Duplicity and Tragedy: The Salem Witch Trials

Salem 1692, two girls ,Betty Parris, age nine, and her eleven year old cousin Abigail Williams, had a dream. They wanted to be the best actors in the village. They worked very hard to do that and they got twenty people killed. Betty and Abigail were Puritans and they are not supposed to lie or they would end up with the devil in the afterlife, but it seemed like they didn’t care. That’s why we ask, why were people blaming the innocent for being witches in Salem, 1692? The Salem Witch Trials were caused by two poor, young girls who acted possessed. There were also other people who took the risk of lying and accused other people. Most of the accusers were under the age of twenty and woman. The little girls caused the Salem Witch Trials hysteria by pretending to be possessed. Most of the accusers were poor and lived in the western part of the town.

Most of the accusers were under the age of twenty. I can infer that woman under the age of twenty hold grudges, for older people, longer than others do. There were twenty-three people that were under the age of twenty and there was fifty-two people of the ages forty-one through sixty and both were mostly woman. (Doc. B)

(Doc. C&D) Their names were Betty Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams. They asked a West Indian slave woman named Tituba to help them know their fortunes. The two girls started acting strange over the next several months. Their father was curious about the two girls behavior. They would crawl into holes and creep under chairs and stools. The two girls accused two white women and Tituba for practicing witchcraft ,when they were being accused, and for putting them in such pain. The three women were sent to jail in Boston. Only Tituba confessed she was practicing witchcraft, which she was, but the other two white woman didn’t want to say they did something that they didn’t do and that is what started it