As Bridget Bishop looked at the small crowd gathering she said before the box was pulled “I am not a witch, i’m innocent”. The crowd yelled “LIAR” and the the box was pulled, only a rope sustaining Bridget Bishop. This happened during 1692 in Salem. Why were 20 people in Salem hung? What was the cause?…
The witch craze, during which hundreds of thousands of people were executed without trial, occurred during the renaissance and reformation in the late 1400s until the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment in the 1700s. The “witches” were mostly female, and given no trial. During this time period, although people were beginning to get educated, the majority of people believed that women could be evil and crazy, but men couldn’t and were therefore better than women and could do what they desired, which included placing the blame of the world’s evils on women. This apparent evil nature of people, especially women, led to the death of over 100,000 victims accused of being witches, and their age and the spread of disease were the blamed causes of the supposed spread of witchcraft. Two Dominican monks, Kramer and Sprenger, claimed that women were naturally corrupted and evil, and that they were sexual beings, which supposedly led to the…
The Salem Witch Trials began during the late winter and spring of 1692 when a group of young girls began to display strange behavior. They claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused many local women of witchcraft. The first convicted witch was Bridget Bishop and she was hanged. In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams began having fits, including violent deformity and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor, William Griggs, diagnosed bewitchment, other young girls in the community began to display similar symptoms, including Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren.…
The general public of England was bereft about the possibility that the Devil would take over their lives and in so doing would bring about the downfall of England in the religious and political centers. So, they sought out those few who in their country were stirring up “schemes”; mainly the men and women that they believed were witches. In Peter Elmer’s book, Witchcraft, Witch-Hunting, and Politics in Early Modern England, he focuses on the political and religious atmosphere of early modern England and how this affected the fluctuation of witchcraft persecutions and eventually the demise by the 17th century. It is important to note that Elmer, is following a long line of authors who have written about the political emphasis of witchcraft,…
The Salem witch trials were trails held in Massachusetts during February 1692 and May 1693. Several girls claimed they were taken over by the devil and they accused woman of practicing witchcraft. The trials executed primarily women for the charge of witchcraft. Although they were called Salem witch trails, hearings were conducted in several towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut.…
Witch trials were quite the frenzy about 350 years ago. From Europe to the New England Colonies, witch trials are a big part of history. About 30 years before the Salem Witch Trials, there were trials over in Connecticut. Eleven people were hanged and 46 prosecutions took place. Connecticut was the first of the American Colonies to have gone through the witch hunt frenzy.…
Salem Witch Trials Witches The word witch comes from the Celtic word 'wicca' meaning 'wise one' or 'magician'. Witchcraft was made a capital offence in Britain in the year 1563. Witchcraft is still illegal in various areas such as South America and India. Most of witchcraft today is practiced in the United States, Back in the times of Salem, witches were people who had seen the devil.…
There were many people involved in the Salem Witch Trials. There were also many people who spoke out against the trials. The first of these people to speak out was John Willard. Willard was later accused of witchcraft by Ann Putnam Jr. and then again by his grandmother, Bray Wilkins . After being accused, the witches had the opportunity to confess their sins and return to there religious fold after repenting.…
Erikka Burke Sjovold History 310 September 24, 2014 Salem Witch Hunt The accusations of witchcraft occurring in New England started in the late-16th century. The Puritans were fairly new to their settlements.…
If we consider the accusations and trials held for these women in Salem village, many of them stood on false hearsay. Modern psychology and medicine would have had a good explanation for the fits the teenage girls reportedly experienced. There may have been some individuals who believed and practiced witchcraft among the Puritans.. The witch trials ended after questions of validity and doubts…
Sourcery , devils , voodoo , or witchcraft. Witchcraft in New England was a big no-If you were thought to have done or be doing witchcraft , you would be sentenced to death. Altho you may think that is not that big of a deal , but back then it really was. But the real reason I am telling you this is to inform you as an individual on witchcraft in New England.…
Now I'm not trying to prove that witches are real.…
This all began in the small area of Salem Village, Massachusetts. These events started when some young girls claimed that others were supposedly “possessed by the devil.” A young girl started with this excuse after her and a handful of others were caught by a man while she and the other girls in the village were dancing in the forest, but some had claimed they were performing rituals to summon the devil himself. The word spread and anything someone thought was off about another person, or if they did not have a close bond was their way to accuse them of being a witch and getting rid of them forever. All of these reasons had been false and not what they were said to be, and people also were able to use this against people, neighbors, or outsiders…
The Russians have a word for witch, ved’ma that translates into “one who knows”, witches are supposedly very knowledgeable in natural phenomena and in casting spells. Witches have appeared in almost every culture at sometime or…
Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem is a National Geographic book that gives an overview of the Salem Witch Trials from its start to its finish. The author, Rosalyn Schanzer, is complete in her telling of the events, starting from the point where no one guessed that the afflicted girls were being tortured by witches and ending with the stories of how each person lived out their lives after the trials ended. The drawback of recording over a year of time within 131 pages is that the information isn’t as in depth as possible, and though everything is touched on there are obvious focuses, such as the reverend, who appears on nearly twenty different pages, as opposed the the symptoms of the girls’ affliction which appeared on…