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The Salem Witch Trials

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The Salem Witch Trials was a series of prosecutions where nineteen people were convicted of being a witch, hung, and many other suspects were jailed. The trials took place in the Salem Village located in the Massachusetts Bay Colony which is now Danvers, Massachusetts. The focus of the Salem Witch Trials was the evidence of being a witch, the hunts, trials, executions, and the aftermath.
If the people in the town wanted to convict a person of being a witch, they had to have evidence. “The evidence consisted of whether they sank or floated when they were tied with rope and pushed into a body of water. Even if they did sink, they would have drowned. Other evidence included simply acting differently and being subject to bodily fits or seizures” …show more content…
“The girls had been displaying bizarre behavior like, screaming and having very violent seizures beginning in January of 1692, but they weren’t put on trial until March of 1692. On March 1st of that same year two magistrates from Salem Town, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, went into the village to conduct a public inquiry”(Schiff). Both Good and Osborne protested their own innocence, though Good accused Osborne. At first, Tituba pleaded innocent, but then she was afraid of them just because she was a poor slave. “She then told them what they wanted to hear. She told them that she had been visited by the devil and made a deal with him. In three days of vivid testimony, she described encounters with Satan’s minions and with a tall, dark man from Boston who had called upon her to sign the devil’s book in which she saw the names of Good and Osborne along with those of seven others that she could not read. Her testimony decided the fate of Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Tituba’s testimony began the search for more …show more content…
“The abuses of the Salem witch trials would contribute to changes in U.S. court procedures, playing a role in the advent of the guarantee of the right to legal representation, the right to cross-examine one’s accuser, and the presumption of innocence rather than of guilt. The Salem trials and the witch hunt as metaphors for the persecution of minority groups remained powerful symbols into the 20th and 21st centuries”(Wallenfeldt). The trials made it important to have good and sturdy evidence on a case, so then that we don’t put innocent people in jail and to

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