Salem Witch Trial Questions And Answers

The women who were accused of practicing witchcraft were given a chance to confess and had their trial presented in front of a jury. These people at the time did not know much about illnesses at the time to explain what exactly was going on with the two young girls. The actions that they took were to keep the devil from coming after them in order to protect themselves. However, there is a stronger argument that the trials were not at all justified. Many believe the trials were not justified simply because innocent people were killed because of the accusations of two young girls.

Since the witchcraft was such a confusing and terrible time for everyone, people were getting accused by these girls all the time, a lot of the time the court and the church would look for signs of being a witch, like making the accused take the test i talked about before but sometimes they just trusted the girls and didn't look for evidence at all. They just convicted the person to be a witch. This seems crazy to me because it doesn't seem fair at all, they didn't even have a chance to prove that they were innocent, instead they were automatically a witch. The Salem Witch Trials finally came to an end when the whole town felt that it was getting way out of control.

In the May of 1692, Increase Mather returned to New England with Sir William Phipps. By the time of their arrival, the witch trials were already taking place, having started a few months prior in February. As the witch hunt in Salem escalated, the prison cells started to fill up with individuals accused of witchcraft. The confusing political situation following the ascension on William and Mary and the new charter allowed for a court Oyer and Terminer to be put in place on the 27th of May 1692. The lieutenant governor, William Stoughton, became the chief magistrate for this newly appointed court.

Witches were said to be a form of Satan, and God has his constant worship to undergo annoyance of the evil spirits. In Exodus 22:18 it states how the Puritans have strong point to prosecute witches from what it says in the Bible. Another cause of the prosecution of people for witchcraft is suspicious acts from the adolescent girls. Abigail and Betty wanted to know their fortunes for the future from Tituba.

One reason the witch trials transpired was a result of jealousy. The accusers were primarily single women over the age of 16 (Document B). The ones who were accused primarily were married women over the age of 21 (Document B). The accusing women may have been envious of the other women’s marriage.

Salem Puritans accused women of witchcraft, in order to oppress women, and as a reaction to greed and religious fear. The Salem Witch Trials were motivated by the oppression of women. Puritan women could not own land. Women were told to keep quiet and stay in their place.

There was much superstition and ignorance in the 17th century England and hundreds of women were wrongly accused and punished. From 1484 until around 1750 some 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt or hanged in Western Europe and England. Most supposed witches were usually poor old women. Women who weren’t lucky enough to look beautiful. Any woman who was ‘crone-like’ with broken irregular teeth , sunken cheeks and a hairy lip was assumed to be a witch !

A less commonly accused type of woman that was accused was one of a younger age with a reputation for sexual promiscuity (Salem: The Real Problem with the Show). These women were feared because they could potentially control male desire to manipulate them and then become the dominant sex (Salem: The Real Problem with the Show); men, especially Puritan men, did not want that. Women continued to be accused and would be until the witch trials

This evidence helps explain the jealousy and boredom the young girls experienced during this period of time, Another possible cause for the Salem witch trials was that the girls were great liars and

In Document B, Demos presents that most of the accusers of witches were single females in their younger years of age. In the late 1600s, women were extremely dependent upon men for their financial stability, overall safety, and mental/emotional well being. In an interpretation of this document, it can be assumed that these younger female women were seeking family ties and protection in a harsher time period. On the same hand, Document C, a most likely extremely biased account, recounts the “bewitched actions” of Bridget Bishop, a witch, upon the afflicted. Samuel Parris, the examiner of Bishop, seems to shed a negative light on Bishop.

In Salem, Massachusetts, Puritans were strong believers in the Bible. The Bible states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The Puritans beliefs led to them accusing 20 innocent people of being a witch, this resulted in their deaths in 1692. Even though the Puritans couldn’t see it at the time, their accusations were really based off jealousy, lies, and Salem being divided into two parts. One cause of the Salem witch trial hysteria was jealousy.

REVIEW OF LITRATURE A.) SUMMARY SOURCE A Although the whole book had information on the Salem witch trials. The introduction, chapter 1 and 2 and the conclusion had information regarding the research needed • Introduction: states what the Salem witch trials where and who they accused.

Admitting to witchcraft isn’t what she believed God wanted her to do and in order to not betray her morals and her faith she did not succumb to the temptations of admitting. She refused to slander her good name, she was very well know in the village for being a woman of god and she did not want that image to change, especially when the accusation of witchery was false.

Women often accused other women for various reasons. The accusation was threatening to their future even if they were found innocent. So, to protect themselves, they accused other women in fear of being without a spouse as they grow older and unable to fulfill the duties that a puritan women was characterized by: taking care of her children and husband. This vulnerability in the minds of women allowed the prosecutors to persuade them of their devilish acts even if they weren’t actually guilty.

As Whitney mentioned, the witch hunts occurred in the 17th century were due to the fears of women becoming “economically and psychological” independent, and threatening the male control of property and social order. Those women were viewed as “discontent” meaning the refusal of accepting their predetermined social status (Whitney 85). In contrast, men who had high authority and social status like the Putmans and Parris could purposely manipulate women and instigated the public resentment to falsely accuse, and cruelly eliminate their enemies such as Rebecca and other accused witches. Certainly, the girls and women in the Putman and Parris’s families who made the false accusations of witches and witchcraft were wielded by