More Salem Witch Denials

A Dark Ingredient Added to the Witch’s Brew

Oct 30, 2006 Mary Trotter Kion

Tituba is questioned and reveals some startling evidence concerning the devil and a little yellow bird.

After Sarah Good was hauled away to the witch's dungeon without having confessed, the questioning of Sarah Osborne for witchcraft began. Like Good, Osborne denied being a witch. John Hathorne, who had questioned Good, had a new trick now to use in attempting to extract a confession from Sarah Osborne.

Osborne Has no Knowledge of Devil

Sarah Good, while being questioned, declared that Sarah Osborne was the one who was bewitching the afflicted girls. Hathorne advised Osborne of this damning statement but failed still to obtain a confession. Rather, Osborne said that if the devil was going about in her likeness doing harm she knew nothing of it. Now it was time for Hathorne to have the bewitched girls gaze upon Sarah Osborne to determine if she was the one, or one of the ones, who afflicted them.

The girls looked at Sarah and, of course, went into fits.

A Black Indian Spectral

Now it was Sarah Osborne's turn to add a new ingredient to the mix. She surely got everyone's attention, if she hadn't already, when she said that rather than being a bewitcher it was more likely that she, herself, was bewitched. Her explanation of this new information was that "she was frightened one time in her sleep and either saw or dreamed that she saw a thing like an Indian, all black." It is certain that she realized that the Caribbean Indian slave Tituba would be up next for questioning. There was also likely talk through out Salem Village of whether or not Tituba had been practicing black magic. Osborne added that this black Indian aspiration "did pinch her in her neck and pulled her by the back part of her head to the door of the house."

The Salem Inquisition Begins: Sarah Good Denies Guilt, continues with: More for the Salem Dungeon: The Devil and a Little Yellow Bird.

Sources:

Boyer, Paul. Stephen Nissenbaum. Salem Possessed. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1974.

Collier's Encyclopedia, Volume 15. Crowell-Collier Educational Corporation, 1968.

Hill, Frances. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. De Capo Press, 1995.

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