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Informative Essay: The Salem Witch Trials

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Every place has its dark time; that moment in history that everyone would rather just forget about. The Salem Witch Trials are no different. Filled with confrontation, accusation, and misery, these trials proved to be a feat for anyone accused of being a witch to overcome. The debate of why these trials happened has been going on for many years. There are many reasons that historians have come up with to try and explain and justify these trials, some are merely speculation, while others have proof to back them up. Starting as a case of phenomenon unable to be explained by any doctor, the situation was blown out of proportions until it became a hunt for blood. The gruesome tale of horrors and torture started out with two young girls: nine year old Betty Parris and …show more content…

The minister of Beverly, a nearby town, attempted to explain this strange phenomenon, but was unable. Another eyewitness, Reverend Deodat Lawson, a former minister of Salem reported seeing the girls scream, make strange sounds, throw objects, and contort into impossible positions. Betty and Abigail also stated that they were being poked with pins. No physical evidence could be found to explain the girls’ odd behavior. Events began to get worse when other young women nearby began to experience many of the same symptoms. Three people were blamed for bewitching these women: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba. These women were from the less fortunate parts of Salem. Good was homeless and begged to sustain herself. She often sought out the kindness of neighbors to provide her with shelter and food. She was accused of disavowing the widely known and accepted Puritan ideals when she was claimed to have tortured children instead of committing the proper act of leading them toward God and salvation. Osborne was accused based off that she didn’t go to church very often.

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Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, two of the original accused, both claimed innocence, although Parris’ niece and daughter were believed to be more truthful than the accused women. Sarah Good later accused Sarah Osborne (Wallenfeldt). Even though it was later found out the girls pretended to be bewitched,

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In 1692, as the puritans of Salem Massachusetts over-turn on each other, they started scapegoating many of their villagers with witchcraft. During this time many were murdered unfairly. The Salem Witch Trials was a reformation of the government. People believed that this was an era where the devil gave certain humans powers to harm others in joining them into their beliefs. It was certain to happen, because many had personal envy which caused many of the accusations,trials, and the implementations.

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they had a feud of some kind with the accused. It all started when little Betty Parris and her cousin Abigail met an Indian slave named Tituba and asked for their fortunes. After that, the girls were seen, as put by Reverend Samuel Parris, “getting into Holes, creeping under Chairs and Stools,...” and were questioned on the matter. Under pressure, they identified two local white women and Tituba herself. Throughout the spring, a large chunk of the Salem population was accused, executed, and jailed for being witches.

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In 1692, in Salem Massachusetts, accusations of witchcraft caused fear and confusion throughout the town. Neighbors were accusing neighbors and everybody feared that they would be the next to be accused. In late February, Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams had accused Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. These three were seen as misfits in the society by many and none of the three were members of the church. On March 11, 1692, under the pressure of Reverend Samuel Parris, the girls accused Goodwife Martha Corey, a god-loving midwife who never would have been taking part in any type of witchcraft.

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1099 Words | 5 Pages

Tituba was a slave who served a very wealthy family, Sarah Good was a homeless beggar and Sarah Osborne was an elderly women who was sick and married her servant. Tituba was one of the first accused of being a witch. She was beaten in order to admit to being a witch. In order to make her beatings stop, Tituba accused three other women of being witches, and in return was not hung, but jailed. Sarah Good, the first of being accused, was a beggar and immensely old.

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When they first began their fits they refused to reveal who the witch was, but when they did the first person they accused was Tituba. The people did not find it hard to believe that Tituba was a witch because she had earlier said that she believed in witchcraft. In February the girls accused two more women of witchcraft, Sarah Osburn and Sarah Good. Osburn and Good were two older women that no one in the village seemed to like very much so it wasn’t hard for the villagers to believe they were witches as well. Sarah Good was a woman who aggressively begged for food and if she was refused she would turn away cursing and Sarah Osburn created scandal after her husband died by purchasing an Irish immigrant and living with him as husband and wife before getting

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This was because they thought that if they confessed then the devil would not have any use for that person because everyone knew. The devil would leave the person's body soon after. It was showed that the people who were single were more likely to accuse others who were married (Doc.

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Imagine being a wealthy 45-year-old woman in 1692 being accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch trials were caused by jealousy, fear, and lying. People believed that the devil was real and that one of his tricks was to enter a normal person 's body and turn that person into a witch. This caused many deaths and became a serious problem in 1692. First of all, jealousy was one of the causes of the Salem witch trials.

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Fear of the unknown, combined with social tensions, led to a frenzy of accusations and trials. In summary, the Salem Witch Trials were a product of not only religious zeal and economic disparities, but also the pervasive fear of the unknown. The trials serve as a haunting reminder of how collective anxiety and suspicion can drive a community to commit grave

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The Salem Witch Trials – The Life of Sarah Good The Salem Witch Trials began in 1692 when two young girls began having, what is known today as seizures. They were also behaving erratically. These girls were the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris, a local minister in Salem Village.

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Contrary to this thought process, the girls suffered immensely from psychological and physical illnesses causing hysteria for not only them

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Findling stated that in February of 1692, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, the first two to fall ill, started going into trances, blurting out nonsense, and falling into epileptic-like fits. “Their bodies were supposedly twisted as if their bones were made out of putty” (Findling 160). Findling also wrote Reverend Parris, Betty Parris’ father, hired multiple doctors to examine the girls. None of them had an answer to the unexplainable illness until Doctor William Griggs finally diagnosed the young girls with witchcraft. Concerned for his daughter and niece, Reverend Parris asked his congregation to pray for them.

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The village minister’s daughter Betty along with her cousin Abigail were among these girls and together they brought about the start of the Salem Witch trial. Minister Samuel Parris raised the two girls on strict religious teachings with the help of their slave Tituba. Tituba was purchased by the parris family during their time in Barbados and she was known by the girls of salem for her stories of magic and powerful spirits. The girls often begged Tituba to teach them fortune telling and magical spells, even though they were well aware of the consequences.

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Although many people have their assumptions as to what specifically caused the Salem Witch Trials, no one has a definite account of what caused them. One must use logic and knowledge to come to choose and realize multiple factors that played a part. The Salem Witch Trials were caused by religion, politics, teenage boredom, family feuds, economic conditions, and fears of the people. The overall effect of the trials did not have a serious effect on American society as a whole, but only as Salem as a whole. During the spring of 1692, a hysteria swept through the little town of Salem, Massachusetts (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) that will end as quickly as it began.

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Since the beginning of the trials there have been many injustices as well as an increase in paranoia. For every person tried there was little to no evidence besides trust of words from another human being. Many women and some men were convicted based on what others think, if someone thinks that another person is acting suspicious, they will be tried and most likely hanged or imprisoned. Remembering the Salem Witch Trials is remembering victims being killed, tortured, and imprisoned because of what they may believe in or because of spectral evidence. The court, Oyer and Terminer, was the main suspect for the killings of nineteen individuals, the court was put in place specifically for cases of witchcraft but the court allowed spectral evidence as a reason for the person tried to be hanged.

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