...Tragic Times In Salem Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials was a horrific event that occurred in colonial Massachusetts between the years 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 ended up being executed. Some researchers believe that there may have been other current events that were affecting the trials during the same time period. Throughout this research paper I will explain the Salem Witch Trials and show the research I have done in terms of the events that may have a connection to the event, along with other factors that may have influenced the Salem Witch Trials. In the late 16 hundreds in colonial North America, the supernatural was highly considered to be a part of everyday life. Many people were strong believers that Satan was present and active on Earth. These beliefs were first formed in Europe during the fifteenth century and later spread throughout North America. Peasants were known for often using a particular kind of witchcraft to help enhance their crops, and to benefit farming and agriculture. Over time, the idea of witchcraft transformed into a very evil act. It started to became associated with demons and evil spirits. From 1560 to 1670, witchcraft persecutions became common as superstitions became associated with the devil. Through out the colonies, the most common cause for a witch hunt was caused by young girls having a mysterious screaming fit; they would often be diagnosed as having been bewitched...
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...Reverend Samuel Parris In 1692 hysteria gripped the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. Multiple towns’ people were accused of practicing witch craft and the accusations spread like wildfire from Salem to the surrounding areas. In Salem fourteen women and four men were hanged for denying the practice of witch craft, and one man was crushed to death under boulders for not cooperating with the investigation into witch craft. All other townspeople who admitted to being witches were allowed to live. The first accusation came from the daughter and the niece of the local Reverend. Reverend Samuel Parris has been accused through history of playing major role in creating in the hysteria. Reverend Parris did not start out his career as a reverend. He attended Harvard for a few years, but after his father passed away he quit college. Parris moved to Barbados in order to start a sugar plantation. After failing at his attempted business in Barbados he moved to Boston to try to start up something there, which also proved to be unsuccessful. Parris then decided to try his hand at ministry. It was odd in those days to go into the ministry without having finished college, so if Parris completed college at some point on this journey there is no record of it (Tulane). In 1688 Parris started negotiations with Salem, MA to take the position of the ordained minister for the town (Tulane). There had been many conflicts with the past ministers that Parris was aware of, so he took his time making...
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...“START HERE WITH A CREATIVE TOPIC FOR YOUR SPEECH” Topic: Salem Witch Trials Organization: Topically, Specific Purpose: For the audience to understand what happened before, during and after the Salem Witch Trials I. INTRODUCTION A. Attention getter: The biggest witch hunt in American history took place 322 years ago in Salem, Massachusetts where twenty innocent people were convicted and executed for practicing the Devil’s magic. B. Relevance: My immediate audience should care about my topic because it is informative about the biggest witch hunt in American history. It affects them by having the ability to go home having more knowledge about the Salem Witch Trials. They can relate to my topic by being aware of what happened in 1692. C. Credibility...
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...Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials occurred between February 1692 and May 1693. These trials were a series of hearings and prosecution of people who were accused of witchcraft in the colonial Massachusetts. The preliminary hearings were also conducted in a variety of towns across the province, but the most serious one was conducted by the court of Terminer and Oyer in Salem Town (The DBQ Project, 2002). The Salem Witch Trials were sparked by hysteria mixed with family rivalries. The trial led to the execution of 19 defendants who were accused of witch craft and the 20th defendant by the name Giles Corey was pressed to death because of refusing to plead guilty. The main accusers of the Salem Witch Trials were immediate neighbors and family members. The Salem witch Hunt started when the daughter and cousin of Reverend Samuel became sick and without proper diagnosis, the doctor inferred that the two girls were bewitched. The girls had symptoms such screaming, throwing things around and positioning themselves in awkward positions. Those put to trial were accused of causing death of their neighbors’ livestock, sickness and death of their neighbors’ children and torment. The neighbors attributed their misfortunes to witch craft practiced by the defendants. As the cases proceeded, the affected girls became the main witnesses and accusers which later saw the judges controversially use spectral evidence. This is because the witnesses claimed...
