Preview

Discrimination and The Salem Witch Trials

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
350 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Discrimination and The Salem Witch Trials
What was the Salem Witch Trials? The Salem Witch Trials was a peroid of time in which many women and men were being accused of witchcraft. The victims of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were tormented (and most were put to death) by being burned at the stake, hung, etc. for being accused of witchcraft, and being found guilty by a jury and/or a judge. The aftermath resualted in crop failure, depression and a new nickname for the town.

Where and when it all began:The Salem Witch Trials began on February 29, 1692 (when complaints were made against Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne...All three women were being accused of witchcraft...) and the final hanging was on September 22, 1692. Although it was called the Salem Witch Trials, many of the persecutions and victims were from other parts of Massachutess. (in other words, the Trials happened in more places than Salem).

What caused the discrimination?Many people believed that people did actually praactice withcraft. young girls from the Salem area had fits, and cried out the name of those possessing them. The young girls' fits were believed to have been caused by adolesent hysteria and ergot posioning. But that was not all that caused the disrimination. Some of the accused women actually confessed to practing magic. Still, many more causes were in effect.

What discrimination took place?If found guilty, the women/men were hung, burned, tormented, humilated, and were sentenced to prison. If the victims weren't put to death, and they went to jail, they would suffer extremecondiations. they would freeze and be starved. There were actually some who died while still in prison due to those dramatic state of affairs.

Who practiced the discrimination?Although some of the men or women admitted to practing witchcraft, they were killed anyway. Either way, for those who admitted, and those who didn't, sombody HAD to accuse them of being witches. As, I had stated before, young girls have accused some women of possessing them.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    guiltless individuals were subject to witchcraft, that resulted in 19 men and women hung to…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Salem Witch Trials are known as a series of people being accused and prosecuted of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts beginning in February 1692 until May 1693. The trials began after a group of girls claimed that they were possessed by the devil. Several local women were accused of witchcraft and this began the wave of hysteria that would forever haunt Salem and leave a painful legacy for a long time to come. Nearly every major school of historians has attempted to explain the answer to the mystery of the trials, trying to understand why they occurred. From Marxists who blame class conflict, to Freudians who believe in mass hysteria, the more ecologically based historians who put the blame on hallucinogenic ergot fungus, and now more…

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18), this was a passage that the Puritans lived by. The Salem Witch Trials took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 and claimed the lives of many innocent people. It led to the hangings of almost twenty, leaving more than one hundred in prison. A group of young girls in Salem Village accused several local women of witchcraft while being claimed of being possessed by the devil. This is causing a wave of hysteria to spread throughout colonial Massachusetts.…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A legitimate cause for the accusations may result from a mental disorder. In the article The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary, it is acknowledged that, “The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis” (Linder). Many of the possible symptoms may have caused the outbreak, yet delusional psychosis is more sensible. The form of a mental disorder causing the symptoms is a probable cause. The people of Salem were completely oblivious to the additional causes of the accusations. Salem could have avoided several lives may have been saved if some form of common knowledge was used.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Witch Trials were a time of torment and suffering for those living in Salem Village, Massachusetts 1692.…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Salem Witch Trials started in Spring of 1692 and lasted until September of 1692. It was believed that people were possessed by the Devil. There were over 150 people accused. The first conviction was in June. As a result, 19 people were hanged. There was weird behavior coming from some of the girls. According to the History Channel, they “began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming”. The odd behavior was known as bewitchment. It all started with three women. They were questioned for many days. They were declared innocent by most people. Tituba thought differently. She said, “The Devil came to me and bid me serve him”. The three women were found…

    • 325 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During this time people were very religious. Therefore if anyone was accused of having any kind of witchery they were hung, drowned, or burned to death, unless they confessed(History.com Staff). Now back then if you confessed you would be known for it and your name would be ruined, so not many people confessed. Even though all you could do is confess most people didn't because it was a sin to lie, and if they confessed without being a witch they would haft to live with that the rest of their lives( History.com Staff).There were no real evidence if you were a witch, it was just a he said she said thing. Didn't matter how much u pleaded they did not care. It was a very cruel time. Most of this was caused by mass hysteria(History.com Staff).…

    • 452 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 is one of the most well-known historical events. In 1692, 20 people were hanged for being a so-called “witch.” Most accusations were made by six girls, which included Betty Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam Jr.. Witches were people whose bodies had supposedly been taken over by The Devil. But what really caused the Salem Witch Trials hysteria? The three reasons that caused the mass hysteria were how certain people, ages, genders, and marital statuses were targeted, the fact that the girls were so good at acting, they were able to fool the entire village, and that neighbor conflicts created tension and jealousy.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Salem witch crisis, which occurred during the 17th century, involved a series of hearings and prosecutions of individuals in the Salem community who were accused of witchcraft. This crisis began in mid-January when the daughter and niece (Betty Parris and Abigail Williams) started having fits after playing with white magic (Wilson, 7). This was followed by more cases of alleged afflictions as other girls in the neighborhood started showing similar behaviors. The more afflictions also led to a long wave of accusations against those said to have been the cause of the little girls’ afflictions due to their association with witchcraft.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the British colony, Massachusetts, witchcraft hysteria broke out between February 1692 and May 1693, resulting in the execution of twenty people and the jailing of 342 people. The Salem Witch Trials began after young girls in Salem claimed to be possessed by the Devil and started holding local women of Salem accountable of witchcraft. The effects the Salem Witch Trials had on the colony were separation of the church and the state and mass hysteria. In the 17th century, witchcraft was a serious crime, and convicted witches could be put to death. The following will discuss what the Salem Witch trials were, what happened during the time frame, and how it shaped Salem Village after it ended.…

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Women were taught to be submissive to the rule of their fathers and men in positions of rank. This caused social tensions, and the agency of a woman was suspect if she acted outside this socially structured role. The roles of women in households and communities were connected to bearing and raising children, marriage, and purchasing goods for the household. The acceptance of women accused as witches being part of the marginalized and poor, she argues, is not reflected in the documents from the trials and did not support the idea that women accused of witchcraft were the marginalized members of the community. Just because they were women in their patriarchal culture, they lacked significant ability to exercise agency.…

    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    But of course rather than taking actions and admitting to her crimes she played it off as witchcraft. And as a puritan a harc core christian this is like a bomb threat or even the recent clown sighting epidemic. So them as a person would have a natural fear of anything of that nature. With a small community like Salem things spread fast of what was going on. Also like modern day when something happens and you're not the first to speak about it, people will jump to conclusions and have their imagination take…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A witch is defined as a person capable of magical ability. Witches have been feared for their magic for centuries. Societies have shunned witches, put them on trial, and even burned them at the stake. It’s tradition for people to fear what they don’t know about, and for them to dismiss learning things that are different from the typical. Witch hunting was a serious problem for hundreds of years across the globe. I will look at the political aspects of witch hunting and a general overview of witch hunting as it happened in England. Witchcraft has always been associated with Satan or some form of demonic worship, and I will look at that as well. Societies have burned witches at the stake and hung them from trees for a fear of their magic as well as discrimination against those that are different.…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Salem witch trials happen in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Some of the colony eventually admitted that the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become famous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to be in peoples imagination more than 300 years later.…

    • 1577 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Salem Witch Trials Colonial times; a time without the technology we have today. It was a simpler time, with log cabins and woven clothes galore. It would seem like an ordinary, peaceful day, with the townsfolk doing their whereabouts.…

    • 838 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays