The Salem Witch Trials Essay

The Salem Witch Trials began in the late 1600’s and is widely known to this day as one of the darkest periods in American history. In this essay, I will be analyzing the context and origins of the trials, the hysteria that dramatically spread through Massachusetts, and the legacy that we’ve come to know today. (thesis statement will go here I just can NOT think of one and I’m tired of wasting my time trying. Help .)

The woman across the yard.What was the Salem Witch Trials. The reason the Salem Witch Trials started was the two girls who acted like they were being possessed and the the girls were DRUNK WITH POWER!!!!

The central issue at stake for people during the Salem witch trials were a series of hearing and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft. It all started in Salem Village, in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. A man by the name of Richard Godbeer, the author of “The Salem Witch Hunt” and several other books is a professor at the University of Miami. Godbeer’s research and teaching interests center on colonial and revolutionary America. Also, his fields of interest are in gender, sex, witchcraft and religious culture.

American history is filled with many exhilarations of settling and explore new places while creating a new nation that would be hardy when challenged. In the year 1692, America witnessed a tragedy when the new resident of Salem were faced with multiple accusations of being involved in witchcraft.The matter of the Salem witchcraft trials has been depicted in concurrent fictional works such as dramas and novel and even paramount motion pictures. This period of American history has certainly stood the test of time and continues to gather attentiveness fascinate American history buffs. In order to understand the magnitude of the Salem witchcraft trials, it is important to recognize the symptoms and behaviors, who was affected, and the ergot poisoning theory.

It is often difficult to understand the thought process that other people’s might have had many years ago. A college professor and writer, Richard Godbeer attempts to explain the thought process of the people who were involved in witch trials in the year 1692 in his text “How Could They Believe That?”. He often tells students in college and high school that we can relate to how society was in 1692 and how their views on life, and specifically the supernatural forces, are completely justifiable. In this article he explains the social atmosphere, the environment in which the settlers lived in, as well as how thorough the process of persecution was.

The number of different interpretations of the Salem Witch Trials illustrates that historiography is ever changing. The historians, Hale, Starkey, Upham, Boyer and Nissenbaum, Caporal, Norton and Mattosian have all been fascinated by the trials in one way or another because they have all attempted to prove or disprove certain elements about the trials. By analysing their augments about the causes of the Salem Witch Crisis, it is evident that this historical event can be examined from a range of different perspectives and interpreted in a range of

During the time period of 1691 to 1692 the town of Salem, a small thriving community within the Puritan Massachusetts Bay colony, was struck by widespread hysteria in the form of witch trials. The way these trials and accusations played out are historically unlike any other witch trials found in European and American history. Historians have pointed to a number of economic, political, and social changes of the then existing institutions throughout the Massachusetts Bay area to be the cause of the Salem witch trials, along with the direction they took. If studied closely however, it becomes apparent that the main cause for the Salem witch trials can be found in the way the people of Salem viewed and

In the 1680’s and 1690’s there was mass hysteria in New England over supposed witchcraft. The most famous outbreak was in Salem, Massachusetts, hence the name Salem Witch Trials. In Salem, there were young girls who started acting strangely, and they leveled accusations of witchcraft against some of the West Indian servants who were immersed in voodoo tradition. Most of the accusations were against women, and soon the accusations started to shift to the substantial and prominent women. Neighbors accused other neighbors, husbands accused their wives, etc. and it kept going on for a while. There was this nature of evil and the trials didn’t end until nineteen Salem residents were put to death in 1692, more importantly before the girls

Salem Witchcraft Trials Thesis Statement = == == == ==

Salem the mysterious town of witches now as a tourist attraction although what happened in Salem in 1692 to make it a tourist attraction. In 1692 a new world emerged that had yet been fully educated in the town of Salem, witches were believed to be the Servants of the devil. Which we're here to make you pay for your sins. If you are not careful you might be accused of being a witch yourself.The Witches accused in The Witch Trials May or not may not be real but with all the hysteria and spectral evidence would be hard not to believe.

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.

In 1692, a small town, by the name of Salem, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was riveted by events that would be a significant part of our history today. Those events would be known as the Salem Witch Trials. As Americans, we should be knowledgeable about this time in our history; what caused it, what happened, and what the outcome was.

The notorious witch trials in Salem began in Spring of 1692. This started after a young group of girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, professed they were possessed by the devil. These young girls even went as far as accusing some local women of practicing witchcraft. As a frenzy spreaded throughout colonial Massachusetts, a specific court was summoned to hear cases. Bridget Bishop was the first convicted witch and she was hung in that June following her trial. Eighteen other people followed Bishop to the Salem Gallow Hill and about 150 men, women, and children were accused of being witches over the next few months. By the time September 1692 arrived the frenzy had begun to subside and they turned away from the trials. The Massachusetts General Court annulled guilty verdicts later on against those that were accused of being witches and they gave monetary and other securities to their families. However, resentment was still there in the community along with eternally tying Salem to an unpleasant period in time.

The largest outbreak of witchcraft in America took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. A group of girls, including the Parris’s Indian slave Tituba, gathered in the Salem village and were attempting to see the future by decoding “messages”. Shortly after this gathering the girls started showing signs of the possessed (pg. 73). To this day people all over America are still amazed with the events that took place in this time. But why is that? The fear of the village fell heavily onto the judicial system, which later made people focus on the proper separation of government and religious beliefs. Mass hysteria broke out amongst the village and many people were being accused, therefore leading to many innocent deaths. Although there could be many theories as to the reason the witch trials in Salem began, there are two points of view that are very commonly shared amongst people. Some believe that the Salem witch trials were women unconsciously searching for power, whereas others believe it was an encephalitis epidemic.

humanity would have come to an end, but that was not so. In 1692 a