Salem Witch Research Paper

Words: 1639
Pages: 7
Open Document
Disease, sickness, mental illness, or Witchcraft? The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns in the Province of Massachusetts Bay: Salem Village, Salem Town, Ipswich and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. Proving the possibility of witchcraft came to importance, as did the symptoms of being a witch. Soon thereafter, The actions that were taken against witchcraft, …show more content…
The manifestations attributed to the disease quickly became associated with witchcraft. Symptoms included neck and back pains, tongues being drawn from their throats, and loud random outcries; other symptoms included having no control over their bodies such as becoming limber, flapping their arms like birds, or trying to harm others as well as themselves. These symptoms would fuel the craze of 1692. The girls screamed, threw things about the room, uttered strange sounds, crawled under furniture, and contorted themselves into peculiar positions, according to the eyewitness account of Rev. Deodat Lawson, himself a former minister in Salem Village.The girls complained of being pinched and pricked with pins. A doctor, historically assumed to be William Griggs, could find no physical evidence of any ailment. Other young women in the village began to exhibit similar behaviors. When Lawson preached in the Salem Village meetinghouse, he was interrupted several times by outbursts of the …show more content…
In the decades following the trials, the issues primarily had to do with establishing the innocence of the individuals who were convicted and compensating the survivors and families. In the following centuries, the descendants of those unjustly accused and condemned have sought to honor their memories. The trials have figured in American culture and been explored in numerous works of art and literature. The story of the witchcraft accusations, trials and executions has captured the imagination of writers and artists in the centuries since the event took place, many of which interpretations have taken liberties with the facts of the historical episode in the name of literary and/or artistic license. Occurring at the intersection between a gradually disappearing medieval past and an emerging enlightenment and dealing with torture and confession, such interpretations draw attention to the boundaries between the medieval and the postmedieval as cultural
Show More

Related Documents: Salem Witch Research Paper

Research Paper On The Salem Witch Trials

The Wicked Witches of Salem The Salem Witchcraft trials in Massachusetts during 1692 resulted in nineteen innocent deaths. Many men and women were hanged and one man was pressed to death. Although Salem was home to the witchcraft trials, the hysteria spread to many towns around Massachusetts. The witchcraft trials are responsible for hundreds of innocent deaths over time. It began at the end of 1691 when a few girls in the town of Salem were seen dancing in the woods. Dancing and partaking…

Words 1593 - Pages 7

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

Witchcraft The Salem Witch Trials is a big historical event in the 17th century relating to Witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials started in the spring of 1692. A hysteria had gone throughout Massachusetts about people being possessed by the devil. Over 150 men, women, and children were accused, September 1692. As many were puzzled on this topic, other people had come up with theories. Some believed smallpox epidemic caused Witchcraft and others believed it was caused by a fungus ergot showing symptoms…

Words 382 - Pages 2

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

The Salem Witch trials continue to captivate many up to this day, though many centuries later. This panic throughout the town heightened accusations of witchcraft provoking massive destruction along with endless fear, doubt, and injustice. As a result, the blame is on children, men, and women. There were several created hysterias, like if family livestock perished out of coincidence, it was supposed a witch cursed their family. Ongoing beliefs like this erupted in madness within the village. Many…

Words 201 - Pages 1

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

terrorist attacks, fear was changed the course of history. People used fear as an excuse to outcast people, until others stood up and fought the fear during the Salem Witch Trials, the Red Scare and the Stonewall riots. The Salem Witch Trials are characterized by people taking advantage of fear to get their own personal agendas across. The Salem Witch Trials began with the scapegoating of Tituba, a slave from Barbados (making her easy to blame). “By this time, suspicion had already begun to focus on Tituba…

Words 691 - Pages 3

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

The Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials all began because a group of girls started to show worrisome behavior. They claimed to be possessed by the devil, they girls accused many women in the community of witchcraft. The Witch Trials were made up of,'' A series of hearings and prosecutions of people being accused of witchcraft." These events were held in the Salem village in Massachusetts from February 1692 to May 1693. The community of Salem started to purge from anything…

Words 201 - Pages 1

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

Eivys Borges Professor McLeod ENC1101 12/9/15 Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials were a series of court trials that were aimed at prosecuting people who had been accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts. Taking place between January 1692 and May 1693, it was one of the first hysterical moments that America would go on to see. What happened during the Salem witch trials? On January 20, 1692, in Salem Village, the Reverend Samuel Parris' nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and his eleven-year-old…

Words 697 - Pages 3

Salem Witch Trial Research Paper

In the spring of 1692, a group of teenage girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, declared themselves to be under the devil's sway and accused numerous local women of being witches. This sparked the famed witch trials. A special court met in Salem to hear the cases as a wave of hysteria swept over colonial Massachusetts; the first found guilty, Bridget Bishop, was hung that June. Bishop was followed by eighteen people to Gallows Hill in Salem, and over the course of the following few months, some…

Words 344 - Pages 2

Salem Witch Trial Research Paper

In the spring of 1692, a group of teenage girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, declared themselves to be under the devil's sway and accused numerous local women of being witches. This sparked the famed witch trials. A special court met in Salem to hear the cases as a wave of hysteria swept over colonial Massachusetts; the first found guilty, Bridget Bishop, was hung that June. Bishop was followed by eighteen people to Gallows Hill in Salem, and over the course of the following few months, some…

Words 344 - Pages 2

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

up paranoia is witch trials. Witch Trials have been around for centuries and follow the practice of magic and use of spells and spirits towards others. The Salem witch trials in specific were significant because the public had let this topic become out of control and so widely spoken of so soon. In Massachusetts 1692, three young girls had a strange feeling coming over them. They started feeling controlled and would convulse and have loud outbursts. Doctors diagnosed this as witch craft. It was such…

Words 3799 - Pages 16

Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

convicted of witchcraft, to gladly confess to being a witch. According to the information that I was given, the only real plausible decision during that time would to say “yes” to being a witch for even though I would know better than to think myself a witch I would rather stay alive by confessing to such an outrageous crime rather than deny the accusation to later be killed for telling the truth. I believe that many other people during the Salem Witch Trials did the same in order to say themselves from…

Words 718 - Pages 3