witch-hunt: mysteries of the salem witch trials

Okay, so I really didn't want to read Blink, so I picked a book that interested me more.

Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials
By: Marc Aronson

Introduction: Of dark forests and Midnight Thoughts

The introduction starts with the title: "The QUEEN of hell". The date is May 31st, 1692. I think it's really interesting that the author chooses to put QUEEN in all capital letters. The chapter starts with a short paragraph briefly describing the scene.
"In a plain Salem meetinghouse a woman stands before her judges. The magistrate - we are not sure if it was John Hathrone of Jonathan Corwin - speaks with the stern, suspicious voice of the community. The accusers, girls and young women, are fervent, overexcited, just on the edge of breaking convulsions. They are so tormented, it is as if their very bones are being pulled out of their sockets."
-Introduction

Next, there is a kind of transcript of the trial. Judge addresses the accusers and the accused.
The girls accuse Martha "Goody" Carrier. They called her "Goody" (Goodwife) because only women of high status are called "Mrs." She was not a popular woman who had her first child before she was married. She was also suspected of spreading smallpox and had spoken sharply to her neighbors. I think therefore the girls saw her as an extremely easy target. No one really liked her, people already suspected her of spreading disease, not to mention people back in the 1600's believed different things than we do nowadays. They lived in a time of paranoia of the threat of witches and magic.
Martha Carrier insists over and over again that she is not a witch. After every statement that Martha makes, the girls conviently have another kind of "symptom". One girl, Susannah, screams that she can see an evil man or the devil, dressed in black. This evil figure appeared frequently and was called "the black man." Another girl, Ann Putnam Jr. claims she feels a pin being stuck in her. After Susannah claims she sees the black man, Ann also claims he is there. Mary Warren then claims she too can feel something piercing her skin.
All of the girls scream, holding out pins that had pierced them. Interestingly enough, the collapse to the ground almost as if Martha's stare had caused it.
Due to this performance, the judge believed they were under a demonic attack and tries to make Martha confess. Martha keeps insisting that she has done nothing to them. She says that she never looked at them, only at the judge, so how could she possibly make them collapse?
The girls then claim to see thirteen ghosts. They then tell the court that they are positive that Martha had killed these people. When Martha claims that she cannot see the ghosts and she has not killed anyone, Mercy Lewis begins a fit. It seemed that the girls were under so much pain, that the judge ordered Martha to be bound and sent away.

I think it's really interesting that the trial had taken a turn this way. First of all, the accusers are a bunch of teenage girls, living in a small town back in the 1600's. There wasn't really a whole lot of things girls could do back then. Many actions that are common nowadays, would have turned these girls into outcasts. It makes sense that they were bored and just wanted to create a little havoic. Although times change and we certainly act much differently, since the beginning of time there have been "mean" girls. There are also always girls (and boys) who want attention. I don't think that if I had lived back then I would have tried to have someone hung because I was bored, but knowing my personality I would have probably gotten into trouble.
The author asks a great question: "Why would young people join together to attack someone they had hardly, if ever, met, knowing their wails and visions and fits would lead to her death?" As I said before, I believe these were just a bunch of bored, mean girls, looking to stir things up and for attention.

The girls have many advantages over their victim.
1: They are young, therefore they get more sympathy from adults, that's always how the world has worked.
2: They lived in a time of paranoia from witches, magic, etc.
3: They often choose people who were outcasts or people who fit a certain kind of "witch" stereotype. For instance; old, not married, no children, and many times female.

Another reason that I strongly believe that these girls lied, is because the accusers at the trials consisted of many of the same girls! If anything like that happened nowadays, it would be pretty obvious to the court that they were lying, and would be charged with perjury.

So far, I find this book extremely interesting. But, it makes me a bit mad just the fact that these girls were the reason that these people died. I don't know how they could do that or live with that.