Salem Witchcraft Research Paper

By the spring of 1692, Salem Village, Massachusetts the infamous witch hunt began. It all started by several girls diagnosed by a doctor who claimed they were possessed by the devil. The girls later claimed they were bewitched by some local women and saw these women in their dreams, torment them. Sarah Good, a beggar and described by the people of Salem as bad tempered, filthy, strangely detached from the community, happened to be one of the first three individuals who were accused. The girls claimed they were pinched, nibbled or injured by three women including Sarah Good. Good’s examination began in March 1, 1692. The examination was reported by Ezekiell Chevers.

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Seeking religious refuge, the Puritans were Protestant Christians that believed in predestination. They were fundamentalists who believed in a literal translation of the bible and took their religion very serious. Based on the religious text, the mentioning of devils and witches caused speculations and even hysteria in Salem in 1692. It was thought that the devil would enter a normal person’s body using it to carry out sinful and outlandish actions. A witch might cause a faithful husband to commit adultery or a young girl to cry out in church. Admission of guilt, unusual powers or physical traits, anger followed by mischief, and spectral evidence (evidence that a victim was “visited” by a demon) were all signs that a person was a witch. Starting off in New England, the Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 was born through the accusations of people practicing witchcraft.

What really happened during Salem 1692? Many questions still haunt many Americans in the beginning of the twenty-first century. During 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear about satanic afflictions, like the same way everyone else feels about terrorism around the world today. Everything about witchcraft outbreak during that year was strange. Many responses to the information were never answered during the late seventeenth-century when the witchcraft crisis occurred. During this time there were horrifyingly Indian attacks that mainly scared northern frontier of settlers, refugees, and also the main accusers of witches these groups all fled to communities like Salem. But on the other side colony’s leaders were very defensive about

Salem Witch Trials, one of the worst times in history, many people were killed by hanging, and pressing. There was only one person to be killed by getting crushed, it was 81 year old Giles Cory, they put a board on top of him, and people interrogated him, trying to make him testify against his wife Martha, whenever he refused to testify against her they put a pile of rocks on top of the board, eventually getting to the point where he couldn’t take the pressure of all the rocks and died, 3 days later his wife was accused and hung.

The Salem Witch Trials In 1692, a fateful event took place in Salem Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials was a time in history where more than two hundred people were incriminated for practicing witchcraft. Several factors motivated the witch trials of 1692. This eventful time started with twelve year old Abigail Williams pretending to be possessed. Rumours were spread throughout Salem, and the blame for practicing witchcraft was focused on certain people.

Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who do nothing” (Gurteen). The Salem witch trials began in the Spring of 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. A group of young girls, who claimed to be possessed by the devil, began accusing a few women of witchcraft, which caused hysteria among the people in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Approximately 150 people were convicted of practicing witchcraft, 19 were hanged at Gallows Hill, and others died in captivity (“Salem Witch Trials”). These tragic events lead to the convictions of many innocent people in Salem Village and later in Salem Town, Ipswich, Gloucester, and other towns (Brooks). The Salem witch trials are a

Far later on, once his perceived immediate threat was handled, it was time to handle the long-term. When King James had The Bible translated from Hebrew to the “Old English Bible (His own variation of the Bible) he created a few “new” passages of his own making, one of those, being “Thou Shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus: 22:18 – King James Bible)

The Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials was a massive witch-hunt that began in 1692 and continued until 1693. (Anderson) The witch trials started in Massachusetts when a doctor found three ten-year-old little girls whose limbs bent in obscure and almost demonic ways. The doctor, convinced that the three girls were performing witchcraft, took the three girls away and sent them to court.

According to Cotton Mather, Who is a leading minister and author of several books, “The Salem witchcraft trial where one of the most infamous episodes in American colonial history” (Dudley 26). Cotton Mather Stated, “In early 1692 some children in Salem...accused three women of bewitching them (Dudley 26). Salem was a village in Massachusetts close to Boston (Dudley 1). Over many of months people had been accused and executed over the thought of them using witchcraft (Dudley 26). Even though these people were accused there was no real proof showing that they used witchcraft, so innocent people died. The Salem witch trials were cruel, unneeded, and should have never happened in history.

During the spring of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, a group of young girls believed they were possessed by the devil. This became the start of what is known as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch hunts originated in Europe and was spread to the New England colonies by the 17th century. The trials were a time of mass hysteria where many people of the village were suspected to be practicing witchcraft and afflicting others. The Salem Witch Trials lasted less than a year, but has made a significant impact on American society. The trials ended with many people being executed and arrested because of being found guilty of practicing witchcraft. Even though the trials ended in 1692, there are similar historical events throughout many countries that involve

In 1692, a series of accusations of witchcraft took place in Salem, Massachusetts. Over the course of the six month hysteria, roughly 150 residents of Salem were accused of witchcraft, twenty of whom were put to death. This period has come to be known as the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials began when two young girls in Salem began to act strangely; they would often slip into transes, murmur strange phrases, and their bodies would become convoluted via spasms and seizure-like fits. Reverend Parris, the minister of Salem Village at the time of the trials, proposed witchcraft as an explanation for the girls’ symptoms. A local doctor’s diagnosis confirmed these suspicions, and shortly thereafter, several other girls in the village

Mass hysteria can have an immense effect on situations and groups of people. It can transform a person’s way of thinking and develop a different reaction to a situation based on excessive fear or anxiety. For example, in the Salem Witch Trials, mass hysteria completely blindsided the townspeople, judges, and reverends. The mass hysteria surrounding the Salem Witch Trials were justified.

The Salem Witch Trials was quite something that was not just or done properly. Throughout the video I have examined some things not right and sometimes humorous because of how they judge and condemn a living soul. The judges acted like God and judge right there at that moment to decide that person's fate to live or to die. How they judge according to the video was they have the so called possessed young girls and then the girls seem to decide the person fate.

Witchcraft accusations and trials in 1692 rocked the colony of Salem Massachusetts. There are some different views that are offered concerning why neighbors decided to condemn the people around them as witches and why they did what they did to one another. Carol Karlsen in her book The Devil in the Shape of a Woman and Bernard Rosenthal in Salem Story give several factors, ranging from woman hunting to shear malice, that help explain why the Salem trials took place and why they reached the magnitude that they did. The theories put fourth by Karlsen of a society that accusations against women as witches explain the trail, and Rosenthals ideas of discourse in the community are supported or partially disproved by