The First Trio: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba

While this year’s International Women’s Day theme calls for gender-balanced world, it is still a fact that many women are treated unequally and discriminated across different pillars of society. Various historical accounts revealed how women suffered from patriarchal social system since then. One of the most notable was the Salem Witch Trials that occurred from February 1692 to May 1693 at Salem, Massachusetts. It reported more than 200 accusations and 19 executions by hanging of whom 14 women were punished, as they were found guilty of being witches (Wallenfeldt, 2019). Although being a witch was not solely associated on being a woman, 78% of the accused were female, according to Carol Karlsen (as cited by DeMasi, 2011). As explained by Godbeer, this was because females were seen as the weaker sex and were more susceptible to devil’s influence as noted on the story of Eve and the fall of men into sin. Moreover during this time, Puritan women were only confined to the roles of being faithful wives, mothers, caretakers and companions. Beyond these roles and expected demeanor would mean that they had connived with the evil; thereby, becoming witches (as cited by Rosen, 2017). Additionally, witches were commonly depicted as elderly, economically useless and haggard women. In this regard, this paper aims to describe three groups of women in Salem witch trials and how their behaviors affected the course of events in this part of history. The First Trio: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam, Jr. had sudden physical disturbances such as convulsions and utterances of strange sounds on January 1692. The doctor then, told them that they were bewitched. A month after, the afflicted children accused Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; Sarah Osborne, an old poor woman; and Tituba, an Indian slave for their sicknesses. As the accused were social outcasts and deviants, they were easily convicted (Blumberg, 2007). Sarah Good’s father was a rich innkeeper; however, because of litigations, she was left with no inheritance. She married Daniel Poole, an impoverished servant, who died in 1686 and left her with debts. As a consequence, her family with her second husband William Good was homeless, as they had to pay these debts. Sarah Good was socially unpleasant because of their condition; hence, she was regarded as a nuisance in their community. By 1692, they were already beggars (Jobe, 2001). Sarah Good’s personality favored her conviction for being a witch. Sarah told on her diary that despite of their hopeless situation, she still had pride and her neighbors perceived her resentfulness and murmurings as evil doings. Sarah was accused on muttering from Mr. Parris’ house, but according to Sarah, it was an expression of thankfulness for what her child received. Moreover, Sarah was accused by her neighbors for tormenting their children by pinching, squeezing, choking cursing and killing with a knife. Sarah was even seen with an appearance of wolf by some accusers (Boyer and Nissenbaum, 1979). On the contrary, Sarah Good pleaded her innocence and service to God. Instead, she accused Osborne as the one who hurt the children. In spite of this, she was imprisoned and sentenced to death by hanging. In a sh...