Salem Witch Trials During The Spring Of 1692

With In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Mary Beth Norton becomes another participant in the search for the rationale behind what remains perhaps the most irrational collective failure of discretion that America has ever seen. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings held in Massachusetts. As Norton writes, the unrest began in February 1692, when two young girls in Salem Village had sudden, severe fits of hysteria which doctors could not explain with any earthly diagnosis. As more young girls in the village began to experience similar quasi-epileptic fits, the girls and their relatives began to accuse others in the village of bringing about the fits through "witchcraft." The ensuing sequence of events was

In 1692, a group of young girls from Massachusetts named Elizabeth and Abigail, believed they were being possessed by the devil and falsely accused several woman, men and children of witchcraft. Once the men and woman were accused they were ordered to attend multiple trials in which would be help in the Massachusetts general court. Once the men and woman were taken to trial they were proven guilty by the girls actions that proved the court these men and woman were apart of witchcraft. After the accuses were proven guilty in front of the court they were either held in prison and eventually died or hanged and died. There were multiple young girls who were apart of the witchcraft accusing other than just Elizabeth and Abigail.

Although there were many possible causes for the Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692, social division and drama were the most significant. Interestingly, historians have found out about the differences that were present between the accused and the accusers of the witches that fueled the witch hunt. Accordingly, the eastern side of Salem was more powerful and wealthier than the western side of town, which consisted of most accusers who charged people on the east (Doc E). As it is possible to see, there was a division, or crack, in the community, and the western half became jealous or disliked the others in the other half.

Many people know the stories of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. These events took place in two completely different times, the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and McCarthyism in the early 1950’s. Due to the drastic time difference, different belief systems, and other differences, many wouldn’t even think to compare the two. In 1692 Salem, Massachusetts a group of young girls, led by Abigail Williams, began accusing the townspeople of witchcraft.

Salem Witch Trials In 1992, the religious beliefs caused the Puritans to be accused of witchcraft. It all started with three girls with unusual behavior. The girls threw things,screamed, made strange animal noises, wedge themselves under furniture, twisted themselves into odd positions, and felt like they were being pricked with pins.

Centuries ago within the two years of 1692 and 1693, the Salem witch trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony. During this tragic event, there were over two hundred people, including male and female, who were accused of being witches. Isolating the accusations, there were only about twenty or those people who were executed for the practice of “Devil’s Magic”. Such practice of witchcraft was against many religions, like Christianity (Blumberg). The trials begin in January of 1692 because of Reverend Parris’ daughter, Elizabeth (who was only nine), and his niece, Abigail Williams (who was eleven).

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692. BY 1690 some two dozen people had been accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts in early 1692 several girls in Salem village a farm community near bustling salem town were stricken with seizures. villagers attributed the seizures to witchcraft as the girls named those supposedly responsible for their afflictions, other residents of salem village and near by towns testified that they too were victims of witchcraft. They claimed other villagers used demonic powers to kill their children, sicken their farm animals, and otherwise harm their families and property.

Have you ever been accused of being a witch? Well if you have you’re not alone because in the small town of Salem over 200 Salemites were accused of being a witch by most of the townspeople in 1692. The girls of Salem said that they were bewitched in the woods by Tituba but I believe that they lied because Betty Parris acted like she was sick for several days, Abigail tried to say that John Proctors wife was bewitching her, and Abigail said that John Proctors wife stabbed her with a needle in the stomach. In act 1 Betty Parris acted as if she was sick and wouldn’t “wake up” from her coma. I believe that Betty acted sick because she was in the woods with Tituba and all the girls and her dad saw her so Betty acted sick so she would not get in trouble.

There were over twenty people who were tried and executed under the inference of studying witchcraft. Twenty people got executed and fourteen of them were women. Five of these women were imprisoned, including two pure infants. There were over 200 people in total who were accused of practicing this so-called “witchcraft”. This was all an immense rage that started in Europe that lasted from the 14th century all the way to the end of the 17th century and was unfortunately brought back up in the late 19th century.

In 1692, witchcraft trials in Massachusetts were probably the most famous trials of colonial America. The events surrounding the outbreaks of witchcraft in Salem are probably the best-documented witch trials in American history. In New England, in the 50 years leading up to the Salem trials, dozens of people were executed for witchcraft. Trials continued to crop up, and according to one source, a member of a mob killed a suspected witch outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall in the late 1781’s. The victims of the witchcraft prosecutions were almost all women that were elderly or perceived as a drain on the community.

The Salem Witch Trials began in the 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials caused the life’s of 19 men, women, and children. Throughout the months of 1692 more than 150 people were accused of witchcraft or being a servant to the devil. Witchcraft is the practice of magic involving spells and spirits. The first person who was hanged for being a servant to the devil was a women.

There are many reasons why justice is not best determined in the court of law. In Salem’s century, many people were the victims of the witchcraft trials by the court of law. Today people have better education and knowledge to decide someone innocent or guilty in a court of law. There is no guarantee that laws can give people justice because decisions from a group of people can decide someone’s life and future.

Being that one of the alleged victims was the daughter of a reverend, it was more believable that the girls' accusations were factual. In the 1600s people were afraid the devil was trying to intrude and destroy the peace of Christians. Salem experienced a heightened sense of fear of the devil (History). Being a strongly religious community, Salem was terrified after Tituba, confessed to practicing witchcraft. During the trials, the accused were given test to prove their innocence, one being a test to recite the Lord’s Prayer (Witchcraft).

The narrator describes Salem as a new town with strict puritan way of life and its out look on the rest of the world. The town saw itself as persecuted a legacy of persecution puritans faced in the old world because the puritans sought a community they managed to survive. Around 1692 much that was good about the puritans the narrator suggests has been lost. The Salem witch trials were an opportunity for the neighbors to vent against neighbors to publicly air long standing jealousy to accuse those they disliked and all while sounding righteous and religious. The first scene opens as Tituba the Rev Parisis slave enters the bedroom.

Bridget Bishop, a resident of Salem, was the first person to be tried as a witch. Surprisingly, Bishop was accused of witch craft by the highest number of witneses. After Bishop, more than two hundred people were tried of practicing witchcraft and twenty were executed. Many of these accusations arose from jealous, lower class members of society, especially towards women who had come into a great deal of land or wealth. Three young children by the names of Elizabeth, Abigail, and Ann were the first three people to be “harmed” by the witches.