Bridget Bishop
Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1692
The People vs. Bridget Bishop
The people gathering in the streets are eager to hear the Town News. Ships are coming and going filled with precious cargos, the needs of the townspeople, and accusations of witchcraft!
Goodwife Bridget Bishop (That's Goody Bishop in the red dress) has been accused of practicing witchcraft on children of Salem Village : Ann Putnam, Jr., Mercy Lewis and my friend Betty Parris! She is accused of keeping poppets (dolls) with headless pins in them. Several have been found in her house. She will go to court to testify this very day! (Read the actual court transcript of the examination of Bridget Bishop)
I pay a fee to enter the pre-trial examination to hear the testimony against Goody Bishop. Will she be sent to trial? If so, what will happen to her then? Will the accursed ever recover?
Bridget denies the accusations and fights arrest.
She is dragged to the courtroom in chains.
The afflicted persons charge her with having hurt them many ways: sticking pins in them, pinching them, making them have fits. [My friends are having fits in the courtroom!] They say she tempted them to sign the devil's book. Betty Parris has not recovered from her fits. She is quite ill they say.
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| The afflicted" girls cry, scream, writhe and mimic Bridget's movements |
Bridget is very angry and shakes her head at them. She says their claims are false. She claims she has never seen these people before! Can my friends be telling the truth or are they in the devil's snare themselves?
Bridget denies being a witch over and over. She claims no one here can be a witch. Isn't that for the learned men of the jury to decide?
!She was accused of hurting a child who died. Goody Bishop claims she did not mean to scratch him, just to scare him away from stealing her apples.
Goody Bishop has been accused of associating with the wrong people, keeping "unseasonable" hours, hosting drinking and gambling parties, and behaving immorally. Some men claim her spectre visited them at night.
She has been seen arguing with her husband in public on the Sabbath! Before that, she had another husband who died under mysterious circumstances. Neighbors say Goody Bishop thew him out the window. She was accused once before in 1679 and again in 1687, according to her husband! Goody Bishop even wears a scarlet bodice. She is not a very moral woman.
Bridget insists these people are from the village not the town. She has never seen them before.
My friends are screaming, crying, choking in court. One accuses Goody Bishop's spirit of taking her from her spinning wheel, dragging her to the river and threatened to drown her. Another friend claims Goody Bishop's apparition is here in court!
Susannah Sheldon (another Susanna, not me) also testified that she saw the spirit of Thomas Green’s twin boys who told her that Bridget Bishop had bewitched them to death. The other Susannah claims Bridget Bishop’s spirit told her she had killed four women!
Goody Bishop is asked to say the Lord's Prayer to prove she is innocent. She stumbles!
It's the work of the devil! Seven girls are falling in fits, freezing in postures, complaining of biting and pinching.
(If you are visiting from the future, you can time travel and watch the trial proceed https://photos.app.goo.gl/3FgwoN00qBk1WRUg1 )
Time to vote. Is Bridget Bishop innocent or guilty of witchcraft? You decide. Read my next page to find out what happened next.
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