SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT-IT WAS NOT EVE’S FAULT –THE DEVIL MADE HER DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chapter 4

1. Witches were considered threats to society because they had made pacts with the devil.

( 1542 in England Parliament declared witchcraft a capital crime.( hundreds of people were hanged; 90% were females). In New England -1640’s, sixteen witchcraft trials had taken place-mostly women.)

2. Late in 1691 in Salem, MA, Reverend Samuel Parris caught his daughter Elizabeth-9, niece Abigail Williams-11 and others telling fortunes (They said that they had been bewitched.)

3.February of 1692 the girls blamed the slave in Reverend Parris’s household- Tituba. (She hailed from the West Indies).

4. Then they accused Sarah Good(a beggar) and Sarah Osborne (elderly and poor).

5.The events snowballed with hundreds coming forward to make accusations. (Accused: Dorcas Good, four-year old daughter of Sarah Good; Bridget Bishop; 71-year-old Rebecca Nurse; 47 year-old Elizabeth Proctor; John Proctor; Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyce-sisters to Rebecca Nurse; Martha and Giles Corey.)

6.Classic symptoms of possession: laughing uncontrollably, fits, contortions, trances, paralysis, the sense of being bitten, beaten or pricked.

7. Fifty-eight in Salem showed those signs.

8. The first court session was convened on May 27, 1692 and the first one tried was Bridget Bishop who was found guilty and hanged on June 10 th.

9.Over 200 were accused. 10.Of the 200, 75% were female; of those executed, 19 were hanged along with 2 DOGS, 1 crushed. At least 4 died in prison.

11.In Salem, the accusers tended to come from the older, more traditional lifestyle of farming while the accused tended to be members of the growing middle class of merchants and businessmen. 12. Those who were accused lost all of their possessions: livestock, houses and land.

Hanged on July 19 Sarah Good, Salem Village Rebecca Nurse, Salem Village Susannah Martin, Amesbury

Elizabeth How, Ipswich Sarah Wilds, Topsfield

Hanged on August 19 George Burroughs, Wells, Maine John Proctor, Salem Village John Willard, Salem Village George Jacobs, Sr., Salem Town Martha Carrier, Andover

September 19 Giles Corey, Salem Farms, pressed to death Hanged on September 22 Martha Corey, Salem Farms Mary Eastey, Topsfield Alice Parker, Salem Town

Ann Pudeater, Salem Town Margaret Scott, Rowley Wilmott Reed, Marblehead Samuel Wardwell, Andover Mary Parker, Andover

Other accused witches that were not hanged, but died in prison: Sarah Osborne, Salem Village Roger Toothaker, Billerica Lyndia Dustin, Reading Ann Foster, Andover

Ann Putnam's Confession (1706) "I desire to be humbled before God for that sad and humbling providence that befell my father's family in the year about '92; that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made an instrument for the accusing of several persons of a

grievous crime, whereby their lives were taken away from them, whom now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons; and that it was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad

time, whereby I justly fear I have been instrumental, with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon myself and this land the guilt of innocent blood; though what was said or done by me against any person I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, I did it not

out of any anger, malice, or ill-will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded by Satan. And particularly, as I was a chief instrument of accusing of Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust, and to be humbled for it, in that I was a

cause, with others, of so sad a calamity to them and their families; for which cause I desire to lie in the dust, and earnestly beg forgiveness of God, and from all those unto whom I have given just cause of sorrow and offence, whose relations were taken away or accused.

[Signed] "This confession was read before the congregation, together with her relation, Aug. 25, 1706; and she acknowledged it."