Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

535 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: witch trial puritan

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a dark time in American history. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of witchcraft cases brought before local magistrates in a settlement called Salem, which was a part of the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 17th-century¹. More than 200 women were accused of performing witchcrafts. Those women were tortured and some were killed excruciatingly during the hysteria. The causes of the terrible actions inflicted on those women at that era seem laughable. People in Massachusetts during the 17th century believed in Christianity and feared the devil. They believe that women who perform witchcraft are witches and do the devil’s bidding in which gave them the power to do harm. People started blaming the misfortunes …show more content…

The community of Salem had a heightened sense of fear of the Devil because they believe that the Devil was constantly trying to find ways to infiltrate and destroy Christians and their communities. The community, one day, found strange phenomenon happening to young girls, these girls who played fortune-telling game began to behave strangely. The doctors said there was nothing wrong with their physical body and so people believed these girls were bewitched. Then the bewitched girls started to accuse the outcast of the village, which was Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn and a slave named Tituba. During the examination of the accused, Tituba confessed that Satan had approached her, along with Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn, and they had all agreed to do his bidding as witches¹. This triggers more fear and the hunt for more witches in Salem. In the end, the Salem witch trials happened because of strong beliefs in occults, boredom, and fear combined with a trigger. These causes that were not proven in court, correctly and precisely, affected the lives of those poor souls and ended their fate unjustifiably. The Salem witch trials are unjust. It still puzzled experts and historians till this day for the main reason on how it became such a tragic history that stains the country for

Show More
Related

  • Socioeconomic Issues In The Salem Witch Trials

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Salem witch trials of 1692 were one of the bloodiest witch-hunts in America colonial history. The event started in the house of the new minister of Salem, Samuel Parris, when his daughter, Betty, suffered from mysterious symptoms, and later she accused her slave, Tibuta, for using witchcraft on her. Later, two other women, Sarah Goode and Sarah Osborne, were accused of using witchcraft on other girls; right after the accusations, they were arrested (Lecture 9/13/2016). As a result, the hunt of witches began which led to hundreds of arrests, and nineteen accused were hanged (Text 190). Although three hundred years have passed, the true cause of the episode remains a mystery. Many scholars have conducted numerous studies of the trails, however,

    Read More

  • The Theories of the Salem Witch Trials

    1149 Words  | 3 Pages

    This time in Salem was a troubling time, making it seem likely that satan was active (Linder). The townsfolk are believed to have been suffering from a strange psychological condition known as Mass Hysteria (Wolchover). Mass Hysteria is a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness. This is known to cause all kinds of problems from rashes to high-blood pressure and heart disease. The adults would likely ask the girls if the people tormenting them with witchcraft were the people the adults considered in the community to be most-likely allied with the devil: outcasts or political rivals. Some of the girls, under this heavy questioning, might actually have come to believe they were bewitched, while others knowingly lied to please the adults and found themselves trapped in their own lies (Krystek). If the girls believed that someone had bewitched them, that would have created enough stress in their minds to cause physical symptoms. Many of the symptoms the girls had been nearly identical to a condition called hysteria. If the girls just believed that they had been bewitched, it might have been enough to produce the physical effects that were observed (Krystek).

    Read More

  • The History of the Salem Witchcraft Trials

    2587 Words  | 6 Pages

    During the time of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, more than twenty people died an innocent death. All of those innocent people were accused of one thing, witchcraft. During 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts many terrible events happened. A group of Puritans lived in Salem during this time. They had come from England, where they were prosecuted because of their religious beliefs. They chose to come live in America and choose their own way to live. They were very strict people, who did not like to act different from others. They were also very simple people who devoted most of their lives to God. Men hunted for food and were ministers. Women worked at home doing chores like sewing, cooking, cleaning, and making clothes. The Puritans were also very superstitious. They believed that the devil would cause people to do bad things on earth by using the people who worshiped him. Witches sent out their specters and harmed others. Puritans believed by putting heavy chains on a witch, that it would hold down their specter. Puritans also believed that by hanging a witch, all the people the witch cast a spell on would be healed. Hysteria took over the town and caused them to believe that their neighbors were practicing witchcraft. If there was a wind storm and a fence was knocked down, people believed that their neighbors used witchcraft to do it. Everyone from ordinary people to the governor’s wife was accused of witchcraft. Even a pregnant woman and the most perfect puritan woman were accused. No one in the small town was safe. As one can see, the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Salem Witch Trials

