Summer Padgett Dr. Davis AMH-2010-008 9/3/2015 Salem Witch Trials During the early 14th century, something odd happened in Europe and colonial New England. People started believing in the supernatural. Specifically, the devil giving “witches” the power to hurt and harm others as long as they remained loyal to him. Early 1692, young girls started having fits. These fits consisted of violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. A nearby doctor diagnosed the fits as bewitchment. The first girls to have these fits were a nine year old Elizabeth Parris and an eleven year old Abigail Williams. These fits started here and spread throughout the community. People began accusing others of being witches. The purpose of the trials were
Shortly after that, these actions started to allot all over Salem. Ministers came to Salem trying to find who is responsible for this crisis. The Puritans believed that to become bewitched, a witch must draw a person under a spell. The young girls of Salem could not have brought this situation onto themselves, so they were questioned and forced to name their torturers.
Watters 1 One of the most incomprehensible events as well as one of the darkest times in history occurred in the colony of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The Salem Witch Trials occurred in seventeenth century New England, where people lived in a constant fear of the Devil which led to paranoia and illogical thinking. This fear led to many accusations and trials of innocent people and in the end, twenty people were killed, nineteen hung and one pressed to death. With the technology and knowledge we now have in the twenty-first century, it has become apparent that the behavior exhibited during the Salem Witch Trials (and other Witch Hunts around the world around this time) was not due to witches, as they do not exist. Although we can now conclude that this commotion was not caused by witches and magic, the question that still looms is what did cause this behavior in 1692?
by Rosalyn Schanzer the madness began in February 1692 when 9-year-old Betty Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began to twist and turn in the home of the Reverend Samuel Parris there was only one possible reason for it: witchcraft. They lived in Salem, Massachusetts where the Puritan populace knew anything was possible. The doctor tried every remedy, but nothing cured the young Puritans. He grimly announced the dire diagnosis: the girls were bewitched! And then the accusations began.
The two girls were acting differently and very strange. The young girls did things unusually as if they were possessed. They would scream and say things that were not even words, also known as, “speaking in tongues”. Shortly after the experiences with those girls, a few more began to break out with
What Caused the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 In Salem, Massachusetts there were Witch Trials held during the summer months of 1692. Throughout the seventeenth century in New England, witchcraft was said to be a crime punishable by death. Puritans came to New England in the early 1600’s to practice their Christianity in the purest form possible. They believed every word in the bible and that the words of God were to be followed down to the last sentence there was. Havoc started occurring around the town and 19 women along with men were hanged for witchcraft.
Between 1692 and 1693, in Salem Village, Massachusetts, the Salem witch trials were taking place. In the event, many were accused of witchcraft and some were even executed. This event had left many curious as to what caused the people to accept witchcraft and treat it as a crime. To explain the trials, Paul Boer and Stephen Nissenbaum wrote the book Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft in which they analyzed and broke down key components of the witch trials.
How two little girls (Abigail and Betty) where the first to suffer from fits of hysterical outbreaks and how many accusers came forward and described how they or their animals had been bewitched. It mentions the court cases and how there were more woman than men accused of practicing witch craft. It also states how historians believe the girls were faking their fits from the start. Also mentions how religious Salem was at the time which influenced the trials. •
During the demandings time of the late 1990s, a settlement in Massachusetts called Salem murdered people who they suspected to be witches and wizards. The Salem Witch trials interesting enough began when a group of girls were playing a game. After they finished playing the game, they started to act strangely. When the parents brought in a doctor to check on their children, the healer couldn’t find anything wrong with the girls who were unwell. Many modern theories suggest that they could been suffering from mental illness, child abuse or epilepsy.
Since England had their own witch hunts, it was said that the anxiety spread to New England mainly because of a pamphleteer Cotton Mather. It started early 1692 when the daughter and niece of Salem local minister, Samuel Parris had strange violent convulsions and loud outbursts. The only local doctor of the village which only could read but not write, then concluded that the girls were bewitched. There were three primary “suspected” witches, the minister’s slave Tituba, Sarah Good
The year of 1692 identified a significant event in history in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials revealed series of prosecutions of people being accused of witchcraft, which resulted in the executions of twenty innocent people. Out of the twenty people, fourteen of them were women were hung to death and the others died in prison. It all began with several girls that experimented with magic, which the Puritans believed they were collaborating with the Devil. Based on the Puritan beliefs, the meaning of witchcraft was the Devil’s magic.
The Salem witch trials took place because of people practicing witchcraft and they were not witches. This resulted in the imprisonment /execution of more than 200 people. Centuries ago many Christians and those who practiced other religions believed that the Devil gave certain people known as witches power to bring harm to other people in exchange for their loyalty to him. From 1300 to the end of 1600 raged in Europe.
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,
In Massachusetts during 1692, Salem Village underwent a time of grief, trial, death, and Witchcraft. The chaos in Salem Village began when young girls would have what they called “fits” and they would scream vey vulgarly and fall onto the ground and shake uncontrollably (Magoon 6). These fits frightened the surrounding people and the Doctors of Salem couldn't find a diagnosis. After studying and trying to understand the illness they had, the people of Salem came to the conclusion that these girls were possessed by the Devil (Magoon 7). The result would lead to one of the most recognized events in American History, the Salem Witch Trials.
The Salem witch trial was a time about accusing your fellow neighbor or being accused yourself, this all began in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. During this time many people were being accused of being a witch, a majority of the time it was because either someone truly believed that you were a witch and were reeking havoc or they were trying to find someone to take the blame if they were to being accused. So this leads us to question, what began the Salem Witch Trials? There were at least three causes of the Salem witch trials hysteria. These were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams story, Ergotism, and the acknowledgment of hysteria.
The girls were accused of having “fits”, that means that they were contorting their bodies