Salem Witch Trials

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Recommended: The rise and the fall of witch hunting

Madii Dorman
3rd hour - Phipps

*the story
In the early years of New England, and also in England itself, women were worshipped for being able to make a child and it was considered magic. Once women left to become independent, it was soon found that society could not thrive without men, and the worship ended. In worships place, men began to discriminate and seem to think they owned females. In this, women were thought of as inferior and not able to be anything special unless it was evil. This also seems to have been true for those men who respected women. In 1692, nineteen men and women were executed for being accused of witchcraft and dark magic brought upon the devil himself. In the amount of time this took place one hundred eighty-five citizens of Salem, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, were accused of practicing witchcraft. What started this was very simple, a young girl with a large imagination, possibly a mental disorder, and it lead to death. At this time in what would some day become America, the colonies were fully dependent on their church. It was not questioned whether to be faithful or not. Medicine was not advanced, leading to horrendous misunderstandings. The witchcraft outbreak is believed to have started with a rapidly contagious illness, called smallpox, that is believed to be the reason the young girls, who began the accusations in Salem, were acting so odd in the first place, bringing attention onto them. Other possible reasons for their strange behavior, especially Betty Parris, is also considered to be from stress, or even a mental disorder such as autism or schizophrenia. Betty Parris became ill in the winter of 1692 and began acting strangely. During this time, other girls began acting the same and th...

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... patrons could drink cider ale and play shuffleboard, critical of her neighbors, and reluctant to pay her her bills, Bishop made the person perfect to accuse. A villager of Salem named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him. A group of matrons, assigned to examine Bishop's body, reported that they found an "excrescence of flesh". Several of the afflicted girls testified that Bishop's specter afflicted them and numerous other villagers described that they thought Bishop was the for various bits of bad luck that they had encountered. The last testimony was that, while being transported under guard past the Salem meeting house, she looked at the building and caused a section of the building to collapse and fall completely to the ground. Bishop was found guilty and on June 10th, she was sent to the gallows and hung to death.

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