Three Deranged Girls: The Salem Witch Trials

During the Salem witch trials many women were accused of practicing witchcraft. The accusation of the women who were thought to be witches was the result of many deaths in Salem, Massachusetts. The trials began with two young girls, Elizabeth “Betty” Parris and her cousin Abagail Williams, who began having violent contortions and random outbursts of screaming. The girls were thought to have been under an evil hand or suffering from a witch’s curse. The girls began giving the names of the witches that were harming them beginning with the Parris family slave Tituba.

In the book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, Rosalyn Schanzer discusses an outbreak of witch accusations in the little town of Salem, Massachusetts in late 1692. People were accusing friends, enemies, and even family members of being witches and plotting evil schemes with the devil. No one was safe anymore. If a person were to be accused, they were stuck in a stinky, grubby jail where they were pelted with never-ending questions.

The Salem Witch Trial is a historically located incident stirred by the accusations of an Indian slave woman, named Tituba, who confessed to the practice of witchcraft under the pressure and physical force of colonial slave owners in 1692. She escaped execution, unlike many accused women, because of her ability to acclimate to the culture and society of her oppressors. In Breslaw’s portrait of Tituba’s life starting with her ambiguous Amerindian-Caribbean roots, she shows how Tituba’s first step in acclimating to British-colonial society was to force her mother tongue to take a backseat to the language introduced and enforced by English colonizers who captured “American Indians to sell as slaves in Barbados” for the purpose of providing slave labor to British colonies in

There are many believed reasons as to why the girls did what they did, one of which is that they had a mental breakdown(Magoon,82). Throughout history teenagers have been victims of stress and back then was no different. It is reasonable to think that the girls accused people of being witches because they were under so much stress that they cracked. Also in Salem the teenagers were told to be quiet, exclude their emotions, and behave well(Magoon,82). The parents wanted them to act like grown ups before they needed to and this caused the teens to crash and burn you could say.

Salem Witch Trials Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were an example of a genocide. Women were accused of witchcraft with little to no evidence. These practices were not unlike those of McCarthyism. McCarthyism was a similar incident, in which many people were accused of being secret communists in the 1950’s.

As their puzzled father ,Samuel Parris, observed the two mysterious little girls creep under chairs and spin around on the ground he pondered where this weird behavior was coming from. In Salem there were two little girls who were envious of the rich, so they made it clear that they could make people tremble in fear if they did not like you or wanted what you had. Everyone in Salem was terrified because there were so many people being accused of witchcraft. 22 people were hanged because the two little girls were pretending to be afflicted. The Salem witch trial Hysteria of 1692 was caused by two poor, young girls who claimed to be afflicted because of jealousy.

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 1692, A town in Massachusetts by the name of Salem Village found itself in one most documented cases of mass hysteria in history. This saga started with three girls: Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Parris, and Ann Putnam a neighborhood friend. Abigail Williams, the niece of the town’s minister, began to display weird and questionable behavior. The town’s physician,William Greggs, was called to determine the cause of this sporadic behavior. The town’s physician determined that the three girls were under “the Devil’s influence” and they had been bewitched.

A similar pattern throughout the crisis was seen. All those accused where not born in Salem even if they had lived there all their life or were Indians (linking them to the American Indian war in 1622-1624) or those who were previously accused of witchcraft. Also mentions the afflicted girls and fortune telling how they all got scared when a coffin appeared in one of their

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,

Three Sovereigns for Sarah tells the Story of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, I will explain the Key factors as to why the Witchcraft Hysteria even took place over 300 years ago. First, it’s important to know the background of the dwellers from Salem and origins of the dwellers at the time. Almost 90 years prior to the trials, many British citizens and their families had finally migrated to “The New World” (America) at around 1607, after discovering the new land many sought to begin new lives pursuing a perceived economically successful Country. As Well as Religion played a Huge part in British Migration due to many seeking a Free land where one could freely believe and practice their beliefs without the threat of religious persecution amongst them. From the many Religions to sprout from this transition, the Puritan Belief was one

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 novel A Delusion of Satan written by Frances Hill describes the history of the Salem Witch Trials (“Salem”) in 1692, the causes and effects of the witch hysteria, and the biographies of major characters associated with the trials. In the novel, Hill started out explaining the Puritans’ beliefs and customs, the gender roles of men and women in Salem and why women were easily accused of being witches and practicing witchcraft in the 17th century. During that time, women were easily accused of practicing witchcraft because they were viewed as physically, politically and spiritually weaker than men. Men were perceived as the power, status, and worthy in the society, and they dominated women’s behavior and social status. In the 17th century,

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.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play about what happened during the Salem Witch Trials. It gives insight about what people had to deal with in this situation and how they handled it. The trials were basically a big test which helped figuring out whether or not people were guilty of witchcraft. This is an example of what a crucible is. In our world today we still have crucibles and even though they are different than back then, they all relate to each other because of what influence they have on people.