and his wife, Elizabeth, began to notice that their daughter, Betty, and

niece, Abigail Williams, were behaving oddly. Betty was nine and her cousin was about eleven-

vulnerable ages in a time when illness all too often proved deadly. The Parrises must have been

truely alarmed as the girls' afflictions gradually worsened, but they initially were concerned

that these were signs of sickness.Samuel later observer that is was "several weeks before such

hellish operations, as witchcraft was suspected." Soon the minister called in friends and colleagues,

including Reverend John Hale from neighboring Beverly, to observe the girls. Hale noted, "these

children were bitten and pinched by invisible agents; their arms, necks, and backs turned this way

and that way, and returned back again, so as it was impossible for them to do of themselves, and

beyond the power of any epileptic fits, or natural disease to effect. Sometimes they were taken

dumb, their mouths stopped, their throats chocked, their limbs wracked and tormented so as might

move a heart of stone, to sympathize with them, with bowels of compassion with them." They also

suffered "by pins invisibly stuck into their flesh, and pricking with irons."

By the middle of February, Reverend Parris strongly suspected that his daughter and niece were

bewitched. On Thursday, February 25, Samuel and Elizabeth left home for the neighboring village

to attend Thursday lecture- a weekly religious sermon that rotated from one town to the next. In

their absence, neighbor Mary Sibley instructed the Parrises' two slaves, Tituba and her husband,

John Indian, to make a witch cake, to try to detect the identity of the girls' tormenters. They baked

a loaf of rye bread mixed with some urine from the afflicted girls, then fed it to the family dog.

this was one of many countermagical folk remedies, such as horseshoes placed over doorways to ward

off evil. When the dog ate the witch cake, it was supposed to reveal the witch's identity. Indeed,

the afflicted girls soon cried out that it was Tituba who was tormenting them.

Reverend Parris traced the discovery of witchcraft in Salem Village to this incident.He would later

publicly chastise Mary Sibley in front of the congregation for the "diabolical means" she used to detect

witchcraft. He warned, "By this means (it seems) the devil hath been raised amongst us, and his rage

is vehement and terrible, and when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows." However well intentioned

her actions had been, Sibley had carried out magic. Ministers in Europe and America had long struggled

with this problem. Although "white magic," such as the baking of the bread, was meant to help, it still

invoked Satan. As such, Sibley was as guilty of witchcraft as the now-accused Tituba. Contrary to

popular opinion, there is absolutely on evidence that Tituba and the Parris girls had engaged in

fortune-telling or any other form of white magic.

On the same day the witch cake was baked, two other girls, living on opposite sides of the village,

suffered their initial demonic afflictions. Ann Putnam Jr. was the twelve-year-old daughter of

Thomas Putnam and his wife, Ann Carr Putnam Sr. The family lived along the road to Andover, more than

a mile west of the parsonage. Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Hubbard worked as a maid for her aunt, Rachel

Griggs, and Rachel's husband, Dr. William Griggs. They lived about two miles east of the parsonage, in

a part of Salem that was located just outside the bounds of Salem village.While they both lived some

distance apart, both families would have known what was happening. Putnam was among Reverend Parris's

inner circle of supporters, and scholars believe that Griggs was the un-named doctor who had been attending

the girls and determined that they were "under an evil hand."

The affliction of the girls in the Parris household grew worse in the days following the baking of the

witch cake. Abigail and Betty blamed Tituba for their torments and claimed that her spectre chased them

around the house. Reverend Parris invited several area ministers as well as some Salem gentlemen to see

the girls. They agreed that the children were being attacked by Satan. Meanwhile, troubles continued for

Ann Putnam Jr., and Elizabeth Hubbard. Ann said the spectre of Sarah Good pintched her and tried to coerce

her to sign the devil's book, an act would establish a formal covenant with Satan. Good was a poor, disaffected

woman, known for her sharp tongue and outbursts hurled even at those who offered to help her. Elizabeth

believed she was being stalked by a wolf sent by Sarah Good. She was also tormented by Sarah Osburn, a bedridden

woman who lived on the northern edge of Salem village, who was accompanied by "a short and hairy thing with

two legs and two wings." Osburn, a widow, not only was plagued by ill health but had scandalized the community

when she purchased the contract of indentured servant Alexander Osburn and married him. With four girls now afflicted,

four Salem village men traveled several miles to the coast to busy Salem Town on Monday, February 29 to begin legal

proceedings against Tituba, Good, and Osburn. Ann Putnam's father, Thomas, and his brother, Edward, were accompanied

by Joseph Hutchinson and Thomas Preston. The men swore out legal complaints before calling out magistrates Jonathan

Corwin and John Hawthorne, accusing the women of "suspicion of witchcraft... and thereby much injury done." Corwin

and Hawthorne were wealthy Salem merchants and respected politicians, though they lacked formal legal training. This

had not been a concern in their work with the petty crimes and civil offices of the local court, but both must have been

taken aback by the charges of diabolical high crimes they heard that day. they issued warrants, ordering the constables

to arrest the women and to have them at Ingersoll's Ordinary (or tavern) by ten the next morning for questioning. The tavern

was in the heart of Salem village, a minute's walk from the parsonage and the meetinghouse.

The next morning so many people tried to crowd into Ingersoll's for the hearing that the proceedings had to be moved

down the street to the much larger meetinghouse. All four afflicted girls were there to face their tormentors; the accused

were questioned one at a time, starting with Sarah Good. Hawthorn led the interrogations, more like a modern day

police detective grilling a subject for a confession than an impartial judge. From the nature of the unrelenting questions he

asked, it is clear that he believed witchcraft was at work and that the three women were responsible: "What evil spirit have you

familiarity with? Have you made no contact with the devil? Why do you hurt these children?" Good's denials were to no avail.

When the four girls confirmed their identification of Sarah as their tormentor, she denied the charge, at which point the girls

became "all dreadfully tortured and tormented for a short space of time." They claimed Good's spirit hinged out of her body at

them. More denials from Sarah led to more cries and painful writhing from the girls. When pressed Good eventually offered that

Sarah Osburn was responsible for the girl's torments. Hawthorn then questioned Sarah Good's husband, William Good. He had

no reason to believe that she was a witch aside from her ill temperament, he said, though he concluded with a damning and

punning statement, " I may say with tears that she is an enemy to all good." The judges were in no mood for humor. They

determined to hold Good for trial. Although the evidence was less compelling, the court held Osburn, too, after the girls

identified her as a tormentor.

Tituba would prove to be the star witness, for her testimony fully confirmrd fears that many witches were loose in Salem,

and it unleashed a massive hunt to round up Satan's minions. A slave who was regularly described as an "indian," Tituba

most likely was born in the Caribbean of Florida and brought to New England by Samuel Parris when he migrated from Barbados

in 1680. She initially denied the charges against her but under Hawthorne's hounding eventually admitted she was a witch. She

described how Satan had revealed himself to her."I saw a thing like man, and told me to serve him." She said Good and Osburn

along with three strangers from Boston were responsible for hurting the girls. Good's familiar was a yellow bird that suck between

her fingers. The devil had threatened to kill the children and had also sent a hog, a dog,and two cats to Tituba to encourage her

to attack the girls. Witches were traditionally believed to have supernatural familiar spirits-imps sent by Satan who aided them

in their cruel acts. In return, the familiar, which usually took the form of an animal, sucked blood from the witch and thus gained

nourishment. One of the most common forms of familiar was a cat-hence the traditional association of black cats with witches.

Witches were also believed to be able to assume the shapes of animals. Thus, unusual behavior in an animal, especially a strange

one, might suggest the presents of a witch.