Book Report On The Salem Witch Trials Of 1692

The Devil Discovered: Salem Witchcraft, 1692 One of the most horrific events that occurred in American history was The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 that took place in Salem Village, Massachusetts, now known as Danvers, Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials were the accusations of two hundred people that were believed to be practicing witchcraft or worshiping the Devil. The witch trials began in the early year of 1692 and ended in 1693. Enders A. Robinson believes that the witch hunt occurred because of conspiracies formed by the townspeople, and because of the relation of religion and social ideas. Puritan leaders arrested those two hundred people that were accused, and twenty-eight of them were murdered or died in prison. Throughout “The

Sarah Good, the homeless beggar, was an easy target because of her low status in the community. After her accusation and imprisonment, her four year old daughter, Dorcas Good, was also imprisoned. The afflicted girls claimed that Dorcas tortured them and forced them to write in the Devil's book, which was the cause of her imprisonment. However, Sarah Osborn was a rich elderly woman who inherited her dead husband's, Robert Prince, belongings. Her unwillingness of granting her two sons the inheritance they deserved caused her to be accused as a thief by Captain John Putnam, who was the husband of Robert Prince's sister. Captain John Putnam wanted justice for his two nephews and he accused Osborn of practicing witchcraft. Both Sarah Osborn and Sarah Good died in the summer of 1692, while Dorca remained in prison for 8 months after her mother's death. Tituba was a slave in the Parris household and was the one who ascended the belief in witchcraft. In the winter of 1691-1692 Tituba taught black magic to a group of young girls. In May 1692, Samuel Parris and his daughter and niece gave testimony against Tituba. The people of Salem Village realized how easy it was to accuse people of witchcraft that they accused anyone that they despised bringing them to

He also discusses why he thinks such an absurd conspiracy spread like wildfire throughout the community of Salem Village. Unlike the witch hunt that occcurred in Europe, Salem has several documents that were't lost or destroyed to help piece together a remarkable story. Many of those documents are the arrest warrants of the victims. These warrants consisted of the list of people accused as witches, the name of the person who was making the complaint, and the name of the child who was afflicted. Through these warrants, Robinson argues “the question of whether the witch hunt was driven by mass hysteria or by conspiracy can be answered by simply tabulating all the legal documents filed with the official documents.” By studying these warrants there is a revelation that most of the accusers come from the Putnam family. The Putnam family were a few of the first settlers in New England in the 1630's and 1640's who controlled most of Salem