The Salem Witch Trials Of 1692

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a series of prosecutions of people who were accused of acts of witchcraft or of being a witch in Salem, Massachusetts through the time period of February 1692 through May 1693. This was a dark time in history as more than 200 prosecutions took place and at least 20 people were killed during this time of fear and hysteria. The accusations began as three girls Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne were accused of witchcraft from other young girls in the community. During this time period, fear of the Devil was common as people in Salem were very devoted to their religion and religious practices. As one of the accused girls, Tituba, confessed to working for the Devil and admitting to being a witch, this caused panic and hysteria as a massive witch hunt took place to find more of these witches. This confession was the main reason behind months and months of fear and mass panic as it triggered more accusations.

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.

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

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.

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 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

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

Brought to the New England colonies by the Puritans was not only a strict theology, but an understanding and fear of the supernatural world they believed was so tightly intertwined with their earthly world. Therefore, it was only natural for the pious colonists to be wary of things they did not understand and suspect denizens that did not act accordingly to the standards of what it meant to be a Puritan. However, even though there were many suspicions of certain individuals associating with the Devil and performing witchcraft, there was usually not enough substantial evidence to indict said individuals. Then, after several Native American raids, a change in government to an Anglican leader, and the arrival of Separatists, Puritans became even more wary and anxious of those around them. This turn of events set off the biggest witch hunt in colonial America, known as the Salem Witch Trials. Due to her personal misfortunes and venomous tongue, Sarah Good was one of the first three women to be accused of witchcraft and was later hung on July 19, 1692.

Salem was a very disperse community in the Massachusetts Bay colony with a growing Puritan community in the northern America. Towns in the colony were scattered by a half days travel or more. In view of this, transportation and communication was a very slow and the settlers were threatened by the attack of bears and other wild animals. Puritans were spiritual people and believed that God is the ruler of everything they possessed. The puritans believed that they were the chosen people and therefore they had to seek perfection. They were also of the believe that it was God who provided them with good health, riches and fortunes. Salvation was an important virtue of the puritans and God could take away their salvation if they sinned and went contrary to the bible. Also, misfortunes and bad things happened to them as a presence of evil and showed Gods disapproval of their salvation. Bible reading, fasting, prayers and preaching formed an integral part of the puritan community

The United States of America is known to many as the Home of the Free. The United States has built itself on pride knowing that its citizens are protected against a government that abuses its power. Also, religious freedom and a separation of church and state are key fundamentals of America. However, the present day United States had to go through several conflicts in order to preserve the unalienable rights. One of these obstacles the United States had to overcome was the Salem Witch Trials.

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

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 began in 1692 and became one of the most infamous witchcraft episodes in United States history. It all started in the small Puritan village of Salem when little Betty Parris and Abigail Williams become ill and did not show any sign of improvement. This is when Reverend Parris, Betty’s father, called in the village doctor William Griggs. His diagnosis of bewitchment had the village overtaken with mass hysteria that would continue to plague them long after the May 1693 end. During the trials one hundred and fifty six people were accused of witchcraft: fifty four of which confessed, nineteen of which were hanged, four of which died in jail, and one whom was pressed to death.

Throughout the ages, humans have proven themselves countless times to be disloyal , selfish, and underhanded. It is with a degree of smugness and superiority that we often regard events such as the cruel, corrupt governmental systems of the past, abuses of the church, and mass murders in the name of religion. We tend to believe that we have made improvements in areas such the definition and protection of personal freedoms and we have faith that our journalists will uncover and reveal the very beginnings of corrupt governmental behaviors. Our society looks at both the present and the future with optimism and their unflagging confidence in our own ability to create something superior to those governments that have come before us. This causes us to neglect to face the corruption present in our own lives. Most people can recall when they first learned about the Salem Witch trials that occurred in 1693 because they were shocked and horrified that the townspeople let these events take place and spiral. What people do not realize is that they are like the townspeople in Salem, Massachusetts and similar injustices and dangerous abuses of power in the name of government and religion are happening right around them now. Lies, deceit and corruption, have always reverberated throughout American history and people need constant reminders to stay vigilant and aware. As a writer, I am able to reach a large audience with this reminder and I saw my play The Crucible “as a vehicle for

The town of Salem, Massachusetts and it’s surrounding towns and villages had an unexpected and disastrous series of events in the spring of 1692. A small group of girls in the puritan community began experimenting with witchcraft with a house slave, named Tituba. She showed them tricks from her old village in Barbados, but after the girls became too enveloped with the tricks the became bewitched by their imagination. The began having seemingly uncontrollable fits of blood curdling screams of pain and sharp spasms. The people of the town immediately thought that this was all because of witchcraft and began a hunt for all witches in the community. The girls saw this as an opportunity for power and they took it. The “witches” started out as the