    1765 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials occurred because “three women were out in jail, because of witchcraft, and then paranoia spread throughout Salem” (Blumberg). In the Salem Village, “Betty Paris became sick, on February of 1692, and she contorted in pain and complained of fever” (Linder). The conspiracy of “witchcraft increased when play mates of Betty, Ann Putnam, Mercy, and Mary began to exhibit the same unusual behavior” (Linder). “The first to be accused were Tituba, a Barbados slave who was thought to have cursed the girls, Sarah Good, a beggar and social misfit, and Sarah Osborn, an old lady that hadn’t attended church in a year” (Linder). According to Linder, Tituba was the first to admit to being a witch, saying that she signed Satan’s book to work for him. The judges, Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, “executed Giles Corey because he refused to stand trial and afterwards eight more people were executed and that ended the Witch Trials in Salem”

    Read More

  • Cause Of The Salem Witch Trials

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. At this time there appeared to be an outbreak of witches. This started when the children of the Goodwin family begin having mysterious fits. The doctors, not knowing what had happened to the children, blamed it on witchcraft. From that point on many people were accused of being a witch and were killed. This occurred for many different reasons; either they were hanged for their crimes, crushed by stones for refusing to stand trial on their cases, or from waiting in the jail for so long before their case came up. As people began to investigate the Salem Witch Trials further they came up with two explanations; either the people of Salem were begin acted through by the devil or

    Read More

  • Puritanism, and The Salem Witch Trials

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    To better understand the events of the Salem witch trials, it is necessary to understand the time period in which the accusations of witchcraft occurred. There were the ordinary stresses of 17th-century life in Massachusetts Bay Colony. A strong belief in the devil, factions among Salem Village fanatics, and rivalry with nearby Salem Town all played a part in the stress. There was also a recent small pox epidemic and the threat of an attack by warring tribes created a fertile ground for fear and suspicion. Soon prisons were filled with more than 150 men and women from towns surrounding Salem.

    Read More

  • Causes Of The Salem Witch Craft Trials

    2171 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Salem Witchcraft Trials began not as an act of revenge against an ex-lover, as they did in The Crucible, but as series of seemingly unlinked, complex events, which a paranoid and scared group of people incorrectly linked. And while there were countless other witchcraft trials, Salem’s trials remain the best-known. In Salem, fears of witchcraft perpetuated by popular writings were personified when two girls were said to be bewitched. A hysteria overcame the people of Salem, whose trials went awry. In less than six months, 19 men and women were hanged, 17 innocents died in filthy prisons, an 80-year old man was crushed to death, and two dogs were stoned to death for collaborating with the Devil (Richardson 6).

    Read More

  • Inhumane Trials Of The Salem Witch Trials

    1791 Words  | 4 Pages

    A group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts told the people of their town they were possessed by the devil and accused several women from their town of possessing them. The ringleader of the girls was Abigail Williams the niece of Samuel Paris the town’s priest. Abigail and her cousin Elizabeth Paris started having irrational fits and violent outburst. Since the girls kept having these violent outbursts Samuel Paris called for doctor William Griggs. Griggs examined the girls and diagnosed them with being bewitched. Soon there was a whole group of girls acting as if they were possessed as well, including; Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren. This group of girls kept up this horrible act all because Tituba Paris’ slave saw them doing

    Read More

  • The Salem Witch Trials

    1357 Words  | 3 Pages

    The witch trials of the late 1600's were full of controversy and uncertainty. The Puritan town of Salem was home to most of these trials, and became the center of much attention in 1692. More than a hundred innocent people were found guilty of practicing witchcraft during these times, and our American government forced over a dozen to pay with their lives. The main reasons why the witch trials occurred were conflicts dealing with politics, religion, family, economics, and fears of the citizens.