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...Salem Witch Trials             The Salem Witch Trials occurred between February 1692 and May 1693. These trials were a series of hearings and prosecution of people who were accused of witchcraft in the colonial Massachusetts. The preliminary hearings were also conducted in a variety of towns across the province, but the most serious one was conducted by the court of Terminer and Oyer in Salem Town (The DBQ Project, 2002). The Salem Witch Trials were sparked by hysteria mixed with family rivalries. The trial led to the execution of 19 defendants who were accused of witch craft and the 20th defendant by the name Giles Corey was pressed to death because of refusing to plead guilty.                The main accusers of the Salem Witch Trials were immediate neighbors and family members. The Salem witch Hunt started when the daughter and cousin of Reverend Samuel became sick and without proper diagnosis, the doctor inferred that the two girls were bewitched. The girls had symptoms such screaming, throwing things around and positioning themselves in awkward positions. Those put to trial were accused of causing death of their neighbors’ livestock, sickness and death of their neighbors’ children and torment.            The neighbors attributed their misfortunes to witch craft practiced by the defendants. As the cases proceeded, the affected girls became the main witnesses and accusers which later saw the judges controversially use spectral evidence...
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...The world over, many people have faced suffering as a result of false accusation. One may be accused of doing something by someone with a hidden intention to benefit from the same. Some people may also end up hurting someone and alienating them socially simply because of their beliefs and different ideologies. In this regard, the McCarthyism and Salem Witch Trials have a high score of historical importance with both similar happenings and different happenings that portray the way the varied beliefs of people led to the many killings and jailing of innocent people. In Salem Witch Trials, many people were accused of practicing witch craft. The key accuser of witchery was Abigail Williams. The laws of the time identified witchcraft as a criminal...
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...The Salem witch Trials can be compared to other historical events in history when social/political norms disintegrate for a period of time. Compare one of them to the Salem witch trials. CITE REFERENCES. The Salem witch trial started because of the seven girls that were up at the forest dancing. Unaware of what was happening reverend Parris burst into the scene at that time and caught the girls dancing, but the girls all ran away when they noticed reverend Parris’s presence. After the girls escaped they started to fall sick, then with the pressure and post on the line reverend Parris being to suspect the girls of conjuring spirit’s the last time he saw them at the forest because of the way they were dancing at the woods and also because of their reaction after they ran away from the forest. But when he confronted his niece Abigail Williams she denies that she and the other girls engaged in any witch craft. But later on when she was pressure and confronted again she falsely confessed and accused Tituba of conjuring the spirit while they were dancing, to be safe and not be persecuted she too falsely accused Goody Osburn and Sara Good of witch craft, because the consequences she will face. In the case of Abigail Williams false accusation on people she was trying to get rid of people that are in her way in order to achieve a goal, like Elizabeth Proctor and this was what caused people their lives because of jealously...
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...end. The Salem Witch Trials began in the 1692. Many of the girls from the Salem village began to act strange, the symp-toms were peculiar. The girls would throw fits so bad that all the town was enthralled by the by the behavior exhibited by the girls. The girl’s bodies would bend and be contorted in an unusual grotesque manner. Some of the other symptoms that would occur include, the girls losing their hearing, vision, verbal usage and a loss of memory. They would say things like specters would appear and attack them, leaving marks behind (Hansen 1). Dr. William Griggs was the man who had given the afflicted...
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...sorcery, without a fair trial (History staff). Those who were killed includes men, women, and unfortunately children. Salem, a colony located in Massachusetts, was where many innocent people were killed for being thought of using witchcraft. Salem was not the only one killing people for witchcraft, before Salem hundreds of women and men were burned at the stake in Europe and neighboring countries. The Salem Witch trials has proven that words can be stronger when fear is involved, the enforcement of the constitution is crucial, and how learning to communicate with the person at trial it more beneficial than staying close minded. When fear is a factor between life or death it makes things very bias. 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts a witch, Tituba an Indian slave, was accused of...
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...The salem witch trials occurred between 1692 and 1693. They took place in the colonial Salem in Massachusetts. In total there was one hundred and forty-one people put in prison, nineteen were hanged and one person was even crushed to death. These trials were performed to find out what individuals in the colony were practicing witchcraft. Of the nineteen who were hanged fourteen were women and five were men. Some of the individuals that were in jail died before serving their time. When the bewitchings initially started in Salem they were only targeting younger girls but as they expanded, older women were included to the group. Hearings of the salem witch trials were initially passed on to different towns but the main trial was organized and...
