The Salem Witch Trials: Afflicted Women

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Witchcraft goes way back into early European centuries. To the Puritans, it was not some unknown thing. Whenever something bad happened or people started acting strange, it was a devil at work or witchcraft. Explained by Goss David, witchcraft was defined as “the act of invoking spiritual powers to accomplish a supernatural task-such as placing a curse upon a neighbor or telling the future.” Witchcraft was punishable by death coming from the Bible in Exodus 22:18, which says “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Although there was more than one, no other witch trial is a popular as the Salem Witch Trials. In the winter of 1691, eleven-year-old Abigail Williams and nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris, niece and daughter of the Salem village…show more content…
At these meetings, Tituba would teach the “afflicted girls” folk magic and someone put them under a spell. When Abigail and Elizabeth’s behavior could not be explained, Dr. William Giggs diagnosed their behavior as the result of a spell. To remove the spell, Reverend Pariss called ministers to pray for the girls’ spiritual healing. Despite repeated attempts to remove the spell from the girls, their condition remained the same. The girls were bewitched, and the people tormenting them needed to be found. When Elizabeth and Abigail were questioned, they at first only named three people. Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osbourne were the first of many to be accused by the “afflicted girls” and on February 29, 1692, warrants were issued to arrest…show more content…
However, this did not happen. When the women were arrested, the afflicted girls’ strange behavior did not stop. Nor did the accusations. Three more women were accused of witchcraft and jailed in March, and several more were jailed in April. By now the prisons were flooded with accused witches. With more and more people being accused and jailed for witchcraft, the prisons filled up because there was no trial. When James II was king, the Massachusetts royal governor and colonial charter had been removed. Without a royal governor and charter, the colony could not start a capital trial. The trials did not begin until the new governor, Sir William Phips, arrived on May 14, 1692, with a new charter. Phips created the Court of Oyer and Terminer, appointed Lt. Gov. William Stoughton as chief justice, and with confessions, testimonies, and spectral evidence, would sentence a great deal of people to their

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