Salem Witch Trials Of 1692

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.

Robert Calef was a merchant in Massachusetts during the witch hunts of 1692. The primary source that is being analyzed isn’t about him but is from many stories that he collected and put them together in a manuscript. This manuscript that contains true accounts about the trial and it included the attempted escape of Mrs. Cary of Charlestown Massachusetts told from her husband Nathaniel Cary’s viewpoint. I believe that Nathaniel Cary wanted this account to be written in order to highlight and expose how the puritans handled the witch trials and specifically the trial against his wife and to inform people of what was truly happening in New England at the time. In this primary source analysis, I will be discussing what this document tells us

The Salem witch trials were a difficult time for the citizens of the Massachusetts Colony in the late seventeenth century. They were accused of practicing the Devil’s magic, which many believed to be real; so real that people were being imprisoned and executed for it. Between the years 1692 and 1693 there were over two hundred accusations and about 20 people and two dogs were killed altogether.

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 seventeenth century was a time of great religious excitement both in Europe and America. It had been widely believed even before the Puritans left England that witchcraft was a well-practiced profession in Europe. The times for settlers in the New America proved to be quite different and so ever changing. With many new rules, laws, regulations and curfew a true government was being born. Throughout this vast change, religious beliefs became so strong to be studied and participated in. Religions that divided from Christianity and Catholic beliefs, such as Puritans, who had a clear vision of what their churches were going to be like. Witchcraft had been a crime a long time before the trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and prior

The infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials began in early 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts. It all began as a childlike game of a fortune teller to discover the future of the young girls. The Salem Witchcraft Trials began January of 1692, when two girls, Betty Paris (nine) and Abigail Williams (seventeen) , began to have fits and convulsions. They were seen by doctor William Griggs, and the only reasonable diagnosis he knew of was bewitchment. By the end of February, two other girls, Ann Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard, became ill. All together, there were 10 girls that were afflicted. Ann Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard accused Sarah Good, Tituba, and Sarah Osborne 's spirits of hurting them. Tituba, Reverend Parris 's slave, had

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 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 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

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.

The Salem Witch Trials were a prime part of American history during the early 17th century. During this time, religion was the prime focus and way of life within colonies. This was especially true for the Puritan way of life. Puritans first came to America in hopes of practicing Christianity their own way, to the purest form. The Puritans were fundamentalists who believed every word transcribed in the Bible by God was to be followed exactly for what it was. The idea of the devil controlling a woman and forming her into a Witch was originated from people’s lack of awareness on illness, disease or simple hysteria. The Colonists lack of expertise on the methodical approach through sciences, left them concluding to a spiritual phenomenon.

In the year of 1692, Salem Village, Massachusetts went through an event known as the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. This odd occurrence all started whenever 2 young village girls encountered a West Indian Slave woman to learn about thier futures. One of the girls claimed to see a coffin by looking into a glass with egg white in it. In the months following this incident, one of the girls father, Reverend Samuel Parris reported the girls suspicious behavior. He reported that they had been crawling in holes, under chairs and stools, and mumbling ridiculous phrases. Reverend Parris later found out about these girls meeting with the indian woman and professed that the girls were not sick, but rather possessed. This “possession” spread rapidly and the witch hunt began.

The Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1692 caused 20 people to be hung or pressed to death and 4 perished in jail. In addition, 200 people in Salem were accused of being witches. On June 10 of 1692, Bridget Bishop was charged with practicing witchcraft and she was also accused of bewitching her husband to death. The result of her not confessing was that she was hung to her death. All of this frenzy started in the house of Samuel Parris. His daughters were consumed by the bizarre tales told by their Indian slave, Tituba. Over the next several months, the girls array strange behavior. After arriving at court, the young girls accused two white women and Tituba of practicing witchcraft. After this strange incident, the people of Salem started to

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.