Salem Witch Trail
By: Wendy • Essay • 647 Words • February 21, 2010 • 783 Views
Join now to read essay Salem Witch Trail
The Salem Witch Trails took place in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. In February, there was a group of girls in Salem going through strange behaviors. These witch trails led to the execution of twenty-five people but, over twenty innocent people died and only one was a true witch but at the same time hundreds of people were accused and twenty seven were put on trail. All these witch trails were nonsense because they wasn’t eliminating witches, they were eliminating innocent people for no reason.
The act of strange behavior from Betty and Abigail was the cause of these trails. They started trancing and making animal noises because of Tituba a black slave, who showed them displays of obeath “an ancient form of magic“. Some doctors thought the strange behavior was caused by asthma, guilt, child abuse, or epilepsy but it wasn’t.
The purpose of these trails where to get people to confess to what they where. They where looking for what they believed was a witch. There were many occasions which lead to the prosecution and executions of these witches. There reasons were because of economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, personal differences, and even jealousies. Discovery online states that “the reason for trails are because of geography of Salem.” this is said because Salem, Massachusetts is split into two parts, Salem town and Salem Village. The differences between the communities are believed to have lead to the Salem witch trails. The Salem town was next to the ocean and was a busy shipping port. Salem Village was a small Puritan farming community. Another separation between the two communities was religion. Religion played a part in the separation because Salem town lost most of their original ideas in its growth, but Salem Village remained small and took care of its original puritan ideals.
The accusers where Betty and Abigail. They where accusing people because of what happened to them. They were showing strange behavior which resulted to the magic showed to them by Tituba. They were also accusers of many of Paris’s enemies. Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba where accused of being witches. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne where both accused for being a witch because they where seen with the devil and where known for participating in witch craft. Tituba was accused