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...small town of Salem, Massachusetts. The town consists of a tight knit highly religious society. The situation and circumstances that the community is in encourages the development of several different themes in the story. Religion, integrity, and respect and reputation are all important themes in the novel. Religion is one of the main reasons that the novel its self is able to play out and develop. The main plot of the story revolves around religion and the actions that the characters take out either for or against the things that they are taught and that they are expected to follow. The community is a group of extremely religious Puritans; in their minds and opinions there is only one thing that is important: God. To the community the only thing that should matter to people is being on God’s good side and being the best Christians they can be. The only things that have an important value are upholding religious beliefs and developing the best relations they can with God and the church. If the people of Salem hadn’t been so religiously uptight then the Salem witch trials probably wouldn’t have even occurred. Also, during the witch trails the only thing that people had as proof of innocence or guilt was religion without religion their points would have been without meaning. Every time someone was accused of performing witch craft someone would always put in question their commitment religion. During the time that Elizabeth Proctor had been accused of witch craft Mr. Hale went...
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...Salem, Massachusetts known as Danvers, Massachusetts today was founded in 1626 by Roger Conant and a group of immigrants from Cape Ann (United States History). Naumkeag was Salem’s name before it was renamed by the settlers. The settlers found it better to rename the village Salem because it is derived from the Hebrew word for peace (United States History). Well known for the witch craft hysteria that has taken place in the town of Salem. The community went through what we have been taught is The Salem Witch Trials, what were these trials about and how were they solved? The Salem Witch Trials took place in the spring of 1692. However, the 1692 trials were not the start, witch hunts started around the 1300 and 1330s and ended in the late 18th century in Europe (The Salem Witch Trials). Three-fourths of the European witch hunts took place in western Germany, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland. A witch hunt is the process of trying to identify witches rather than the ones that were already thought out to be witches. During these witch hunts 110,000 people were tried for witchcraft and between 40,000 to 60,00 were...
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...When you hear the word witch, you might think of an old green lady riding a broom with a wicked laugh. During the witch craze, you could be accused of witchcraft if you were female, male, rich, poor, old, young, if you didn’t follow the same rules as everyone else, or even if you had a disagreement with someone. The most popular witch hunt was the Salem Witch Trials that occurred in Colonial Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials could be viewed as the catalyst of the reformed American Legal System, as they went on the words of children. This paper will show what happened, why it happened and the results and impacts it left in America today. In 1692, the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts turned on each other and accused hundreds of their own neighbors of being witches. The puritans’ goals for when they moved to America was to have a model community where everyone followed what the bible said. Many of the citizens believed “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Exodus 22:18 (Wood, Chapman, and Morton, pg. 30). A group of young women who were said to be possessed by the devil, accused many people mainly older women of poor standing of practicing witch craft. Tituba, a Native American slave from Barbados, practiced voodoo and people thought she was the reason their kids were acting strange since she was a maid in...
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...Condemned Do you know the story of the crucible, if so do remember abigail williams. I just wanted to tell you do you think that abigail is guilty for the lies she made. She has committed in the town of salem. Is Abigail to blame for everything is she responsible? Abigail in the crucible is a very chaotic girl. She is a girl that hates everyone she wants everyone to do what she wants to do. She is a girl who will do something bad and she will get in trouble and she won’t get in trouble. Abigail is a horrible girl she made up a lie to get out of trouble and it cause many of innocent people to die for it. How much is Abigail to blame for the events that took place? She is all to blame for all of the horrifying events that happened in the town of Salem. She did...
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...A Representation of the Accused Witches of Salem The Salem Witch Trials were a series of executions that took place in Salem, Massachusetts during the years 1692-1693. These executions took place due to a large number of people in Salem being accused of witchcraft. The amount of tried witches primarily consisted of women, although men were also accused. This paper argues that a specific pattern can be found with regards to how the women accused of witchcraft were viewed in their society. In particular, women who stood out in a negative manner were often the victims of public accusations, especially those represented as religious heretics, deviant members in society, and social outcasts. In order to interpret the Salem Witch Trials, one must...
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