Essay On 1692 Salem Witch Trials

The 1692 Salem Witch Trials
In 1692 Salem, Prisons had been filled with more than 150 men and women from towns surrounding Salem. Nineteen men and women convicted of witchcraft were carted to Gallow Hill for hanging. Their names had been “cried out” by tormented girls as the cause of their pain. “Stuck in jail with the damning testimony of the afflicted girls widely accepted, suspects began to see confession as a way to avoid the gallows” (Linder). Fear and disease led to an appalling number of incarcerations and even hangings of unfortunate men, women, and children who were wrongly accused of witchcraft.
Suspected witches were often middle-aged women who were usually economically secluded or lacking in family and were also lacking in social

Massachusetts Bay Colony executed fourteen women, five men, and two dogs for witchcraft. The girls were pressured to reveal who was controlling their behavior. In early 1692, three women were identified. The first three women to be accused of witchcraft were Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Tituba, a slave, admitted to the devil coming to her, “Sometimes like a hog, and sometimes like a great dog” (The Salem Witch Trials, 1692). Tituba confessed that a conspiracy of witches permeated Salem Village. Tituba’s confession silenced most skeptics, and Parris and other local ministers began the witchcraft hunt zeal. The first accused witch to be brought to trial after Governor Phips created the “Court of Oyer and Terminer” was Bridget Bishop (Linder). The youngest to be accused was a five year old girl named Dorcas, or Dorathy Good, daughter of Sarah Good. The girls blamed Martha Corey, who was “An upstanding member of the puritan congregation” (The Salem Witch Trials,