Abby Was To Blame For The Salem Witch Trials

Salem Massachusetts was a town of quarrels in the early 1690s so it was no surprise the word of a single teenage girl set all the townspeople turning on eachother. In the years leading up to the Salem Witch Trials, miniscule tensions broke free between the people of Salem. This apprehension didn’t become a tangible threat; however, until a young girl named Abigail Williams cried witchcraft. Therefore, Abby was the most to blame for the events plaguing Salem in 1692. The whispers of witchcraft began due to a group of girls being found dancing in the woods. These girls were led by Abigail Williams and the dancing session was led by a slave named Tituba. Tituba is not solely to blame for this apparent act of witchcraft because Abby “beg her

Abby is heard saying, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.”(Miller 144). She says this because the girls were fully prepared to confess to dancing in the woods. Abby didn't want to get caught so she threatens the girls not to tell anyone what happened; however, she claims they danced in the woods and she saw Tituba and other women with the devil. Abby feels she must threaten the girls because, even though she confesses to dancing, she doesn’t want to girls to tell Salem Abby is lying. Without Abby, the girls would have been punished, but all of the other citizens of Salem would have been safe from the

Without Abby giving the court more names, only a few people would have been accused of witchcraft. At the beginning of the play, a few women were accused of dealing with the devil but no more than that handful. Abby was the one who made up all of the other acts of witchcraft throughout the play. Abby even went as far as to harm herself so Elizabeth would be tried for witchcraft. When she accuses Elizabeth of being a witch, Abby “sticks a needle two inches into the flesh of her belly”, and therefore adds proof to fuel the fire (Miller 172). Several people, including Hale, had started to doubt every aspect of what the girls had been saying but when the poppet was found in Elizabeth’s house with a needle in the same location Abby was stabbed, it was seen as hard proof witches were truly loose in Salem. This event also made it apparent the girls were telling the truth and they were truly being harmed by the