In February 1692, a young girl in the city of Salem(present-day Danvers,Massachusetts,)began having seizures that defied all medical explanation at the time, not so long after the first case two other young girls started having similar manifestations of fits including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. Doctors and ministers watched in horror as these girls twisted themselves, hid under chairs, and shouted uncontrollably.
With limited knowledge of medicine and understanding of disease processes, the medical experts of the day put their heads together and concluded the girls were bewitched. They punished the girls until they began pointing figures at some unlucky women around them and labelled them as witches.
These unlucky women were severely punished until one of them who was called Tituba began confessing and started pointing fingers to several other women in the city,this threw the whole city in chaos. Nineteen convicted “witches” were soon hanged.
Image above: Depiction of Tituba.
When it was all over,it was reported that ;141 suspects, both men and women, were tried as witches. Nineteen were executed by hanging. One was pressed to death by heavy stones. Several more perished in harsh prison.
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