Today in Salem: The sickly Sarah Osborne will almost certainly be condemned. The only thing standing between her and the hangman’s noose is a trial, which to the magistrates is just a technicality. She’s guilty, they know she is. But they’ve given up waiting for her to admit it, and it was up to God whether to forgive her.
The magistrates have not, however, given up on the pipe-smoking beggar Sarah Good, and now they’re at the jail one last time to pull a confession from her. They know she’s guilty, of course, and just like Osborne she says she’s innocent. But where Osborne is steadfast, Good is evasive, slippery even, and the details of her story keep changing. She’s hiding something. Why does she hurt the children? they ask her. Has she signed the Devil’s book? What evil spirit is she familiar with?
Sarah peers at them through her pipe smoke and laughs, her voice gravelly and hoarse from too many years with a pipe between her teeth. The cruel magistrate Hathorne steps forward and narrows his eyes against the sting of the smoke.
“Will you not profess your guilt?” he asks. It’s a simple choice.
If she confesses, she will live.
If she says she’s innocent, she will die.
Which will she choose?
LEARN MORE: This seems backward. If a crime leads to the death penalty, you wouldn’t confess to it, like Tituba did. You’d deny it, like the two Sarahs. Why was this reversed in Salem? Why were the judges so eager to execute an innocent like Sarah, but slow to condemn a confessor like Tituba?
At the time of the Trials, the Puritan ministers of New England were convinced that the Church had become complacent. They’d worried for weeks that God was about to punish them by allowing attacks from the Devil. Entire congregations had been fasting and praying about it, and the ministers were on high alert for any sign of evil.
When the news exploded that a group of girls could see the specters of witches, the source of the evil was revealed. But the girls weren’t the only ones who could see into the “Invisible World.” Witches could also see and identify each other to the authorities. The longer the confessed witches were alive, the more of their evil friends they could expose.
Tituba was the first of several accused “witches” to realize that she could save her life by confessing, then describing in great detail what – and who – she could see. Those who maintained their innocence either hadn’t figured it out or would rather die than tell a lie.
Tomorrow in Salem: ACCUSED: the quarrelsome Elizabeth Proctor