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Salem Witch Trial Essay

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Many young people today are unaware that the Salem Witch Trial occurred. Some people like to believe that it was a hoax created by the government. Alex Jones was a famous conspiracy theorist who has played a big part in convincing many people that the Salem Witch Trial was a ruse to scare the population. People now get all of their information off of non-credible sites and social media. People don’t bother to look for the true facts and only hear what they want to. Nonetheless, the Salem Witch Trials was an event that baffled the public and left the world astounded. The Salem Witch Trials happened during the time of 1692 through 1693. The Salem Witch Trial took place in Salem Village, Massachusetts. Although witch trials happened in a few …show more content…

A couple of those being: The swimming test,the prayer test, the touch test, the witch cake test, the witch scratching, marking, and pricking test, and the incantation test. All of the tests were in some way deadly. The swimming test was a test to see whether you sunk or floated. If the person floated they were a witch, however by the time the person sunk and proved their innocence they were dead. The prayer test was a test where the person accused had to recite random verses from the bible without making any mistakes. If the accused person made a mistake they were deemed a witch. The touch test was where the accused person had to touch the person who was having convulsions,if they stopped convulsing they were judged a witch. The witch cake test was used for familiars and people. If the person charged with witchcraft’s urine made the dog sick after eating the cake the person was affiliated with witchcraft. The scratching, pricking, and markers test was a test where if there was a mark on the witches body that was poked by a needle and didn’t bleed they were a witch. The scratching test was where if the victim of the witchcraft found pleasure and/or relief upon scratching the person accused of using witchcraft on the victim the other party was a witch. The incantation test was where the witch told a person that was the victim of witchcraft to let the devil out as they …show more content…

Many people believe that the witches in Salem were burned to death after being accused, however that was not the case. All of the accused witches but one were killed by being hung. The witch who wasn’t killed by getting hung was Giles Corey. Giles Corey was crushed by a boulder. The sheriff in Salem killed him because Giles Corey wouldn’t go on trial. Giles Corey was eighty-one when he died. Out of all of the deaths that occurred Giles Coreys was the

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One other method used during the Salem witch trials was witch cakes. The cakes would be fed to a dog in hopes that it would give the name of the witch that possessed the victim. This was used on one occasion during the witch trials. The woman who made one to be used for a trial was hanged because of her knowledge of the spells used to make the witch cake. A witch’s mark was another way used to identify if the accused was a witch.

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The Salem Witch trials happened between the years 1692-1693, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Salem town. Between Feb 1692 and May 1693, over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with many more accused but not properly brought to justice by the authorities, and 19 were eventually hanged. The best known trials, were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams were the first to experience the “witchcraft,” and reported it. The first accused were Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba.

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So what provoked this tragedy? Evidence shows that the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692 was caused by boredom, personal, and religious bias. One of the most important things to consider is the biases the accusers might have had. When looking at a map of Salem one may observe that more than ninety percent of the accusers lived on the west side of town, and more than eighty percent of the Accused witches

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They didn't have any evidence whatsoever on how they were witches. In the book all they did was look at a kid and wait for them to start having some kind of spaz and say oh this person is a witch, they were also very pious. “So Betty and Abigail declared that Tituba was a witch.” “ Elizabeth Hubbard claimed she had been chased by a wolf that turned into Sarah Good and attacked by bedridden old lady, Sarah Osborn.” This is another time they

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947 Words | 4 Pages

Many of the tests that were done to check for innocence often resulted in death, even if innocence was proven. For instance, many believed that if weighted down, tied to a chair, and thrown into a body of water, a witch would still be able to float back up, and a non-witch wouldn’t be able to return to the top of the water. So in this test, they wouldn’t believe that a person was innocent until they had drowned and couldn’t even attempt to return to the top of the water. But, by then it was too late to accept their

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People believed this because women at the time were changing and becoming more independent. The culture of all the settlers was changing as well. This led people to truly believe that women, men and children were being bewitched by witches in salem. The Salem witch trials were a significant time in history because the

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193 Words | 1 Pages

One method used to determine if the accused was really a witch was the swimming test. The swimming test included being bound and thrown into a body of water to determine if they would sink or float. The people of Salem believe that if the accused were witches the water would reject them to keep them from sinking. During this test it was not uncommon for drowning deaths to occur. Another test used during the Salem witch trials was the prayer test.

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831 Words | 4 Pages

They’re accused of and admit to having sex and a contract with the devil and to associating with other witches, the other accused women. All six of these women also are accused of having cursed a person or an animal so as to cause harm. Out of the six women, five are executed and only Rebecca Weste is acquitted by the jury of life and death. From this series of long and highly detailed trials, we can see that the English legal system did allow for the execution of witches, but also for people to be acquitted of the crime of witchcraft. We see the acquittal with Rebecca Weste and with her mother, Anne Weste’s first offence of committing witchcraft.

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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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721 Words | 3 Pages

Bridget Bishop, a resident of Salem, was the first person to be tried as a witch. Surprisingly, Bishop was accused of witch craft by the highest number of witneses. After Bishop, more than two hundred people were tried of practicing witchcraft and twenty were executed. Many of these accusations arose from jealous, lower class members of society, especially towards women who had come into a great deal of land or wealth. Three young children by the names of Elizabeth, Abigail, and Ann were the first three people to be “harmed” by the witches.

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It was a series of hearings before local magistrates, which led to county court trials to persecute people accused of witchcraft. Trials took place against the theocratic, Puritan British colony where the church ruled in civil matters.

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Those who were going through these would also be examined. This was because if there was anything not seen as normal such as birthmarks, acne, moles, anything of the sort was used as evidence against them. There also had to be a witness who could say the person on trial used witchcraft against them or anyone else. Spectral evidence was needed as well, because Satan could not take anyone unwillingly. And of course, there was the swimming test, where if the accused floated when in the water, they were witches, and if they sunk then they were

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547 Words | 3 Pages

The accused would be held in cold and damp cells and kept awake until they became sleep deprived (Pelka n.pag.). Family and friends were not allowed to visit and the prisoners would be humiliated. Strip tests were done to check the supposed for “witches’ teats”. Any mark on the person’s body that seemed out of the ordinary would classify them as a witch (Plouffe and Plouffe n.pag.). The marks that could change someone's fate included birthmarks, moles, warts, or even a certain color of eyes or hair.

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If you were accused of witchcraft there were many “tests“ you could do to prove if you were a witch or not.

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Not many people know much about what actually happened in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe someone would think that it was just about witchcraft and crazy people being hanged, but it is a lot more than that. The Salem Witch Trials only occurred between 1692 and 1693, but a lot of damage had been done. The idea of the Salem Witch Trials came from Europe during the “witchcraft craze” from the 1300s-1600s. In Europe, many of the accused witches were executed by hanging.

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