The Salem Witch Studies
The witch trials in the late 1600s were packed with controversy and uncertainty. The Puritan town of Salem was home to most of these trials, and became the center of much attention in 1692. More than a hundred innocent people were discovered guilty of rehearsing witchcraft during these times, and our American government forced over a dozen to pay with their lives. The key reasons why the witch tests occurred had been conflicts dealing with politics, religion, family, economics, and fears of the citizens.
Before the city of Salem became therefore famous for it is trials, its Puritan residents moved using their English homes to escape via religious persecution. There were two groups of people who made up this town: people who wished to leave the town of Salem, and people who would not. Most of the families who planned to stay were living closest for the town, plus the families whom wanted to keep lived additional away. The families and those who wished to leave were commonly farmers, and lived about eight mls from Salem Town. Among the largest families of farmers was the Putnams.
The Putnams were considered highly in the village, because they owned or operated the most farmland. Since they wanted to separate from the town, that they decided to create their own chapel in 1689. Rev. Parris was the preacher at the chapel, and his wage was paid by the community taxes. He had a nine-year-old daughter named Betty, and a twelve year old niece named Abigail Williams. Simply because lived so far away from Salem Town, generally there wasnt much for them to perform for pastime purposes. Abigail, Betty, and two other friends chose to form a circle where they would captivate each other with stories.
Rev. Parris slave, Tituba, would sometimes participate in their very own circle, and before long, several other girls became a member of their group. Tituba might tell the ladies fortunes, but soon Abigail and Betty became terrified from these psychic psychic readings. Rev. Parris thought that their very own unusual tendencies and peculiar physical expressions were a sign that the girls were bewitched.
At first the girls wouldnt discuss those with which they supposedly conjured spirits, but Betty finally named Tituba. The other young ladies also named other people like Sarah Osborne and Debbie Good whom they stated to have viewed with the satan. Since these kinds of three ladies had awful reputations in the town they were believable suspects of witchcraft. An investigation in the three women was create, and David Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin were directed from Salem Town to investigate the cases of witchcraft.
The investigation took place in the Salem Village Meetinghouse. During the tests, when the 3 women were being asked concerns, the girls could cry away and drop to the flooring. Even though Debbie Good and Sarah Osborne maintained all their innocence through all of this, Tituba had made a decision to confess to practicing witchcraft. After the research, Hawthorne and Corwin decided that the 3 women had been all doing witchcraft. We were holding all taken up a Boston jail, exactly where Sarah Osborne would afterwards die from natural causes. Even after the three females were delivered to jail, the accusations still continued inside the village.
Shortly, another townswoman by the name of Martha Corey was accused. Ann Putnam got accused Martha of sending her heart out to receive her. Despite the fact that Corey usually attended chapel, she would still be disliked inside the village. Rebecca Nurse could be the next person to be accused of witchcraft. Even though the lady was a 71-year-old woman, Ann Putnam as well as the rest of the ladies told the court that her soul would take flight into their areas at night and torment all of them. When Rebecca was advised of these costs, she responded, What trouble has Our god found in myself unrepented of the he ought to lay this kind of affliction after me within my old age? (Kent, p. 76). When the persons in the village heard about her conviction, they will started to blacken the word with the girls, but the accusations ongoing.
One of the people that didnt consider the girls was a 60-year-old player by the name of Steve Proctor. His maid, Martha, started to perform like the additional girls, thus John endangered to conquer her in the event she
