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.
The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions due to the accusations of witchcraft. Many innocent people were either executed or sent to jail for a crime they may or may not have committed. The Salem Witch Trials impacted the history of America tremendously. Without the trials, our country might not be the same as it is today.
To sum it up, beliefs in witchcraft existence, political factionalism, fraudulent accusations and ergot poisoning have caused the Salem Witch Trials which all greatly impacted the lives of the people accused, the accusers and the people around them. The trials can be examined in the ways which the madness occurred. People who experience fear will do their best to feel safe and secure regardless of causing harm to other individuals. The witch trials were an example of hysteria and how people can react when placed in desperate situations. After the unfortunate tragedy of Salem Witch Trials, it was showed the time it takes for a community to fully heal from such loss.
Salem Witch Trials Mass hysteria, social ignorance, and religious intolerance all describe the chaos that took place in Massachusetts during the year 1692. The Salem Witch Trials were not a positive section of American history but have been used as a learning tool for the United States. According to Plouffe, Jr., the trials were the largest of suspected criminals in the colonial period of American history. More than one hundred and fifty people were arrested on charges of witchcraft, and nineteen of these individuals were convicted and hanged (Plouffe, Jr. n. pag.). Many factors play into the long process of the Salem Witch Trials and have had a lasting impact on American history.
“Local authorities often encouraged the town’s people to fear each other, who would then condemn their neighbors as witches” (Salem Witch Trials HIstory Channel, 2014). Many individuals would succumb to the “witch hunts,” and soon the community would encourage prosecution of those believed to be witches; to death. “The court would use, "spectral evidence”, which refers to a witness testimony that the accused person's spirit or spectral shape appeared to him/her witness in a dream at the time the accused person's physical body was at another location” (Spectral EvidenceLaw and Legal Definision, 2001-2015). In the end, several years later, the town of Salem would be faced with a harsh discovery that indeed they wrongfully accused and put to death many lives at the hands of “moral panic” and the court authorities.
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The illusion of witchcraft has been around for centuries. Throughout history, men and women around the world have been unjustly tried and accused for such satanic acts. The 1692 Salem Witch Trials, brief but deadly, proved to burn its horrifying image into America’s memory. The trials began in spring and ended a few months later. Even in such a short time, nineteen people were executed and one hundred fifty people were accused of witchcraft.
The Salem Witch Trials was just a hoax performed by some young girls who had nothing else better to do. They started to claim that they were possessed by the devil. Those girls then began to convict other men but mostly women that they were practicing witchcraft. The girls had inicated a rumor. They had begun an event that they no longer had control of.
