Salem Witch Trial Essay

The year 1692 marked a major event in history that left a lasting effect in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem Witch trials resulted in more than 200 people being accused of practicing witchcraft, the death of nineteen men and women who were hung, one man being crushed to death, along with seven other individuals who lost their lives in prison. In 1629 King Charles I of England granted a religious group called the Puritans, a charter to settle and govern an English colony in the Massachusetts Bay. Their desire was to create a new perfect society based on the principles of the Bible, a theocracy with no separation of church and state. About 500 people lived in Salem village, the outlying farming community of Salem town. Although only

The first accused women had been of low status in the village. Those who followed were upstanding members of the community. For example, a woman by the name of Rebecca Nurse hardly fit the image of a witch. She was an elderly woman in her seventies who was very infirm and deaf. Rebecca Nurse’s reaction to her accusation was typical of the guilt-ridden Puritan mentality. When asked if she was guilty of the crime of witchcraft she replied, “I can say before my Eternal Father I am innocent and God will clear my innocency. The Lord knows I have not hurt them. I am an innocent person.” The arrest of Rebecca Nurse reflected a pronounced split in Salem. In fact, most of those who supported Nurse lived in the east, held more liberal views and were more prosperous than their neighbors. In general, the accusers were poor farmers of lower status and lived in the western part of the

More than one hundred men and women from Salem to Boston were arrested. Even relatives of the accused witched became targets such as the youngest, four year old Dorothy Good, daughter of Sarah Good. It is widely believed that Dorothy confessed in order to be with her mother in prison. Both of Rebecca Nurse’s sisters, Mary Easty and Sarah Cloyce soon joined her in jail. Just about anybody who spoke out against the proceedings was immediately suspect. Even Reverend George Burroughs, the former minister of Salem village, who lived in Maine was held for trial. As the ranks of the accused continued to rise it became clear that something needed to be done about the situation in