During the years 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts a young girl fell sick. Her "fits" or convulsion, contortions and outbursts of gibberish baffled everyone in the small town. When doctors failed to find a proper diagnosis, and several other girls were afflicted with the same fits, their fits were blamed on the work of witches. Due to extreme religious beliefs and the developing nature of the country among other reasons, one girls illness captured the superstitions of an entire town and launched a puritan inquisition that resulted in one the largest and most notorious witch hunts in American history. .
In 1672 Salem Village, a small farming village split from Salem Town, a prosperous town in Massachusetts. This caused a divide between the villagers, some supporting the split and some opposing it. This controversial split contributed to the uneasy mood of the town and helped fuel the oncoming witch hunt. Due to the recent split Salem Village was given the right to build it's own church and Samuel Paris was named the minister. Many believe that Paris himself unintentionally had a hand in the start of this hysteria. .
Paris owned a slave, Tituba and her husband John Indian. The slave couple was originally from Barbados. Tituba would fill Paris" daughter Elisabeth "Betty" Paris, her cousin Abigail Williams, and several other girls with stories from her native country and also with stories of witchcraft and voodoo. In time, out of curiosity or sheer boredom durng the long winter months the girls themselves began to dabble in witchcraft they learned from Tituba by telling each others fortunes and making a rudimentary crystal ball.
In January of 1692 Betty Paris was afflicted with psychotic fits. Soon after, several of the other girls began to have similar fits. When the town physician could not diagnose the girls, it was assumed they were victims of witchcraft. As Rosemary Guiley notes "It is impossible to know if the girls feigned witchcraft to hide their involvement with Tituba's magic or whether they actually believed they were possessed.