veral young girls started getting, what were described at the time as "'odd postures,' 'foolish, ridiculous speeches,' 'distempers,' 'fits'" (Boyer and Nissenbaum 1974). In particular, two girls, Betty Parris aged nine, and Abigail Williams aged eleven, showed the first sign of things being amiss. It seems the girls had been involved in fortune-telling sessions that gradually, over several months, built into this delirious behavior. However, it was only after several weeks of this, and at the beginning of February of 1692, that "warrants went out for the arrest of three Village women whom the girls, under the pressure of intense adult questioning, had finally named as their tormentors" (2). The three women were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Tituba, and Indian. What is significant about these women is that they were in some way social outcasts or deviants from the town's society, such as being a beggar or an Indian.
At this point, it is necessary to bring out that Massachusetts was without a government until that May. The first three months of the whole episode went on while Massachusetts waited for the arrival of the British governor. The colony's charter was not in force at the time because of disagreements the colony had with the Crown. The new governor was to set things straight but, from the period February to May, people could be arrested and imprisoned but no trails could take place. The result was that the frenzy could build up without the "safety value" of trials and, if one may say, executions.
What occurred was that after the first three arrests, where the women were sent to the Boston jail and held under detention, the pace of the accusations and arrests, gradually built up steam. By the beginning of April, there had been the first three accusations and an additional three. But, by the end of April, a further 22 accusations had been made. Throughout July and September, by which time the special court th...