The Salem Witch trials popped up around 1692 and they were a disaster. The reason why they came up was because of their religion. The people in the town of Salem were puritans. This means their religion was very strict and that they believed in the devil. The way this all started was that the people who were accused of being witches were acting funny. Studies that were tested later said the reason why was because of something they ate. The people of the town were worried about these people because of rumors that were about these people. As the author says in the article, “One night, while trying to see the faces of their future husbands in an egg white dropped in a glass of water, one girl believed she saw the shape of a coffin” (Zeglin). Because the people thought they were seeing into the future, they had to be witches. They got accused and the girls said yes to being witches, but the said they wouldn’t do it again. They also blamed tons more of people to make this a big huge event. This caused around twenty-five deaths and all of it was for no good reasons as the state of Massachusetts later claimed that it was a
In 1692, the people in Salem, Massachusetts went on a hunt accusing people of being witches. This was a hysterical time in history known as the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials led to many distraught people and false accusations. The famous trials started with two sick children and then led to discrimination manly towards women of a lesser class. The accused people were tortured and eventually killed.
When the girls of Salem went into the woods, a place that the puritans viewed as “the Devil’s playground”, Ann sent her daughter Ruth with a frog to consult with Tituba, Reverend Parris’ Barbadian slave, about contacting Ruth’s dead siblings. “Goody Ann! You sent a child to conjure up the dead?” (Applebee et. al., 185). If anyone would have said anything to accuse her of being a witch after she admitted to sending Ruth to the woods that night, she would’ve been put on trial. However, Mrs. Putnam was very quick to ascertain that she did it only because she wanted to find out who murdered her babies. Both the fact that she had lost children and the fact that she denied practicing witchcraft, made her immaculate to being accused. Her innocence however, empowered her to accuse others of
The Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Massachusetts in 1629. Many people were accused of being a witch and many lives were lost.
The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.
Not many people know much about what actually happened in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe someone would think that it was just about witchcraft and crazy people being hanged, but it is a lot more than that. The Salem Witch Trials only occurred between 1692 and 1693, but a lot of damage had been done. The idea of the Salem Witch Trials came from Europe during the “witchcraft craze” from the 1300s-1600s. In Europe, many of the accused witches were executed by hanging. Many practicing Christians, at the time, believed that the Devil could persuade people to use the powers that he gave them to harm others. The Salem Witch Trials occurred because of resource struggles, many women were accused and tortured, and in the end the Governor realized that it was a big mistake. (“Salem Witch Trials”, 1).
The Puritans ran from persecution but then used the witch hunt to persecute innocent people based on the word of the women and men who had ulterior motives. The women used this opportunity to punish people they long had problems or resentment for. These women- Abigail, Tituba, and Mary- were aware of the power they felt when they were being heard by people in their community who were deemed Godly, upstanding citizens. So, they loved the sense of power they felt. Although the townspeople of Salem used religion as the reason for the witch hunt, the witch hunt created chaos because people started using it a revenge mechanism. Much of what happens in Salem still resembles some things we see in society today. The word of one man can change people’s ideas and images of another without conclusive evidence. What people fear the most can sometimes bind us together, even if it is not
This caused the Puritans to believe in evil forces like the devil who could potentially try to lead them into temptation or other sinful things because their faith in God was so strong. In 1692, the Puritans worst nightmare had begun. The Salem Witch Trials had started and an estimated number of 200 people were accused of practicing dark magic and some had been punished by death. These trials consisted of bringing convicted witches into court and sentencing them to be hanged or in prison for many years if proven guilty. To the Puritans, the devil was as real as God, and the devil would choose the weakest people to torment, and those people were mostly women and children. Being in a mostly religious community like Salem, when people confessed it had turned many heads because people weren’t sure whether to believe it or not. That same year, they had gotten a new minister named Reverend Samuel Parris and he managed to make matters worse by supporting the witchcraft hysteria, which caused more chaos in
There are many important events that led up to the Salem Witch Trials. In 1233, Pope Gregory established the medieval inquisition to bring order against the growing heresy in which he later hunts down witches. In 1347, the Bubonic Plague or also known as Black Death struck in Europe demonstrating how ignorance lead to superstition. In 1431, Joan of Arc was accused of witchcraft and burned alive at the stake. After her death, she was declared innocent and deemed a martyr. In 1484, Pope Innocent VII officially declared witches are real. In 1492, Christopher Columbus overcame ignorant superstitions hoping to land in West Indies. In 1530, King Henry of England separated his nation from Roman Catholicism, which resulted in creating the church of England because he did not believe in witches. In 1607, English settlers landed in Jamestown, Virginia and they strongly believed in
In Salem, Massachusetts there were Witch Trials held during the summer months of 1692. Throughout the seventeenth century in New England, witchcraft was said to be a crime punishable by death. Puritans came to New England in the early 1600’s to practice their Christianity in the purest form possible. They believed every word in the bible and that the words of God were to be followed down to the last sentence there was. Havoc started occurring around the town and 19 women along with men were hanged for witchcraft. Over 100 individuals were suspected to be witches in result to weird behavior before a disaster happens.
The Salem Witch Trials, by Laura Marvel covers the tragedy from the era of witchcraft.. To give a brief overview of the historical event would be tough. Although it was a huge event that happened, most have heard false accusations that did not actually happen. Taking place in Salem Massachusetts, over 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft, also known as the Devil’s Magic! A total of 20 were actually executed, some hung, some burned, and some drowned. It was a matter of whether the judges and court liked you or not, or if you were wealthy. They very much envied people with money or large plots of land. Such a tragic event shaped the society we live in today. The trials impacted the society in many ways, this essay
The years of 1692 and 1693 were a terrible time in Salem Massachusetts. The presence of the devil was in Salem. People living there were practicing witchcraft. Young women were barking like dogs and acting strangely. All this behavior would lead to what became known as the Salem witch trials.The Salem witch trials took place because of people practicing witchcraft and they were not witches.This resulted in the imprisonment /execution of more than 200 people.
Between 1692 and 1693, in Salem Village, Massachusetts, the Salem witch trials were taking place. In the event, many were accused of witchcraft and some were even executed. This event had left many curious as to what caused the people to accept witchcraft and treat it as a crime. To explain the trials, Paul Boer and Stephen Nissenbaum wrote the book Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft in which they analyzed and broke down key components of the witch trials.
Arthur Miller’s main purpose in writing The Crucible was to show the similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Trials and to warn against government propaganda. At the time that The Crucible was published, America had a huge fear of communism. Anyone accused of having ties with the communist party was shunned. It much resembled the Salem Witch Trials in how the government, or leader of the time, used fear against the people to gain power. For example, Joseph McCarthy can be compared to Reverend Parris in how they both lead the people into the belief that there were intruders in their mists that had plans to sabotage the community.
In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,