Chapter 2: The Salem Witchcraft Trials

Chapter Summary:

     This chapter is full of questions about the time period of the Salem Witch Trials, ranging from wonderings about the fears of the townspeople to the reasoning behind the convictions of seemingly innocent people, to the defenses "a majority of the accused offered on their own behalf," to the governor's sudden reprieve of the convicted witches, and to the suspicions that adults "put the names of the first three women into the mouths of the children" who essentially began the whole phenomenon. The narrator is driven by these questions as she retells the events of early 1692: the daughter and niece of a reverend began to exhibit strange bodily behavior, which then spread to women in other households of their village, who were then pronounced "bewitched." The "afflicted" then accused three local women of being involved in witchcraft (including Tituba, an Indian slave, whom then confessed to being part of a group of witches). This confession sparked mayhem in the town, where "neighbor came to suspect neighbor" and witchcraft became the excuse for any type of strange or mysterious afflictions. Accusations grew and grew, until suddenly critics' calls were answered and the governor reprieved a group of convicted witches and subsequently dissolved the court he had established to convict and execute suspected witches. Some key events mentioned were the trial of Rebecca Nurse, a pious woman accused of being recruited into witchcraft by the devil, the sermon by Reverend Lawson insisting that churchgoers should "arm themselves as soldiers of the faith," and the hanging of George Burroughs, a supposed man of God. 

Chapter Reflection:

     This chapter was particularly interesting to me because of the questions the narrator raised. I wanted to know more about why and how the witches confessed to their actions, as well as how they accused their own kind. The fear and hysteria that suddenly took over the village was also interesting to me - did the frontier war cast a kind of urgency and fear over them, or were they so scared because of the closeness of the devil and how easily people could be taken by him? Another question that interested me was why the governor suddenly "[succumbed] to the critics and [dissolved] the court he had established" - what changed his mind? What made the townspeople and the judges and jury realize their grave mistakes? I would like to learn more about this.