Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

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The Salem Witch Trials Would you like to know why, how, when, and who was involved in the Salem Witch trials? Well, there had been regular stresses of the 17th-century in Massachusetts Bay colony. People had a very strong belief in the devil; there had also been a rivalry with the nearby Salem town. Turned out, there were prisons filled with more than 150 men and women from towns surrounding Salem. In June, 1692 the court of Oyer and Terminer were in Salem to listen to the cases of witchcraft. (Witch museum) There were six girls that falsely accused people of witchcraft. There was a girl named Bridget Bishop, she was found guilty and was hung on June 10th. There was no exact explanation of why this tragedy had happened. They do believe…show more content…
From June to September 1692, there were nineteen men and women at gallows hill who were sent there and were hung for witchcraft. There were hundreds of people facing accusations of witchcraft. Governer Phips had created a brand new court called the court of Oyer and Terminer. There had been five judges. Three of them were close friends with Cotton Mather. They were appointed to the court. The first accused witch was Bridget Bishop the girl I had mentioned earlier. She owned a tavern and was almost sixty years old. Bishop’s trial was on June 2 of 1692, a field hand said that he had saw her steal some eggs then he saw her transform herself into a cat. Yes, a cat. A bunch of villagers had said that they believe Bishop had been involved in a big part of their bad luck. They also had said that while taking her to the Salem meeting house that she looked at a building and caused part of that building to fall on the…show more content…
September 22, 1693 the last of the witches had been released from the prisons. The witch trials had officially ended. But, over the past few years one to two hundred “witches” were sent to prison. 24 of those “witches” died and 55 innocent people were accused or falsely admitted to witchcraft. There were six girls who committed witch craft but had also accused many other innocent people of witchcraft. (Sam M et al) Yes, those six girls lived a normal life after the incident. Betty Paris, one of the chief accusers, was not persecuted and did not have any action taken against her. After it all she lived a perfectly normal life, she got married and had four children. The girls would either not recognize what they had done or they had tried to ignore their past. Ann Putnam Jr. accused 62 people of witchcraft and was the only one of the accusers to publicly apologize. (Sam M et

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