How Did Dbq Salem Witch Trials

In 1692, a group of young girls from Massachusetts named Elizabeth and Abigail, believed they were being possessed by the devil and falsely accused several woman, men and children of witchcraft. Once the men and woman were accused they were ordered to attend multiple trials in which would be help in the Massachusetts general court. Once the men and woman were taken to trial they were proven guilty by the girls actions that proved the court these men and woman were apart of witchcraft. After the accuses were proven guilty in front of the court they were either held in prison and eventually died or hanged and died. There were multiple young girls who were apart of the witchcraft accusing other than just Elizabeth and Abigail. There was Elizabeth

One theory people believed was that the devil had the power to get into someones body through birthmarks, and moles. Therefor if you were accused by one of the girls and you had a mole or a birthmark on your body, it was more believable that the girls were right and that you were a witch. Others believed in taking a few test, such as the prayer test, the touch test, picking and scratches test and the swimming test The prayer test consisted of reading sections of the bible, typically bible verses or prayers. If you were to mess up the bible verse of the prayer at all, then you were considered to be bewitched. The second test, the touch test, consisted of the young girls being under a spell and if when the accuser placed a hand on the young girls they stopped than it meant that the accuser did put the girls under a spell and they were a witch. The last test was the pricking and scratching test. If an accuser did not had any “witch marks” such as moles or birthmarks, then they would use the pricking and scratching test. It was believed that “witch marks” do not bleed or hurt, so during the pricking and scratching test, they would continually prick the accuser with multiple needles all over the body until they could find a spot that wouldn't bleed or hurt. Once that test was over if the accuser began to scratch the needle marks and continued to do so until they drew blood then they were also considered a

Since the witchcraft was such a confusing and terrible time for everyone, people were getting accused by these girls all the time, a lot of the time the court and the church would look for signs of being a witch, like making the accused take the test i talked about before but sometimes they just trusted the girls and didn't look for evidence at all. They just convicted the person to be a witch. This seems crazy to me because it doesn't seem fair at all, they didn't even have a chance to prove that they were innocent, instead they were automatically a witch. The Salem Witch Trials finally came to an end when the whole town felt that it was getting way out of control. Too many people were being accused and dying because of it that he town stopped believing the girls and soon after so did the church and courts. The last trial was on June third, 1962, where Abigail Williams gave her last testimony. After this trial Abigail ran away and never came back. No one knows where she went or why she ran away, all thats known is that she was gone and died young, as well as