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Abigail Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1681 |
| Died | 1692 or after (aged 11 or older) [1] |
| Known for | First accuser in the Salem witch trials |
| Relatives |
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Abigail Williams (born c. 1681, date of death unknown) [2] was an 11- or 12-year-old girl who, along with nine-year-old Betty Parris, was among the first of the children to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft in 1692; these accusations eventually led to the Salem witch trials.
In early 1692, Abigail Williams was living with her relative, Betty Parris's father, the village pastor Samuel Parris, along with his two slaves Tituba and John Indian.
Tituba was part of a group of three women—with Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne—who was the first to be arrested, on February 29, 1692, under the accusation that their specters (ghosts) were afflicting the young girls in Parris's household. The three women were questioned separately but were aware of each other and, in a classic prisoner's dilemma, they were turned against each other. Sarah Good was the first interrogated and held to her innocence. Judge John Hathorne directed all "the child look upon her and see if this were the person that hurt them ... and they all did look upon her" and claimed her specter tormented them. "Sarah Good ... why do you thus torment these poor children?" Hathorne asked. "What do I know, you bring others here and now you charge me with it," Sarah Good responded. Next, Hathorne interrogated Sarah Osbourne, who claimed not to know Sarah Good or her full name. But Hathorne told her, "Sarah Good said that it was you that hurt the children." According to the transcript, this distorts what Sarah Good had said, as she had only vaguely referred to the others without naming them, in a way that was only intended to deflect blame from herself. [3] Tituba was interrogated last and was the only of the three women to offer a full and elaborate confession against herself and point the finger of blame at the other two women: "Sarah Good and Osbourne would have me hurt the children." [4] [5] According to an investigation by Robert Calef that began soon after the trials, Tituba later recanted her confession as forced and claimed abuse from the slaveowner Parris:
"The account she [Tituba], since gives of it, is that her master [Parris] did beat her and otherwise abuse her, to make her confess and accuse, such as the [Parris] called her 'sister-witches' and that whatever she said by way of confessing or accusing others, was the effect of such usage." [6]
Further accusations against many others emerged from the Parris household (and others) and eventually led to the imprisonment of hundreds and the deaths of more than 20 in 1692. Sarah Osborne died in prison in May and Sarah Good was executed on July 19 along with four other women. Members of Parris household all managed to survive the entire episode including Tituba, who was released from jail a year later, when the slaveowner Parris paid her prison fees and sold her. [7]
After the Salem witch trials, Williams disappeared from records circa 1696. [8] Her fate is unknown. [1]
In Arthur Miller's 1953 play, The Crucible , a fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials, Abigail Williams is the name of a character whose age in the play is raised a full five or six years, to age 17, and she is motivated by a desire to be in a relationship with John Proctor, a married farmer with whom she had previously had an affair. In the historical record, there is no evidence of John Proctor and Abigail Williams ever meeting before the trials had started. She was portrayed by Winona Ryder in the 1996 film adaptation of the play.
In John Neal's 1828 novel Rachel Dyer , Abigail Williams appears as the character Bridget Pope. [9] Neal links the origin of the witch hysteria to her sexual development, and her bewitched behavior stems from sexual frustration that is calmed too late when she is reunited with her love interest, Robert Eveleth, after the trials have already begun. [10]
Abigail Williams is an American black metal band formed in 2004.
Abigail appears in the 2010 film The Sorcerer's Apprentice as a minor antagonist. In the film, she was confirmed to be a witch who had both framed and set up others to take the fall for her witchcraft to divert attention from herself, which resulted in the Salem Witch Trials. Her actions and crimes against humanity, coupled with her conspiracy with Horvath to release Morgana, catch the attention of Balthazar Blake, who seals her into the Grimhold so she can do no more harm. She is later released by Horvath to kidnap the main protagonist Dave's love interest, Becky Barnes, only for the former Merlinean to fatally drain her of her magic once she completes the deed.
The 2013 play, Wonders of the Invisible World (originally titled A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World) by Liz Duffy Adams tells the fictional story of Abigail William's return to New England ten years after the witch trials. [11]
Abigail is revealed as the antagonist of the 2014 video game Murdered: Soul Suspect . In the story, flashbacks reveal that she was hanged for her part in the witch trials. Over the centuries, she has existed as a ghost, using her supernatural powers to kill those she believes are witches. In the game's climax, she is seized by demons and dragged to Hell.
Fate/Grand Order , a 2015 online free-to-play role-playing mobile game, has a character under the "Foreigner" class based on both Abigail Williams and Yog-Sothoth. She plays a central role in the plot of the last Pseudo-Singularity chapter, Salem, which takes place during an alternate version of the Salem witch trials.
