Good, Osborne and Tituba
How the accusation of three outcasts started the largest witch hunt in U.S. history
By Braden Ross, Culture Editorial Assistant
Britney Spears, Monica Lewinsky and Amy Winehouse. Three women who were massively vilified in the midst of scandal and intense cultural hysteria. Mental illness, sex scandal and drug addiction placed scarlet letters on their breasts and opened them up to ruthless public scrutiny. Vicious personal attacks led to public character execution that had significant consequences for these women. Although there are plenty of recent examples, the vilification of women in American culture goes far back, and the executions were not always metaphorical.
Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony, January 1692. A biting wind whipped through the quaint colonial streets sending snowflakes falling from the white-capped cottages. Women hustled home, wrapped in heavy cloaks as protection from the cold.
In the modest wood home that served as the town parsonage, the young family of the village’s pastor had just sat down to dinner. The pastor, Samuel Parris, had moved from tropical Barbados to Salem just a few years before, bringing with him his wife, his three children, his niece and two slaves (Wallenfeldt, n.d.). One of the slaves, an indigenous Caribbean woman named Tituba, moved quickly to serve dinner to the household, placing bowls of stew and bread on the oak table.
Nine-year-old Betty, Parris’ daughter, and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail giggled, dropping an egg white into a glass of water and pressing their heads together over the glass to see the shape the egg would take. The shape, they had been told, would show the trajectory of their lives. As they peered into the glass, Betty squinted and tilted her head. Suddenly, the two girls began to scream, contort and babble hysterically (Blakemore, 2021). They’d seen a coffin in the egg whites.
The fits continued in the days that followed. Parris began fasting and praying, hoping to cure the girls of whatever was plaguing them. Meanwhile, Tituba got to work on a “witchcake” made with rye and urine that she hoped would help the girls (Blakemore, 2021). She fed the cake to Betty and Abigail, but her attempt at curing them was unsuccessful.
When word of this witchy remedy got around to Parris, he was incensed. Red-faced and brimming with rage, he demanded that Tituba admit to bewitching the young girls, and after a brutal beating from Parris, she did. Tituba claimed in gripping detail that she had been visited by the devil who had compelled her to afflict young Betty and Abigail. Under pressure from Parris to name the offenders, the girls confirmed that Tituba had bewitched them along with two village outcasts, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne (Blakemore, 2021). The three women were arrested and charged with witchcraft in late-February (Jobe, 2001).
Sarah Good was a middle-aged woman with two young children. Her first husband, a poor indentured servant, had died in debt. Good’s second husband worked as a laborer around the village, receiving shelter and food for the family in return. However, it became increasingly difficult to find lodging as Sarah had acquired a reputation as being rather unpleasant to be around (Jobe, 2001). Her poor reputation made her an ideal candidate for a witchcraft accusation.
Sarah Osborne was middle-aged, ill and likely suffering from depression. She spent her days bedridden and no one had seen her in church for months. After the death of her first husband, Osborne became the center of town gossip when she and her new husband attempted to claim the property left to her in her previous husband’s will. In addition, rumors had been circulating that she had lived with her new husband, formerly her indentured servant, prior to their official marriage (Sarah Osborne House, n.d.). All of these scandals pegged Osborne as an outcast and yet another perfect target for accusations of witchcraft.
Following the accusations of the first three women, dozens of more allegations began to spread across the village. Tituba’s graphic confession had sparked hysteria and powerful members of Salem Village seemed to take advantage of this craze to target outcasts (Blakemore, 2021).
The trials took place in the spring of 1692 and proved a dramatic continuation of the hysteria. The afflicted whined, babbled and writhed in the gallery as the accused attempted to defend themselves on their own. In the end, 24 people died, including Osborne, who succumbed to the poor jail conditions, and Good, who was publicly hanged (Wallenfeldt, n.d.). Tituba’s story has a less clear ending. After being bailed out of jail by an anonymous person, she disappears from the historical record (Blakemore, 2021). In the following years, many of the individuals involved in the trials apologized for their roles and institutional reparations were issued (Wallenfeldt, n.d.).
The Salem Witch Trials are still commonly referenced in pop culture from the cult classic Halloween movie Hocus Pocus to the hit paranormal teen show The Vampire Diaries. While many have heard vaguely of the witch trials, their true story is not as widely known. The reality of the trials is one of grim, tragic events that mostly targeted societal outcasts like Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne or those who couldn’t fight back like Tituba. During the trials, vulnerable women with questionable reputations were brutally scrutinized, not unlike the modern-day Spears, Lewinsky and Winehouse. Hysteria, witch hunts and cancellation persist today, especially for women, and the trials can serve as a warning to anyone who might be quick to condemn that there is more to a woman than her reputation and accusations often have ulterior motives.
Sources:
Blakemore, E. (2021, March 31). The Mysterious Enslaved Woman Who Sparked Salem’s Witch Hunt. HISTORY.
Jobe, S. (2001). Salem Witch Trials: Sarah Good.
Sarah Osborne House. (n.d.). Salem Witch Museum.
Wallenfeldt, J. (n.d.). Salem witch trials | History, Summary, Location, Causes, Victims, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica.