All the Lies They Did Not Tell: The True Story of Satanic Panic in an Italian Community by Pablo Trincia

Author:Pablo Trincia [Trincia, Pablo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2022-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

13.

The last thing that Bridget Bishop saw before closing her eyes forever was the small crowd that had gathered on Gallows Hill on a late-spring day in 1692. It was where alleged witches were hanged, and that was where Bishop ended up, her hands tied behind her back, after a Salem judge condemned her to death. Twice married, in her sixties, and with a combative personality and a flamboyant style, Bishop stood out sharply in a community of mostly Puritan Protestants. She was accused of using witchcraft to curse several girls that had been showing signs of illness and throwing hysterical fits.

The girls’ conditions were initially blamed on three women, including a homeless woman and a Caribbean slave who confessed under threat and named three others, including Bishop.

Witnesses claimed that Bishop ran a disreputable establishment for local youths, where some strange things happened. When she appeared before the judges, some of the girls identified her as a witch. Upon seeing her, they started screaming and reported feeling pain. For the judges, this was irrefutable proof of Bishop’s guilt—spectral evidence didn’t lie. Bishop was sentenced to death, and on June 10, the hangman fit her neck with a rope. She was the first in a long line of accused witches to be targeted by her community. Another eighteen hangings would follow, along with a death by pressing, before the local government put an end to the persecution and some of the girls, now adults, retracted their accusations.

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