The Accused: The Salem Witch Trials

During the late 1600s, Salem, Massachusetts faced a period of witch trials due to panic stirring among the Puritans in the area. Because of these

The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts during 1692 when citizens turned on each other and accused their neighbors of witchcraft, the Devil’s magic. The trials, which lasted from June to September, resulted in nineteen men and women being hanged, one man being pressed to death, and many other people dying in jail. Almost as soon as it began, the hysteria that had swept through Puritan Massachusetts ended. There are many opinions as to why the witchcraft trials caused such hysteria in Salem but many conclude that it was triggered by a spoiled food supply, Puritan religious beliefs, the constricted roles of females in Salem society, and the political and social tensions in the colony.

The Trials happened in 1692 in Puritan Massachusetts, in a town called Salem. Nineteen men and women were hanged on grounds of practicing dark magic and making a pact with Satan (in other words, for being witches). Hundreds of people were imprisoned; several died there. Additionally, one man (of over seventy years!) was crushed to death with heavy stones and "the lives of many were irrevocably changed." (Salem Witch Museum)

Between the 1300s and 1600s, there had been an uprising of witch accusations in Europe. When it finally died down, the craze soon followed into the colony of Massachusetts Bay. While in the 1690s, the Salem Witch Trials threatened New England’s freedom of religion and conservative beliefs; the evil entity as well threatened the country’s political and economic system, giving the government a reason to get involved. Because Massachusetts Bay was filled with religious refugees from England, a lot of tension formed between the colonies, England, and France. The King Williams War between France and the English colonies had put a tremendous strain on the Salem resources and its people. The colony was barely able to support itself and when more refugees fled to Salem from sounding areas, it came close to collapsing. Within the Puritan community, there had been a lot of hardship and strenuous issues mainly due to the shift between the people in society at the time. The Salem Witch Trials were not influenced by the presence of witchcraft but rather the exhausting hardships, the societal changes and the desire for complete control of the Puritan community.

Abigail Williams was Parris' niece and was accused alongside his daughter, Betty Parris. They were accused because Tituba, a slave accused of practicing vodou, showed them Witchcraft. Tituba was Parris' slave which points out that he must have known that she was practicing Witchcraft. The jury brought Tituba into the court and questioned her, she was then found guilty

The Salem Witch Trials, although probably the most famous witch hunts, were not the first documented in American history. Thirty years before the events in Salem, a similar persecution against witches broke out in Hartford, Connecticut. The results were nearly fifty persecutions and eleven executions for conspiring with the devil. In Europe, witch trials were even more common and led to hundreds dying in places like Scotland and England. Trials and executions in Europe were coming to a close as Salem’s trials were just beginning, and the European trials and had a much higher death toll. (Kallen) In most respects, the hysteria in Salem was not the first or last of its kind. “The Salem outbreak shared important characteristics with

The Salem witch trails were in an age of superstition. There were great tensions with the fact that some individuals were changing religions, or they were leaving to gain different religious opinions. Although the Massachusetts colony was under a lot of stress and tension that did not give them the right to hang or burn individuals because they were witches. Now, some of the members of this colony that participated in the Salem witch trial might have had a psychological and issues, but that still did not give them the right to hang innocent people.

In 1692, 19 women were hung and 200 more were accused of witchcraft. All because of the strange actions of 8 young girls. These 8 girls showed signs of being possessed by the Devil. They had seizures, trances, delusions and extreme illness unexpectedly. Fear of being killed by the Indians and worry that there was not enough food and water put the level of tension at a new high for the villages, spread this hysteria faster than wildfire.

There are many factors that contribute to the cause behind the Salem Witch Trials but I am only going to state the ones I feel most important to me like politics, religion, family feuds, economics, and the imagination and fear of the people. With such a small town there is a lot of talk and conflict among others which begins causing hysteria and eventually got 20 people killed because of it, people who were not in fact guilty.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were considered to be a dark and difficult time in American history. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 19 were killed during the time of the trials.The Salem Witch Trials were a series of witchcraft cases brought before local magistrates in the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 17th century. The Salem Witch Trials officially began in February of 1692, when girls accused the first three victims, Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, of witchcraft and ended in May of 1693, when the remaining victims were released from jail.

Over the course of a year, dozens of people, mostly teenage girls, claimed to be put in spells casted by men and women who had "enlisted the supernatural powers of the devil". This occurred in Salem village, a small village a few miles away from Salem town. The accusations started in the Parris household in 1962.

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.

"You 're a liar! I 'm no more a witch than you are a wizard! If you take my life away, God will give you blood to drink!" (Sarah Good). To this day, there is still so much speculation on what was the actual cause of the hysteria that was the Salem Witch Trials. Were any of the women accused, like Sarah Good, actually practicing witchcraft? Or were the accusations placed on these women placed out of spite or jealousy? What caused these young women to have these strange symptoms in the first place? There are many theories to the cause of the chaos that occurred in Salem. The goal of this paper is to identify the different factors that played into the start of the trials and to discuss what went on in the trials themselves. This paper will explore these theories and come to a conclusion on what caused Salem to go into such a frenzy as it did in this time.

itchcraft has been around for many centuries. In 1491, the Puritan Legal Code was created, and on this list, witchcraft was number two. This means that witchcraft was only under idolatry. Witchcraft was considered worse than blasphemy, murder, poisoning, and bestiality. Most people considered even murder to be better than witchcraft.

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.