Salem 1692: The Salem Witch Trials

In January 1692, when a group of juvenile girls began to display bizarre behavior, the tight-knit Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t explain the unusual afflictions and came to a conclusion. Witches had invaded Salem. This was the beginning of a period of mass hysteria known as The Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were falsely accused of witchcraft and many paid the ultimate price of death. Nineteen people were hung, one was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen more died in prison. One of the accused Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, a faithful wife and mother, endured her fictitious accusation with honor and integrity.

The Salem witch craft hysteria of 1692 was caused by people thinking they could be possessed by the devil, the belief that witches were real and the fear of being accused for being a witch. Actions caused hysteria in Salem. These little girls were acting strangely, so they accused someone as a witch. In “Document C” it says they the girl accused did not even know what a witch was.

Between June 10 and September 22, 1692, 20 people were put to death in Salem Massachusetts for witchcraft. Neighbors turned on neighbors, women turned on women. Nobody was necessarily safe from being accused of witchcraft. During the time of the 1600s many English immigrants arrived in New England, a number of them being Puritans. They came to New England to practice Christianity in ways they felt were pure. To help guide the Puritans through life, they read the bible. Whatever the bible said, they believed and one subject was about the Devil. One of the tricks the Devil used, was to enter a normal person’s body and turn that person into a witch. A witch could cause terrible damage. Of course, the Puritans believed it, so every bad act they saw, they often accused the person of being a witch. What

From the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to World War II and McCarthyism in the 1950s, many negative effects were brewed by hatred and discrimination against the innocent population.

Salem, Massachusetts 1692 a small village where people turned on each other, and blamed hundreds of their own, nut mostly certain neighbors with witchcraft. From June to September, individuals were unjustifiably killed after trials discovered them “guilty” of witchcraft. Religions, imperatives, money, beliefs and types of conflicts caused these absurd witch trials.

National Geographic writer Rosalyn Schanzer has written a terrifying but true story known by the name Witches!; The Absolutely True Tale Of Disaster In Salem. In the town of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 two girls started to have unexplained fits and lead the town into chaos. The answer that the people came up with was witchcraft. Everyone starts to accuse their friends and family, making them go to trial and it already has lead to the deaths of many people. The trials were very unfair using spectral evidence, the close-minded judges, and the false accusations.

In 1692, in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts, 20 people were hanged for offenses they did not commit. But what was the charge against the 20? The answer would be witchcraft. The charges deeply affected the small community. Neighbor turned on neighbor. Every act that a person made would be carefully scrutinized, dissected, and repeated to others. This would lead to the question. What caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? The 3 main factors that would cause widespread panic in the town of Salem were gender, marital status, and age, actors and attention seekers, and neighbor conflicts within the village of Salem.

Salem was a very disperse community in the Massachusetts Bay colony with a growing Puritan community in the northern America. Towns in the colony were scattered by a half days travel or more. In view of this, transportation and communication was a very slow and the settlers were threatened by the attack of bears and other wild animals. Puritans were spiritual people and believed that God is the ruler of everything they possessed. The puritans believed that they were the chosen people and therefore they had to seek perfection. They were also of the believe that it was God who provided them with good health, riches and fortunes. Salvation was an important virtue of the puritans and God could take away their salvation if they sinned and went contrary to the bible. Also, misfortunes and bad things happened to them as a presence of evil and showed Gods disapproval of their salvation. Bible reading, fasting, prayers and preaching formed an integral part of the puritan community

I would like to go witness the unsettled universe of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts back in 1692. Hearing the young girls screaming and barking, prancing around in the woods would help understand what the fear the townspeople were holding. This behavior was extremely rare coming from these teenage maidans. Many town doctors went to check on the maidans. After an extremely precise examination the doctor confirmed that the maidens were bewitched. Whoever triggered this disastrous event should be found and be prosecuted. Soon this started to spread all over Salem. I want to be able to see what triggered the “witches” to catch spell on others and how bizzare every townspeople acted blaming each other for being witches in order to not

The Salem Witch Trials are one of the most infamous events in American history, with Salem Massachusetts drawing thousands of visitors and generating millions of dollars every year, regardless of the fact that the trials did not actually take place in modern day Salem. The Salem Witch Trials took place between 1692 and 1693. By the time the court admitted that the trials had been a mistake, more than 200 people had been accused of witchcraft and 20 had been executed. What caused this mass hysteria has puzzled historians for years, with different theories flying around as people try to make sense of the trials. Three of these theories are that the rye crop was infected with ergot, that an oppressive

The Salem Witch Trials were a sequence of hearings, prosecutions, and hangings of people who were thought to be involved in witchcraft in Massachusetts. These trials occurred between February 1692 and May 1693("The Salem Witch Trials, 1692." ). The Trials resulted in the execution of twenty people, in fact, most of them were women. The first of the trials began in several towns in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, such as Salem Village (currently known as Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover("Salem Witch Museum." ). The most infamous trials were tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, in Salem Town. Robert Calef, the author of More Wonders of the Invisible World, a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692, summarized the trials saying

Life in the New England colonies during the 1600’s proved to be harsh with the constant fear of Native American attacks, scarce food, freezing winters, and conflicting opinions about religion. From this perpetual state of distress, the Salem Witch Trials were birthed, causing a wave of hysteria in Salem Village and Salem Town. Though the exact day and month is uncertain, historians can claim that the trials emerged in early 1692 and came to a close in 1693. The Salem Witch Trials started in 1692 with more than one hundred fifty people being accused of practicing witchcraft, and the trials finally ended with the courts declaring there was no evidence in the cases being tried, and the Governor stopped the trials because his wife was accused.

Throughout history, there have been many cases of discriminatory accusations of people, including the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were a string of trials, hearings and prosecutions of many people accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts between the dates of February 1692 and May 1693. The trials ended up leading to the execution of twenty people, men and women, but mainly women. The Salem Witch Trials that took place about three hundred years ago affected the lives of everyday civilians during that time in ways such as politically, religiously, economically, fearfully, mentally, and sometimes in other various other ways.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of accusations, trials, and executions based on the supposed outbreak of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. The trials began during the spring of 1692, and the last of them ended in 1693. It all started when two young girls, Abigail and Betty Parris, began experiencing violent convulsions and outbursts, which were thought to be brought about by witchcraft. Whether they were faking these symptoms, were afflicted with an actual sickness, or were experiencing them because of some sort of psychological reason is widely debated, though it is known that the sisters accused their maid, Tituba, of forcing them to participate in witchcraft with her. Some who theorize about the causes of the trials dismiss the Parris girls involvement in the beginning and instead attribute the outbreak of accusations to judgement upon the members of society who break social or religious rules, or who struck the upright members of society as ‘strange’ and ‘suspicious’, such as the homeless, the poor, and old or widowed women. The cause of the hysteria that went on in Salem after this is what is speculated by so many. There are probably hundreds of theories out there, but a few in particular are more widely known, accepted, and supported than others.

The Salem witch trials were a dark time in our history, filled with paranoia, betrayal, the innocence of children, and vengeance.The incident would be so severe that it would leave bitter scars that have continued to this day.