Bridget Bishop Case

When conducting research for my project, I came across a website that contained a few primary sources regarding the Salem Witch Trials. One of these primary sources was the photo of a legal document explaining the death warrant and reasons for execution of a woman named Bridget Bishop. Bishop was claimed to be a witch in Salem during the year 1692, and the document explaining her significance involving witchcraft resides in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. My thesis for this primary source is that the judge and jury believed they were seeking justice by executing Bishop, a woman whose death was truthfully based on her differences as a person rather than actual crimes she committed. To begin, the document explains Bridget Bishop was “indicted and arraigned upon five several Indictments for useing practiceing and exercising…certain

My research question has to do with how puritan women are represented by the tried witches, and with background information on what Bishop was accused of as well as the fact the judge did not believe her, I am able to refute the logic of why she was executed. Bishop was not committing any actual crimes (by law) which means she was simply going against social norms. For example, Bishop was accused of murdering children, however there was not evidence found on where those bodies were, or exactly who she killed. There was no proof of any of her accusations being true, accept for the dolls she had in her house. In fact, once these “poppets” were found, “Bishop’s fate was sealed, and she was hanged in June 1692” (Associated Press A3). It seems as if the court wanted used the only source of proof they could find to hang her. The reputation Bishop gained throughout her court hearings scared the people of Salem because she never conformed to the female Puritan way of