Witch Trials Events

Nearly anyone from the New England has heard of the famous Salem Witch Trials. A year of persecution, leading to the accusation of nearly 200 citizens of all ages. No one was safe; men, women, children, even pets stood trial and 20 were hung for the supposed crime of witchcraft (Blumberg). 1692 was a year of witch hunting. Most today blame the trials on hysteria, or perhaps a bad case of paranoia.

In the spring of 1692, in a small village know at the time as Salem, tension was brewing between the local townspeople of Salem and the young women accused of witchcraft. Not many knew this yet but the trials to come over the next few months would have an enormous impact on the history of Massachusetts and America as well. Salem was a decent sized village with about 500 residents residing within the city lines. So for the most part everybody knew everybody, and one of the most popular figures in salem was the town minister, Reverend Samuel Parris. Parris was a father and a uncle to two young girls named Betty Parris and Abigail Williams both around the age of 9.

Her anger toward the possibility of anyone telling the truth struck fear into them with her maniacal threat against them. This only made the hysteria last longer with their lies. Anger greatly impacted the witch trial hysteria in Salem. The truth wasn’t able to be told. Another key role to the hysteria was jealousy.

Since the beginning of the trials there have been many injustices as well as an increase in paranoia. For every person tried there was little to no evidence besides trust of words from another human being. Many women and some men were convicted based on what others think, if someone thinks that another person is acting suspicious, they will be tried and most likely hanged or imprisoned. Remembering the Salem Witch Trials is remembering victims being killed, tortured, and imprisoned because of what they may believe in or because of spectral evidence. The court, Oyer and Terminer, was the main suspect for the killings of nineteen individuals, the court was put in place specifically for cases of witchcraft but the court allowed spectral evidence as a reason for the person tried to be hanged.

Lastly, I am going to talk about the final and the most important and impacting reason of the witch trials, and that was people and their beliefs. Everybody had their own way of living and doing things just as we do now. If they saw something that was against their belief they automatically assumed there was evil or something that was not right. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” That was their religion so if they thought they were a witch they were put death instantly.

The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,

Salem Witch Trials were a series of prosecutions and hearings of people being accused of witchcraft, at which it took place in 1692 and in 1693. Similar to that, was the Red Scare. The Red Scare, commonly known as McCarthyism, took place from 1959-1954 and was a campaign that endorsed the use of unfair allegations and or investigations. The horrible rumors and acts in both events really made people fear what was going on around them and pushed them to act on it, which lead to if you were with us or against us, which came with punishments and or hangings. Both the themes fear and with us or against us, play huge roles and are major factors in the upsurge of the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare.

Fear is inherent in many Witch Hunts, especially the witch hunt of Salem in 1692. Like said previously fear spreads like fire. In the play “The Crucible” everyone was struck by fear. Fear influenced people to take extreme measures and act irrationally. Abigail Williams a character in the play had many fears.

Fear that spread among a group of people in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials, that event in history is a prime example of Mass Hysteria. In Salem the reason why so many women were killed was because of Mass Hysteria. It caused many people, in Salem during this event to think fast, rash and jump to conclusions. “The Crucible”, a short play dedicated to these events in Salem shows us how hysteria was such a leading cause of why the Witch Trials had even occurred. Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth.

People were so full of fear that they would do anything to eliminate their anxiety. The McCarthy hearings of the 1950s reenacted the hysteria of the Salem witch trials of 1692 by spreading mass fear of prosecution, creating false accusations, and blacklisting people. The Salem witch trials were considered to be America 's most notorious episode of witchcraft hysteria. Many innocent people were killed as a result of false accusations, and many other women were put through trials to determine if they were witches.

The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.

The Salem witch trials was one of the most absurd and tragic events in history of pre-colonial America. A fine example of how believing in accusations and hearsay could affect a lot of people in a short span of time. the justice system is flawed and prejudice was allowed to reign over the people. I found this topic very interesting even though it is one of the most regretted in history. I’ve always been the type of person who likes reading all those weird and peculiar things on the internet.

A great line from Miller’s composition describing this situation was, “The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.” This can be explained as the witch-hunt set in a greater fear of panic when they realized how much freedom they had to accuse someone of witchcraft and the accusers would be able to take the accused

The Salem Witch Trials The belief of witchcraft can be traced back centuries to as early as the 1300’s. The Salem Witch Trials occurred during 1690’s in which many members of Puritan communities were accused and convicted of witchcraft. These “witch trials” were most famously noted in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Many believe this town to be the starting point for the mass hysteria which spread to many other areas of New England.

Not many people know much about what actually happened in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe someone would think that it was just about witchcraft and crazy people being hanged, but it is a lot more than that. The Salem Witch Trials only occurred between 1692 and 1693, but a lot of damage had been done. The idea of the Salem Witch Trials came from Europe during the “witchcraft craze” from the 1300s-1600s. In Europe, many of the accused witches were executed by hanging.