When I read The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner I became extremely curious to learn more about the Salem witch trials, which I had never heard much about.

The first three people arrest were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Tituba was an Indian slave in the house of Samuel Parris. When young Betty Parris became strangely ill in February or 1692, complaining of fever, dashing around, and contorting in pain, the people naturally became worried about what the problem was. Witchcraft was never suspected until three other girls took on a similar illness. When the doctor couldn't cure them with his own medicines, he suggested that it might be possible that the illness came about supernaturally. With an Indian war happening less than seventy miles away, it was easy to believe such a thought. The real cause of their symptoms may have been some mixture of stress, abuse, asthma, guilt, boredom, epilepsy, etc. But with more children taking on such symptoms, the people of the village became more and more suspicious of witchcraft. Someone told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of Betty Parris and feed the cake to a do.  ( Dogs were believed to be used by witches as agents to carry out their devilish commands.) Tituba, who was already known to tell the girls tales of witchcraft from her native folklore, became a serious suspect when it was found out that she baked the rye cake. She was arrested on February 29th along with two other women; Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn.