Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    The record books named 74 people who said they were attacked by witches, and at least 59 of that 74 were female. These so-called victims were as young as 9 years old and as old as 81 (plus another woman described in court records as being “ancient”). The afflicted accusers were not satisfied by pointing out just one witch either. Almost all of them made lots of complaints that got people arrested. For example, Parris’s niece, Abigail Williams, fingered 41 different witches for attacking her; Ann Putnam Jr. accused 53; her servant, Mercy Lewis, blamed 54; and a girl named Mary Walcott, who was Ann’s step-cousin, named an astonishing 69 witches.
    Besides all those victims, a number of Puritans suffering from fits were not officially listed. Some had confessed that they were witches themselves, some were babies too young to complain, and some were men who never accused any witches of making them sick. Since babies can’t fake their symptoms and the men didn’t claim they were bewitched, surely some of these victims were actually sick.
    All kinds of people were accused of witchcraft. There was a fortune-teller, a man who was a judge in the witch trials, and the governor’s own wife. There were three floor sweepers, a folk healer, a pirate, and a physician who practiced “counter-magic.” There were weavers and watermen, blacksmiths and bricklayers. And there were slaves, merchants, shoemakers, ministers, and servants. Plus two officers in the militia and plenty of farmers. Even the wealthiest couple in Salem Town did not escape arrest.
    Not all of the witches were human beings. A girl accused two dogs of belonging to the Devil and said they could cause fits by simply staring at their victims. They were hanged by the neck without benefit of trial. A third dog was bewitched in the town of Andover, supposedly by the magistrate’s own brother, who rode upon its back. This dog was executed, too. The same magistrate had refused to send anyone else to jail when more than 50 people were arrested at one time around May 14. For that reason, he was suspected of being a witch as well, so he and his wife and brother fled.
    And what did a witch look or act like? There was a hilly-faced man, a woman with “scragged” teeth, a woman who had catalepsy (which meant that she went into trances and became as rigid as a statue), a crooked-backed woman, and a woman who was “broken in her mind.” The age of a witch didn’t matter one whit. Those accused of witchcraft ranged from age 4 all the way up to age 90.

    Of course the jails were bursting at the seams, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. All of these horrible dungeons stank to high heaven. People were questioned mercilessly, and if they didn’t give the right answers they were tortured. If someone on the outside couldn’t bring food to the prisoners when they were hungry or bring them a blanket when they were freezing or bring them money to pay for their room and board, they were out of luck. What’s even worse, many prisoners had to leave their babies and young children at home without a bit of care from an adult or a single scrap of food to eat. And if any adults were still at home, how were they supposed to tend their crops alone, visit their loved ones at a far-off prison, or pay the jail fees—especially if they were poor in the first place?
     
    D espite the crowding, more and more people were funneled into jail every day.
    Take Bridget Bishop, for example. People had been calling her a witch for ten years, ever since an African slave named Wonn claimed that her specter had stolen some eggs, spooked a team of horses, and pinched him. Bishop ran a rowdy tavern in Salem Town that catered to sailors and other travelers who went there to spend the night, drink rum, and play the evil game of shuffleboard after the neighbors had gone to bed. Bishop was known for wearing a bright red bodice, and gossip had it that she was a prostitute, too. Worse yet, she was suspected