On this day in women’s history…
| February 29th, 2004February 29
1692: The first arrests in the notorious Salem witch trials began on February 29, 1692 with two elderly impoverished women: Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. The third arrested that same day was Tituba, a slave who was probably an Arawak Indian taken into slavery in Guiana, South America. The first to hang was Bridgit Bishop, who was first arrested on suspicion of witchcraft in 1680. She was hanged on June 10, 1692, in Salem MA.
1736: (Birthday) Ann Lee, British-born American founder of the Shaker sect, born in Manchester, England.
Her vision was the incarnation of the masculine Christ evolving into the feminine incarnation. She opposed marriage and sexual relations. Long before its time, the Shakers believed in the dual male and female nature of God, in fact many believed Lee was the female incarnation of Jesus.
The sect at its peak had 18 communities in eight states but gradually dwindled to almost nothing because of its strict celibacy rules. Many members became renowned furniture builders of the the clean-cut Shaker style.
