Rosalyn Schanzer's Witches: The Salem Witch Trials

In Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, there is a catastrophe in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690’s. There were accusations after accusations after accusations about witchcraft. Also, people weren’t satisfied with just accusing one person. In the end, 25 lives were lost. An example of this is, “For example, Parris’s niece, Abigail Williams, fingered 41 different witches for attacking her; Ann Putnam Jr. accused 53; her servant, Mercy Lewis, blamed 54; and a girl named Mary Walcott, who was Ann’s step-cousin, named an astonishing 69 witches” (Schanzer 56). Most people would have never known if they were going to be accused or not. The Salem Witch Trials were indeed unfair because the accusers had absolutely no evidence. Also, the accusations themselves were just incredibly random, and the judges were so gullible that they would just believe almost anything.
The accusers had absolutely no evidence is a reason for the unfairness of the Salem Witch Trials. Towards the end of the book, they started using what is known as spectral evidence, which is basically referring to “a witness testimony that the accused person’s spirit or spectral shape

An example of this is “Before long, Nathaniel Saltonstall, the judge who had resigned, was accused of being a witch himself” (Schanzer 89). It makes no sense. Another example is “Sarah Osborn: A bedridden old woman” (Schanzer 6). It is terrible to accuse a bedridden old woman of being a witch! What is bad is that these people were puritans! “Puritans were fundamentalists. They believed that every word in the Christian Bible was the true word of God and was to be followed by letter” (The DBQ Project). The accused were condemned at the end because no one would believe their cries and pleas, and they were unheeded. These trials, really, went on for quite a prodigious