Twenty-four innocent people died during the Salem Witch Trials. This was due to many different factors that effected the people who lived there. The biggest factor being their religion; everyone living in Salem was a Puritan. When the Witch trials began, people’s judgment turned over into fear and superstition. Mass hysteria began because there was no governor, and there was no law system. Plus, everyone in the Puritan society strongly believed that there were higher powers; God and Satan. On top of this, there was a major division between the people in Salem; the wealthy and the poor. While all of this was going on, children’s expectations were not faltered, people still wanted them to behave like adults. Fear of witchcraft was common in New England, and was even more common in Europe. …show more content…
Tituba was a slave who served a very wealthy family, Sarah Good was a homeless beggar and Sarah Osborne was an elderly women who was sick and married her servant. Tituba was one of the first accused of being a witch. She was beaten in order to admit to being a witch. In order to make her beatings stop, Tituba accused three other women of being witches, and in return was not hung, but jailed. Sarah Good, the first of being accused, was a beggar and immensely old. People thought that she was a witch before being accused, and ended up getting hung. These women were accused of being witches by the circle girls, whose leader, Ann Putnam, was twelve years old. Ann is seen to be the person who started the Salem Witch Trials, and the creator of the hysteria. Since she was so little, she was obsessed with the power that she had acquired. She fabricated stories to watch others suffer. By the end of the witch trials, she would accuse sixty-two people. However, it wasn’t totally her fault; the standards put onto children were immense, and this was her way of relieving the
On February 29, 1692, issued warrants were released for Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba for witchcraft. Good, a beggar, and Osborne, a poor elderly woman, both claimed they were innocent and Tituba, a Caribbean slave from Elizabeth Parris’ family, confessed to being a witch. Tituba not only confessed to doing witchcraft but that there was a whole coven of witches in Salem, making her not the only one. Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams were experiencing tremors, spasms, fits and crying while throwing things. All of this made everyone suspicious about witchcraft.
Tituba caused the witch hunt outrage in Salem. Tituba was the servant of Reverend Parris. Practicing black magic was one of her hobbies and she showed this hobby to Reverend Parris’s curious daughter and niece. The young
However, according to many historians today, the Puritan’s religious beliefs of their God and their fear of the Devil, is the more strong and acceptable theory. The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 occurred in the Puritan community of
When they first began their fits they refused to reveal who the witch was, but when they did the first person they accused was Tituba. The people did not find it hard to believe that Tituba was a witch because she had earlier said that she believed in witchcraft. In February the girls accused two more women of witchcraft, Sarah Osburn and Sarah Good. Osburn and Good were two older women that no one in the village seemed to like very much so it wasn’t hard for the villagers to believe they were witches as well. Sarah Good was a woman who aggressively begged for food and if she was refused she would turn away cursing and Sarah Osburn created scandal after her husband died by purchasing an Irish immigrant and living with him as husband and wife before getting
One thing that might have caused the witch trials is profit, “ Mary Walcott ,Anns step cousin ,named an astonishing 69 witches”(page 56). This almost proves that she might have been accusing people for money/profit. “Abigail Williams, fingered 41 different witches for attacking her; Ann Putnam Jr. accused 53;her servant Mercy Lewis named 54; and a girl named Mary Walcott who was Ann’s step-cousin, named an astonishing 69 witches”(page 56). This means they were fervently,maliciously, wanted to abolish some of these people,and that most of the accusers stated accused more than 40 people. “Not all witches are human beings.
Three Puritan girls who lived in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 began to act strange; they would cry out in pain, start screaming, and stop speaking for a long time. Doctors could not find out what was wrong with them and jumped to the conclusion that the cause was supernatural. The Puritan girls accused three other women of witchcraft, but only one of them confessed. The only one to come forward and admit to witchcraft was a slave named Tituba. Tituba stated that the Devil came to her and made her write in his book.
One of the more famous witches being a woman by the name of Tituba. She was a slave. Tituba was an interesting case because she openly admitted to practicing witchcraft. Along with pleading guilty, she also named other people who were witches with her. Some believe she did this in an attempt to save herself from conviction, but since this was one of the first trials, nobody knew what to expect.
In Salem, Massachusetts, Puritans were strong believers in the Bible. The Bible states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The Puritans beliefs led to them accusing 20 innocent people of being a witch, this resulted in their deaths in 1692. Even though the Puritans couldn’t see it at the time, their accusations were really based off jealousy, lies, and Salem being divided into two parts. One cause of the Salem witch trial hysteria was jealousy.
They were extremely afraid of magic and thought that witches were the ones to blame. They belived witches enjoyed causing trouble. In What Were the Salem Witch Trials by Joan Holub, it says “Many New Englanders believed that witches had spirits inside them they controlled. These spirits were called specters. They were invisible to most people and could fly.
To begin, it is a popular belief that Tituba, a slave in the story, was justified in her confession to witchcraft in order to save her own life. After the girls of Salem peg Tituba as the culprit for corrupting their souls and torturing them, she is interrogated and accused by characters such as the esteemed Reverend Hale and town’s Reverend, Mr. Parris. Finally, Parris exclaims, “ You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!” (1.941-942). Tituba instantly confesses, and saves herself from a terrible death.
The Salem Witch Trials were fueled by fear because no one wanted to be punished or killed. In Document B, Act 1 of The Crucible, Reverend Hale arrives to see who is behind all of the witchcraft. When he asks the girls to give him, the names of the people they saw with the Devil. “Abigail: I want to open myself. I want the light of God; I want the sweet love of Jesus!”
The Puritans ran from persecution but then used the witch hunt to persecute innocent people based on the word of the women and men who had ulterior motives. The women used this opportunity to punish people they long had problems or resentment for. These women- Abigail, Tituba, and Mary- were aware of the power they felt when they were being heard by people in their community who were deemed Godly, upstanding citizens. So, they loved the sense of power they felt. Although the townspeople of Salem used religion as the reason for the witch hunt, the witch hunt created chaos because people started using it a revenge mechanism.
“ In all, 10 of 18 depositions against Rebecca Nurse were signed by Putnams, but 2 of the other accusers had grudges against the nurse family as well’’. Revenge, Hysteria, and Popularity everyone has an idea on what caused the salem witch trials. It would take forever to just list out all the possible factors. Beleiving in the listed ones are the best bet. All the world can do is think and believe.
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.
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.