10. A False Confession That Triggered Public Hysteria and Opened the Floodgates of False Accusations
When magistrates questioned the weirdly-acting Salem girls, they claimed that they had been bewitched. The supposed culprits were three women of low social standing: Tituba, an indigenous South American indentured servant of Salem’s reverend, 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 because of torture or perhaps because she was given a promise of leniency – Tituba confessed to having been visited by the Devil.
Tituba described the Devil as a black man who had visited her and asked her to sign a book that made her a witch. She admitted that she had signed, and thus became a witch, and then went on to point the finger at other “witches”. Tituba’s confession and accusations caused mass panic and collective hysteria throughout Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the following months, a flood of accusations came pouring in from all points of the compass.
