Priscilla Foster: The Story of a Salem Girl

This takes place sixty years after the trials, with an old woman telling a young girl what happened. The old woman talks about Salem Village and Salem Town, and how Salem Village worried about attacks from Native Americans.

This is the story of what happened in Salem as told from the viewpoint of one of the girls involved. They are frightened by something, and this leads to them having nightmares. They are taken to a doctor and one of them, a girl who was mentally slow, has a fit, and soon all the girls have fits, all as a result of mass hysteria (very probably.)

One girl comes up with the idea of blaming their behavior on witches. They were all actually afraid of being found out about having Tituba try to show them their futures.

She names Tituba as a witch first, then names two others who people already don't like (and would thus be more likely to believe they were witches).

Priscilla talks about how, once the fits and strange behavior of the girls had been established, people seemed to be interested in the girls, paying them a lot of attention. One girl in particular was the ring-leader, and when someone would scoff at their “attacks,” she would eventually get even.

The story also talks about how old quarrels and dislikes got emphasized, which is one of the explanations given for the witch craze, that people wanted to get even with other people.

Eventually, the witch craze ended (it helped that the governor's wife had been accused, and he didn't care for that).

This is a really excellent book because it makes the witch craze personal, and presents some of the various theories that are in “adult” books that have been developed to explain the why of the witch craze. Young girls starving for attention, old resentments and feuds between neighbors, harsh living conditions and over-zealous so-called religious people all combined to bring about the witch craze.

It was also the idea of a scapegoat, finding someone or some ones to blame for everything that had gone wrong in the village, everything from dead farm animals to poor crop growth.

Definitely a book worth reading and thinking about.

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