    Read More

  • Salem Witch Trials

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    Since all of these people fled to the Salem Village, the Salem people blamed several of them for everything that happened in Salem. They believed that all of those people brought the Devil to the Salem village (Blumberg, par. 3-4)

    Read More

  • The Salem Witch Trial

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the early years of America, people were mostly unaware of certain things. Sickness, for instance, was an important issue for people didn't know how to manage or cure such complex illnesses. The Puritans, during the colonial times, didn't have much information about certain things. They came to believe that certain unexplainable events were done by a powerful source of evil thus brought about superstitions. The infamous Witch Trials done at Salem, Massachusetts, which spread across the continent, was an example of people's injustice acts in response to superstitions. One of the major cause of the Salem Witchcraft trials was superstition, an "irrational belief or practice resulting from ignorance or fear of the unknown" (www.encyclopedia.com). A lack of scientific knowledge led many people to be convinced that, witches were responsible to the death of an animal or a livestock: John Rogger "testified that upon the threatening words " of Martha Carrier " his cattle would be strangely bewitched."(Mather, p55) John Roger believed on superstitions; thus he proposed that Martha was a witch who was killing his cows. It is easy to see how the people of Salem were so vulnerable to the notion of witches taking over their town. Furthermore Tituba, Reverend Parris's slave, practiced ritual dance and "black magic" in her early years in Africa. She influenced most of the girls in town through her stories. The girls believed on superstitions which overall started the Salem Witch Trials and made it possible for the witch trials to occur for a long duration.

    Read More

  • Taking a Closer Look at The Salem Witch Trials

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Salem Witch trials were when hundreds of citizens of Salem, Massachusetts were put on trial for devil-worship or witchcraft and more than 20 were executed in 1692. This is an example of mass religion paranoia. The whole ordeal began in the home of Reverend Samuel Parris. People soon began to notice strange behavior from Parris’s slave, Tituba, and his daughters. Many claimed to have seen Parris’s daughters doing back magic dances in the woods, and fall to the floor screaming hysterically. Not so long after, this strange behavior began to spread across Salem.

    Read More

  • The Trials Of The Salem Witch Trials

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials took place in the summer and into the fall of the year 1692, and during this dark time of American history, over 200 people had been accused of witchcraft and put in jail. Twenty of these accused were executed; nineteen of them were found guilty and were put to death by hanging. One refused to plead guilty, so the villagers tortured him by pressing him with large stones until he died. The Salem Witch Trials was an infamous, scary time period in American history that exhibited the amount of fear people had of the devil and the supernatural; the people of this time period accused, arrested, and executed many innocent people because of this fear, and there are several theories as to why the trials happened (Brooks).

    Read More

  • The Devil in Massachusetts Book Review

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Salem witch craft trials are the most learned about and notable of Europe's and North America's witch hunts. Its notoriety and fame comes from the horrendous amount of people that were not only involved, but killed in the witch hunt and that it took place in the late 1700's being one of the last of all witch hunts. The witch craft crises blew out of control for several reasons. Firstly, Salem town was facing hard economic times along with disease and famine making it plausible that the only explanation of the town's despoilment was because of witches and the devil. As well, with the stimulation of the idea of witch's from specific constituents of the town and adolescent boredom the idea of causing entertainment among the town was an ever intriguing way of passing time.

    Read More

  • 5 Paragraph Essay: The Salem Witch Trials

    315 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Salem Witch Trials began in the spring of 1692 in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials began because some young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil. More than 150 people where accused to witchcraft, and twenty people died.The Salem Witch Trials were famous, many innocent people were accused of being witches, and many innocent people were killed.

    Read More

More about Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

Open Document