Salem Witch Trials And 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.

During the seventeenth century, many Puritans became fed up with the Church of England and its devilish ways. They wanted to break free from it, and make changes elsewhere. They got permission to set up a colony in Massachusetts Bay, and soon after that, over twenty-thousand Puritans fled from England to America. They decided to base their colony on the word of God, and believed God would protect them if they followed his commandments. This meant that if anyone were to sin, “they didn’t want God to protect them because they already worshiped the devil,” and “anyone who worshipped the devil was a witch who used witchcraft to possess others.” Because of this theory, many people were accused of being witches and using witchcraft. The most notorious series of hearings and prosecutions for those accused of witchcraft took place in Salem Village, Massachusetts, known as the Salem Witch Trials.

Salem Witch Trials was a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in the Salem Village of the 17th century New England. The trials caused executions of many people, mostly women. Salem Witch Trials exposed the different gender roles during the seventeenth century. Women were supposed to take on “wifely duties” such as, be mothers and housewives. Women were taught to follow the men. There were strict religious norms during the seventeenth century. There was rigid moral code believed that God would punish sinful behavior. Those who were under the covenant by the church of the Salem Village believed that Satan would select those to fulfill his work and those who followed Satan were considered witches. Witchcraft was considered a punishable crime. Salem Witch Trials revealed that gender played a role for the accused and accusers. The trials also revealed that one’s relationship with God will set deliverance from Satan’s attacks. Salem Witch Trials demonstrated how rumors, jealousy, and the idea of male dominance affected people of the Salem Village.

Human beings always have been curious creatures. We are a species that is always searching for answers to unexplainable events. Take aliens for example. To us, aliens may or may not exist (depending on your individual belief of course). Yet we still take such an interest in them that we continuously search for answers and proof of alien. Now that we have modern day technology, we can attain “proof” of alien life-form somewhere deep in outer space. But given the date 1692 in New England, if we were to even come in contact with aliens it would have been considered some supernatural phenomena, and even cause quite a bit of hysteria. That is what happened to the puritans in Salem village during the Salem Witch Trials, in Massachusetts, in the year 1962. The puritans of Salem village were extremely paranoid, and they believed that if something can’t be explained then it had the devils influence. So when a group of Salem girls spoke up about the devil and witches, the villagers of Salem went into a panicked frenzy. Truth of the matter is that there were no witches in Salem nor was the devil at war against Salem; the Salem Witch Trials were only a result of endless lies, conspiracies, and side effects of an illness.

The Salem Witch Trials, also know as the Salem Witchcraft Trials were legal proceedings which took place of course in the Salem Village of Massachusetts. These trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in the village, claimed to be possessed by the devil accusing several local women of practicing the craft. Victims were prosecuted and executed for reputedly practicing witchcraft, when little to no evidence of the act itself existed. This historical period resulted in twenty people, mostly women, being hung for black magic conspiracies. Neighbors accused neighbors; even church members accused other church members of witchcraft. Others were accused, but fled the area before they could be arrested. During this time

However, it did not do much good. The girls started having painful fits which ended up placing Tituba in the court house with Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

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 Trial consisted of heinous accusations implicated by Cotton Mather which effected society as a hole and gave reasoning to the numerous amount of witch stories we hear today. Cotton Mather was the eldest son of Increase Mather, Massachusetts most influential and well known Puritan minister, and the grandson of John Cotton, Salem’s spiritual founder. Cotton Mather was born in Boston Massachusetts and attended Harvard University, receiving an honors degree from Glasgow University. Mather was pastor of Boston 's second protestant church and began his journey into politics in 1689.

Naturally, women are easy targets, especially those women who are either not known very well in town because of the amount of time that they spend at home or, rather, the social presence one resonates within the community of Salem or any other for that matter. The first victim of the madness of the day was Margaret Jones from Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1648. Although, it wasn’t until 44 years later when in Salem, the witch hunts became very outstanding and public. In the years of the Salem Witch Trials many were accused, often times by their neighbor, enemy, or even friend. Citizens threw these hoarse accusations at those who did not do a thing- involving witchcraft that is. Eventually, the number false accusations would surge, now it was about fame, finding these "witches", and sometimes the accused would accuse the accuser causing for even more stir in the community. Many of the witches knew what lie ahead of them, humiliation and

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.

Imagine you were alive 400 years ago in the 1600’s, medicine has not yet been developed and people were aloud to call them selves “healers” or doctors because frankly they were slightly smarter than everyone else. Yes, it may be quite amusing coming up with different ways you can heal people in your own devious potions. In more ways than none, these healers had a potion for everything. But, this is not the case in 1692 when the Salem witch trials began in Salem Village, Massachusetts after a group of youngsters claiming to be possessed by the devil and accusing multiple women in the community of witchcraft. It all began with Betty Parris very ill, curled up staring at something on the wall that her father could not see. This was the beginning of the Salem with trials. Born as the son and grandson of Puritan divines, Cotton Mather became a well-respected minister in Boston and feared witchcraft and believed it to be the devil’s work.

Many assumptions have been made by historians to explain the occurrence of the Salem witchcraft trials, and on why the afflicted girls behaved the way they did, but yet there still seems to remain a sense of doubt on this issue. It seems that this case is not just because of one factor such as Ergotism, but several more. The affliction started by mind suggestion. The early beliefs and superstitions in Puritanical society that were practiced on an everyday basis supported the idea that the behaviors and physical conditions of the afflicted girls were the evil works of the witches, and the Devil. Among many Puritans, this belief becomes a fear, and then this fear becomes like an additional topping that adds up to causing convulsive hysteria

The Salem witchcraft trials were a collection of trials, hearings, accusations, imprisonments, and executions that sought to get rid of the influence of witchcraft from the Salem population. The vast majority of people who were accused of being witches were mostly women. These accusations had more to do with the social status of these women rather than to seek to understand them. The first hanging began with the death of Bridget Bishop in June and continued until September. The Salem witchcraft trials included an example of scapegoating because Puritans feared that the devil was continuously looking for ways to test their faith.

Women of the 1600s had oppressive roles in society, their firm positions were made even worse when they did not fall in line with the rest. Countless women were left ostracized by their communities during the Salem Witch Trials. The women that were targeted, were many times widows or spinsters who did not conform to society's views of women. They were made easy targets for those looking for a scapegoat. This was not made more evident, than when a group of young girls in Salem accused them of bewitching them.

During the mid sixteen hundred several episodes of witch trials and hangings transpired throughout New England. In order to avoid harm as the accused one would have to confess and claim to nullify the agreement with the devil or to flee south out of New England to either New York or Pennsylvania where witchcraft did not get punished. However, in reality the accused were not wealthy enough to escape south quick enough to avoid getting caught by the sheriff chasing them. During this era, it was a common time when people saw the Devil as producer of every mishap. This lead to the easier belief of witches becoming common in the seventeenth century New England. With this hysteria more than a 100 men and women were imprisoned and about 13 women were executed. In the late spring 1692, a rising number of unexplainable, foreign events took place and members of the town of Salem were hysterically frightened about what their future survival faced. Similarly, right around that time a group of pubescent girls in Salem began to accuse several people, mainly middle aged women being their target, of being witches. The girls learned that they gained attention from adults when they had screaming spasms and accusing women of witchcraft. Moreover, the greater attention they received the larger span their accusations grasped. More foolishly the evidence that was used to justify were through dreams and visons solely. The governor at the time realized the firsthand affects of the hysteria when the