As Bridget Bishop enters the packed meetinghouse, five girls collapse to the ground. They scream, jabber nonsense, and twist in pain, as if Bishop has cast an evil spell on them. Villagers jeer at the 60-year-old woman. “Confess!” several of them demand.
The date is April 19, 1692, and Bishop is at the center of a public hearing in Salem, a village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She is accused of practicing witchcraft. The girls have claimed she is possessed by the devil—and is harnessing supernatural powers to make invisible spirits bite and pinch them.
Two local officials fire off questions: How can you know you are no witch? How is it, then, that your appearance hurts these girls? They say you bewitched your first husband to death. . . .
Next, the girls describe how Bishop tried to tempt them to worship the devil. One even claims she saw her brother fighting off a ghostly version of Bishop in the middle of the night.
Bishop firmly maintains her innocence, even as she grows frustrated—and increasingly fearful.
“I am no witch!” she says. “I am innocent!”
But the officials don’t believe her. Bishop is charged with five counts of witchcraft. She is thrown into jail to await trial with others accused of the same crime.
In the coming weeks, dozens more women, men, and even children will join them behind bars, as wild accusations of evil magic swirl throughout Salem. Before the
Bridget Bishop will be the first to meet this grim fate.