The Start of a Mass Hysteria
The Salem witch craze began in January 1692, when the nine-year-old daughter and eleven-year-old niece of Reverend Samuel Parris began to have screaming fits. As they screeched, the girls contorted themselves into unnatural positions, threw things, and made weird noises. They also complained that they felt skin pains as if they were being pricked with pins. A local doctor found no signs of a physical ailment to explain the fits and blamed them on the supernatural. Soon, another young girl, aged eleven, began to exhibit similar symptoms. Before long, in a “me too” rush, other young women in the colonial village began to complain of similar pains and exhibit similar behavior.
When they were examined by magistrates, the first three girls accused three local women of having bewitched them. The culprits were the reverend’s black slave, Tituba, an elderly impoverished woman named Sarah Osborne, and a homeless beggar named Sarah Good. Osborne and Good protested their innocence, but for whatever reason – perhaps torture or perhaps a promise of leniency – Tituba confessed that she had been visited by the Devil, whom she described as a black man who asked her to sign a book. She admitted that she had signed, then went on to point the finger at other “witches”.
