Today in Salem: Fornication is not Sarah Osborne’s biggest scandal or sin. Neither is marrying her younger servant, or even skipping church (for 3 years, no less). No. God will certainly punish her for her wickedness; in fact, God’s displeasure might be why He allows her husband to beat her.
The worst sin, the thing that lies like bedrock under everything else, is the way she’s deceiving and stealing from her two sons. Or at least she’s trying to. When her first husband died he’d left 150 acres to Sarah, in trust until their sons came of age. But now that she’s remarried, she and her former servant are trying to break the trust, to keep the land for themselves.
Unfortunately for her, the Putnams had been the executors of her first husband’s will, and they were none too pleased that she was breaking the agreement. Now she’s earned more than God’s wrath. She’s also offended the powerful Putnam family, and the disagreement has been going on for so long that it’s hard to imagine the end of it.
Tituba, the Parris family slave, has been to one of the Putnam houses for a basket of salted fish. Now, on her way back to the parsonage, she passes the Osborne house, so still that it almost seems empty. It isn’t though. Caught between the Putnams and the parsonage, human judgment and God’s wrath, the Osborne family waits, unsure how the dispute will end.
LEARN MORE: Who were the Puritans? Were they really that harsh?
The Puritans were protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England. They believed it was too similar to the Catholic Church, and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.
The people of Salem were Puritans. But they weren’t the dour, unhappy people we think of today. In fact, Puritans sometimes wore colorful clothes; drank rum, brandy, and hard cider; and enjoyed (marital) sex. But they were disciplined about indulging in these things too much. Every part of life was grounded in Scripture, and anything that brought too much joy could distract a person from work or prayer, the two most important parts of life.
The people who were hanged in Salem covered the spectrum of Puritanism, from disreputable beggars to full members of the church – even a minister. It introduced disturbing questions. Was it even possible for a member of the church to partner with the Devil? If Scripture said the Devil could use people’s specters as a disguise, did that mean innocent people had been executed? If the Devil was invading the church, what sin had the community committed to deserve it?
WHO was Sarah Osborne?
Age 49. Osborne was a social outcast who’d married her own servant, and was rumored to have committed fornication with him. She was also sickly, of a nervous temperament, and hadn’t been to church in more than three years.
Osborne was also disliked by the Putnams. When her first husband died, he left his land to Sarah to be held in trust until their two sons were of age. Two of his Putnam brothers-in-law were the executors of the estate.
Several years later, Sarah purchased her own servant’s indenture, then married him. They then went to court to try to break the trust and gain control of the property. The Putnams were deeply offended; in fact, of the four people who’d signed the complaint resulting in her arrest, two of them were Putnams.
Sarah Osborne was the first victim of the witchcraft hysteria, dying in jail after nine weeks of being chained. Case files: Sarah Osborne
Tomorrow in Salem: Under an evil hand: the young Betty Parris & tomboy Abigail Williams