Martha_Carrier

Lies of Protestors on Trial against “The Witch”, Martha Carrier By painting the picture of Martha Carrier as a witch instead of a modern day woman, the community of Salem sustains itself. After a person reads the text, the communities’ testimonies could seem superficial and unmerited. The testimonies verified that Martha Carrier was not a witch; she was just an average, strange, and angry person who lacked communication skills. If an individual reads between the lines of each scenario, many questions are brought to mind to search for the truth. Each testimony brought forth against Carrier suffocated her with hearsay allegations. The first testimony, prior to the trial, stated that Mrs. Carrier’s children came forth confessing that they were witches because their mother made them do so. Adults control the way children are raised, which could consist of manipulating a child’s mind to believe something is not true. For example, if a child is taken back in the judge’s chambers of a courtroom and questioned over and over again, “Are you a witch'” Every time the child said no, they were whipped or threatened. Eventually a child will develop a demented stimulation in the brain to make the pain and yelling stop, which then causes a child to protest the untruthful statement of “I am a witch.” What they do not know is even if you state you are a witch, death is still upon a child. The same goes for stating their mother made them that way. In this scenario it also states, “Nevertheless, this evidence was not produced against the prisoner at the bar, inasmuch as there was other evidence enough to proceed upon (311).” If no evidence was produced, where is this case' The court could have issued a warrant stating to search the household for witchery material. In this book it is not stated whether or not the house was searched for evidence. Yet, for argumentative purposes, the fact should be taken into account. . No evidence means no conviction in today’s world. Though in this testimony Carrier’s children state they’re witches because of her, Benjamin Abbot, testimony two states why Martha is a wicked witch. In his testimony, Benjamin Abbot, says that Martha Carrier had a dispute with him, and she cursed him. After the argument, Carrier was angry and had harsh words with him because he laid land near her husband. Carrier’s exact words were, “she would stick as close to Abbot as the bark stuck to a tree; and that he should repent of it afore seven years came to an end, so as Doctor Prescot should never cure him”. This does not state Carrier is a witch. It simply states she was livid with him, and spoke words which he saw as very crucial to why she cursed him. Yes, Abbot became sick later on and ended up with many sores. Yet, the medical procedures that could have saved Abbot’s life were nowhere as close to the medical advantage the world has now. Abbot could have gotten a Staphylococcus infection from bacteria living on any surface or his own body. If Abbot scratched his skin while working and the Staphylococcus bacteria entered the wound, all the infection will do is spread; therefore, the medical care given in 1692 would have not done any good. The reasoning behind stating that he could have cut himself working is because later on in the third testimony, his wife states they had cattle, and farming animals is work. After speaking of the infection he got, this shows that the dispute Carrier and Abbot had was nonetheless just a regular argument. When Carrier did not like what Abbot had to say, she threatened him with her words. In any argument, if something is not going the way an individual likes the average person threatens with words to scare off or make the other person mad. The allegation in each scenario again has no evidence that Martha Carrier is a witch. Abbot’s allegations were also hearsay. Abbot dealt with a verbal fight with Carrier, while in Allin Toothaker’s testimony his fight was physical. Allin Toothaker testifies that he and Carrier’s son got into a physical brawl. This whole scenario seems silly and ridiculous to even be a testimony against Carrier to try and give evidence that she is a witch. Toothaker describes the altercation and says Richard, Carrier’s son, pulled him down by his hair and when Toothaker tried to stand up to fight Richard back, he fell flat on his back to the ground. He says he could not stand up until he yielded. The reason this is an allegation against Martha is because Toothaker states, “he saw the shape of Martha Carrier go off his breasts.” While reading the first objective the first thing brought to mind is, was Abbot drunk' The second was Richard just seemed strong because he was the son of Carrier. The community could assume that he was a witch too. Toothaker made himself look bad, yet at the same time seemed in the text like he wanted to go back for more. Toothaker’s statement of that makes him seem mentally crazy. Once again there was no evidence produced, just hearsay evidence. In the end the allegations against Carrier were mostly mental or physical contact, a person might look deeper into the text to see what lies could be pulled out of it. In the first three scenarios, there were altercations with people in the community and Carrier. However, in the fourth observation, evidence was brought up by individuals proclaiming Martha Carrier killed their cattle. After reading the rest of the testimonies, many citizens of that town brought in stories that their cattle died unexpectedly or of natural causes. After the first story, it somewhat seems true, but when many stories are brought in, a person wonders could there have been an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease or some disease that spread through that time period. Three people stated their cattle died unexpectedly, so since everyone in the community assumed they knew Martha Carrier was a witch, she must have killed them. The reasoning behind the individuals stating that their cattle died naturally also makes the point that the medicine in 1692 was not even remotely close to medicine today. Today, a veterinarian could do a biopsy and tell a person why their cattle died. Yet, since it was unexplained, they blamed Martha for it, just because they had an altercation with her. Once again, no evidence was given except hearsay evidence. In 1692, innocent until proven guilty was not the case for Martha Carrier. Yet, the circumstances given in this brief argument clarify that Carrier never was a witch. The reasoning behind saying all the evidence given was hearsay is the examples given earlier. With the hearsay evidence, the collections of testimonies conclude the trial of Martha Carrier inevitably proceeds as all misconstrued statements. Martha Carrier was obviously a strange human being. However, nowhere does any of the evidence prove Carrier as a witch of Salem.