Salem Witch Trials

4 Pages 997 Words

Salem Witch Trials


The Salem Witch Trials all began on January 20,1962, with nine year old Elizabeth “Betty” Parris and eleven year old Abigail Williams, daughter and niece of the village reverend Samuel Parris. Soon the girls began exhibiting strange behavior, such as blasphemous screaming, convulsive seizures, trance like states and acting as if to cast mysterious spells. Within a short period, several other Salem girls began to illustrate similar behavior; physicians felt that the girls were under the control of the devil, Satan. Reverend Parris conducted prayer services and public fasting in hopes of revealing the evil forces that tormented them. In an effort to expose the ‘enchantress’, one man baked a witch cake made with rye bran and the urine of the ill girls. This counter-magic was meant to reveal the identities of the ‘witched’ to the ailing girls. Pressured to identify the cause of their misfortune, the girls named three women, including Tituba and two other slaves of Rev. Parris, as witches. On February 29, warrants were dispatched for the arrests of Tituba, Sarah Osborne, and Sarah Good. Although Good and Osborne sustained guiltlessness, Tituba confessed to seeing Lucifer, who appeared to her “sometimes like a hog and sometimes like a great dog.” Furthermore, Tituba certified that there was a collaboration of witches at work in Salem.

On March 1, Magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathon Corwin investigated the three women in the courthouse in Salem Village. Tituba confessed to pursuing black magic. Over the next few weeks, other villagers came forward and testified that they too had been traumatized by or had seen strange phantoms of some of the village members. As the witch hunting prolonged, charges were made toward many different people. Frequently unmasked were women whose behavior was somehow disturbing to the social order and formalities of the time. Some of the accused had reco...