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Martha Carrier: The Defiant “Queen Of Hell”

Wikimedia CommonsThis 1853 painting depicting the “examination of a witch” was based on the Salem witch trials.

Martha Carrier lived in nearby Andover, not Salem. But she had an infamous reputation. Many believed that she’d brought smallpox to town around 1690.

“Carrier and some of her children are smitten with that contagious disease the small-pox,” town records stated. “[T]ake care that they do not spread the distemper with wicked carelessness which we are afraid they have already done.”

Though it’s impossible to know for certain why girls in Salem accused “Goody Carrier” of witchcraft, it’s possible that her association with smallpox set many people against her. On May 28, 1692, Carrier was arrested.

Her trial started a few days later. When she entered the courtroom, the girls who had accused her had violent fits.

“Goody Carrier, she bites me, pinches me, & tells me she would cut my throat,” one girl claimed. Another said that she saw 13 ghosts — representatives of the 13 people who had died of smallpox.

But Carrier was defiant. “I have not done it,” she said. Carrier added, “It is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits.”

Despite Carrier’s strong stance, however, the tide of public opinion had turned against her. Mather later called her a “rampant hag” and the “Queen of Hell.” Her sons said she was a witch — after they had been tortured into confessing — and another Andover woman claimed that Carrier had become a witch six years ago and even attended “witch meetings.”

Thus, Carrier’s fate was sealed. On August 19, 1692, she was hanged alongside Reverend George Burroughs and three others. All of them professed their innocence. But their pleas fell on deaf ears.

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