The Salem Witch Trials: racism, chauvinism and intolerance.

1692–1693.

A bunch of girls writhed, screamed and cried for aparently no reason. 25 women were dead blamed by this situation, others were arrested or murdered.

A little 9-year-old girl, called betty parris, the daughter of the religious minister of the city, had a disease wich gave her fever, pain and made her squirm and scream and feel as if she was being biten all the time. Today’s theory is that she might have ate a moldy bread or suffered from asma, epilepsy or abuse, but at the time, with a scant knowledge of medicine and a huge devotion to religion the theory was other.

Six other girls appeared by having the same problem, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft, the doctor of the city claimed that something supernatural was happening. The book Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possesion, by Cotton Mather was really famous at the time and the witch posession occured in the book was really simillar to what was happening at the city of Salem and it helped by spreading an hysteria, so a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases.

A slaver called Tituba, a black woman that came from Africa or Central America that used to tell stories to the girls about voodoos and folklore was the one accused by comanding the witch possessions by other witches. She confessed the crime saying that the devil appeared many times to her and made her do those things and that the witches would rule the city.

Bridget Bishop was accused as well. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials.

Martha Carrier, accused, was taken in the back of a cart to Gallows Hill in Salem. Cheering crowds lined the streets and gathered at the scaffold to witness the hanging of Martha and the four men who were also convicted of witchcraft. She never gave up as even from the scaffold, her voice was heard asserting her innocence refusing to confess to “a falsehood so filthy”. Her body was dragged to a common grave between the rocks about two feet deep where she joined the bodies of George Burroughs and John Willard. Her busband died by being tortured, some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months.

Later, many of those involved in the Salem trials — including magistrates and judges — publicly confessed that they had erred and took the blame for dozens of people being wrongly associated with witchcraft.

As Silvia Federici said, “The witch-hunt was therefore a war against women; was an organized intention to degrade them, demonize them, and destroy their social power. At the same time, it was precisely in the torture chambers and in the fires that the witches died, where the bourgeois ideals of femininity and domesticity were forged. “

A black woman was accused because she had knowledge of “dark”stories and a culture that the people of the time did not understand and were afraid of because of their religion and submission by having the ignorance to believe that the answer to everything in the world would come from it, as well as the church taught them to think that way or they often had no choice to think out of the box and go look for knowledge because ofthe persecution they would suffer because of it.

In the context of “witch-hunt” there were several accusations against women. The victims were accused of committing sexual crimes against men, having signed a “pact as a demon.” They were also to blame for organizing themselves into groups — they often gathered to exchange knowledge about medicinal herbs, talk about common problems or news. Another charge against them was that they possessed “magical powers”, which caused health problems in the population, spiritual problems and natural disasters

Tituba knew how to use herbs and plants, as well as other women, to cure diseases that the renowned doctors of the time did not know, what it goes against the project of “woman” that would have submission to the church and man and would stay away of the political and social interests of the time.

It is known that the accused were rebellious women who questioned the customs of the time, freely discussed and lived their sexuality outside the bonds of marriage and reproduction.

In the feminist view, the witches, through their medicinal knowledge and their action in their communities, exercised a counter-power, facing the patriarchy and, especially, the power of the Church. In fact, they were nothing more than victims of patriarchy. Witches represent to the feminist movement not only resistance, strength, courage, but also rebellion in the search for new emancipatory horizons.