The 2020 video game Little Hope includes a spin-off of Abigail's history and the Salem witch trials as one of the three timelines. [12] [13]
Abigale is the central character in the play Abigail/1702: A Twice Told Tale, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. It premiered at the South Camden Theater Company, Waterfront South Theatre, in Camden, New Jersey, in February 2020
In 1976, Linnda R. Caporael [14] [15] put forward the hypothesis that ergot-tainted rye may have been the source of accusations of bewitchment that spurred the Salem witch trials. Caporael argued that many of its convulsive symptoms were all symptoms reported in the Salem witchcraft records. This theory has been refuted by both toxicologists and historians of the Salem witch trials, in part because of the difference in the ages of the core group of accusers, which would have been younger, per prior ergotism epidemics, and would have affected males and females roughly equally. The ergotism theory is critiqued for failing to explain the differences in affliction rates between males and females and that no records suggest the allegedly affected experienced all symptoms to ergotism or had long-term health effects. Additionally, most historical outbreaks of ergotism would affect entire families or communities who shared a similar diet. [16] At the severity of supposed symptoms experienced by accusers, the levels of ergot would have been high enough to cause symptoms in adults in the community. [17] [ better source needed ] [18] [19]
The Crucible is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists. Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in jail.
Ergotism is the effect of long-term ergot poisoning, traditionally due to the ingestion of the alkaloids produced by the Claviceps purpurea fungus—from the Latin clava "club" or clavus "nail" and -ceps for "head", i.e. the purple club-headed fungus—that infects rye and other cereals, and more recently by the action of a number of ergoline-based drugs. It is also known as ergotoxicosis, ergot poisoning, and Saint Anthony's fire.
Elizabeth "Betty" Parris was one of the young girls who accused other people of being witches during the Salem witch trials. The accusations made by Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams caused the direct death of 20 Salem residents: 19 were hanged, while another, Giles Corey, was pressed to death.
Elizabeth Proctor was convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was the wife of John Proctor, who was convicted and executed.
Samuel Parris was the Puritan minister in Salem Village, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials. He was also the father of one of the afflicted girls, and the uncle of another.
Tituba was an enslaved Native American woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693.
The Crucible is a 1996 American historical drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Arthur Miller, based on his 1953 play of the same title. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor, Winona Ryder as Abigail Williams, Paul Scofield as Judge Thomas Danforth, Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor, and Bruce Davison as Reverend Samuel Parris. Set in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, the film follows a group of teenage girls who, after getting caught performing a ritual in the woods, band together and falsely accuse several of the townspeople of witchcraft.
Sarah Good was one of the first three women to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials, which occurred in 1692 in colonial Massachusetts.
Sarah Osborne (also variously spelled Osbourne, Osburne, or Osborn; née Warren, formerly Prince, was a colonist in the Massachusetts Bay colony and one of the first women to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials of 1692. Sarah Osborn was suggested to be a witch by Sarah Good. Sarah Good said she had been tormenting the girls.
Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literary and dramatic depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
This timeline of the Salem witch trials is a quick overview of the events.
Mary Towne Eastey was a defendant in the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts. She was executed by hanging in Salem in 1692.
Medical explanations of bewitchment, especially as exhibited during the Salem witch trials but in other witch-hunts as well, have emerged because it is not widely believed today that symptoms of those claiming affliction were actually caused by bewitchment. The reported symptoms have been explored by a variety of researchers for possible biological and psychological origins.
Sarah Wildes was wrongly convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials and was executed by hanging. She maintained her innocence throughout the process, and was later exonerated. Her husband's first wife was a member of the Gould family, cousins of the Putnam family, the primary accusers, and court records document the family feuds which led to her persecution.
Elizabeth Hubbard is best known as the primary instigator of the Salem Witch Trials. Hubbard was 17 years old in the spring of 1692 when the trials began. In the 15 months the trials took place, 20 people were executed.
Sarah Cloys/Cloyce was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed. Cloys/Cloyce was about 50-years-old at the time and was held without bail in cramped prisons for many months before her release.
Elizabeth Booth was born in 1674 and was one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. She grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, as the second eldest of ten children. When she was sixteen she was accused of being a witch. When she was eighteen, she began accusing people of practicing witchcraft, including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Proctor, William Proctor, Benjamin Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd. Five of these people were executed due to Booth's testimony. Elizabeth Proctor would have been executed as well if she was not pregnant. After the Witch Trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695, and had two children named Israel and Susanna. Booth's death date is unknown.
Mary Black was an African-American enslaved by Nathaniel Putnam of the Putnam family who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. Nathaniel's nephew was Thomas Putnam, one of the primary accusers. However, Nathaniel himself was skeptical and even defended Rebecca Nurse. Mary was arrested, indicted, and imprisoned, but did not go to trial, and was released by proclamation on January 21, 1693 [O.S. January 11, 1692]. She returned to Nathaniel's household after she was released, another indication of Nathaniel's view of the charges against her.
The possible onset of his wife's illness in the winter or spring of 1696 (she died in July) may have influenced Parris. Furthermore, his niece, the afflicted girl Abigail Williams, simply disappears from the records at about this time, and some believe that her death may have had an effect.