Boston, 1688: The Possession of the Goodwin Children

Mather vs. Glover

This chapter starts out with a story about Martha Goodwin and her washerwoman. She suspected that the washerwoman had stolen some linen from her family, and the washerwoman's mother was so mad that she said mean things to Martha. After this Martha, and her three younger siblings had "fits".
A physician had no idea what was going on, so he just said that he believed their suffering was due to witchcraft. They immediatly blamed Glover.
Glover was a poor woman, a stereotype of witches. After she was taken into custody, the younger children were "healed". Later, they relapsed. A minister came to try and take the "demons" out of the children.
They were Puritans and during this time period the Puritans were the minority. They feared being attacked by the devil, the enemy of god. Witchcraft and the devil were among their worst fears. Just like we fear terrorists.
A witch was defined on different levels. It could be a person who could do harm by magical means. Supposedly, a witch, man or woman, could curdle milk, hobble animals, and cause young children to become sick and die.
There was a kind of folklore that supposedly made you immune to witchcraft. There was a tree in Salem that had a gap just the right size for a baby to pass through the tree. They believed that this would make the child immune to witchcraft. The last record of this tree being used by these means was on July 8, 1793.
Some acts that are preformed today that would be considered "little sorceries", consist of checking your daily horoscope in the paper, looking for four leaf clovers, and using a Ouija board.
A witch could be defined as a person who had made a pact with the devil, which was the Puritan's greatest fears. A witch would have given up her soul so that she/he could comman the devil's powers. She/he could use invisible forces to harm people. She/he gave up her/his humanity and made herself/himself a "tool of evil".
While Glover's home was searched, they found "evidence" consisting of: "several small images, or puppets, or babies, made of rags, and stuffed with goat's hair." Such props were used by witches to inflict torture on their victems. The judges then tried a kind of "test" on Glover. They brought her the puppets to see what would happen. Glover was happy to see her puppets. Unfortunatly for her, when she put her hands on them the children "fell into sad fits". The verdict was if a witch had her puppets, her victems would suffer.
Glover was convicted and hanged.
I found this bit of information interesting: witches were never burned in America. Hmmmm. I remember watching Hocus Pocus and they were hanged. Now that I think about it, I never heard of a witch being burned here in America. Only in other countries. Such as in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which was in France.
Interestingly enough, before Glover was killed, she warned the judges that her death would not help the Goodwins. Sure enough, the children's condition grew worse.
I found the symptoms really quite odd. I've never heard of these kinds of symptoms before. It makes me curious. Why would anyone think that these would make a person suffer. To me, it just looks like these children had mental problems. I mean come on, a witch making children bark like dogs, or purr like cats. Yeah, that kind of sounds fake to me. I'm no witch so I wouldn't know, but it just sounds like a whole bunch of crap to me.
The minister who tried to "heal" the children, Cotton Mather, wrote a book about his experiences with the children. The man had supposedly brought the children back to sanity by fasting and prayer. Interesting. Not the kind of thing I would have imagined to get rid of witchcraft. I don't really think the devil or witches give a crap if you pray or fast. I would think that rituals would be a more appropriate thing.
The author says something very interesting: "The lesson of the Goodwin children was that children's games could have serious consequences." Hmmmm. I agree. Child games can turn in the wrong direction. When I was a kid I used to play Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen Detective Agency with my neighbors, and while we never caused harm, we did end up getting one of our neighbors in trouble from our snooping. We thought her house was being robbed. We reported this to our parents. Turns out, it was just the teenage daughter sneaking boys over. Oops. Yeah, I think that kind of pissed her off.


So far I think this book extremely interesting. I think it really shows how much children can have an effect. I never really thought that children played much of a role in history, but during this time period, I see that they were at the center of this mess. If you trace back the causes to the Salem Witch Trials, you'll trace it right back to children.