The Salem Witch Trials: The Salem Witch Trials

The Salem witch trials occurred around the 1690s in Salem, Massachusetts. Some young women started to have fits and their bodies would seize. These fits had seemingly no medical explanation, so the people of Salem deemed it witchcraft. The people of Salem then had to decide which people were witches. They accused both men and women of witchery, and when they were found guilty, they were hanged, but why were these people found guilty? The people of 17th century Salem were convicted of witchcraft due to pressure and bias from their community, strict codes involving morality and religion, and mass hysteria. People were convicted due to the pressure of their community and a bias against them. In order to save themselves, some of the convicted named other people on hope of being spared. Most of these people were social outcasts due to their race or social status. Some of the people accused of witchcraft were enemies of the middle class family, the Putnams. There was bias toward the convicted because “many of the accused proved to be enemies of the Putnams...would end up being the accusers in many of the cases”
The people on the jury would say that they “do hereby declare that [they] justly fear that [they] were sadly deluded and mistaken, for which [they] are much disquieted and distressed in [their] minds” in a written apology letter (Fisk). With the admission of not being completely sure of the evidence used against the victims, it shows that they were wrong to accuse these people of witchcraft. Their only excuse was that they were in a distressed state of mind, which was caused by the overwhelming effect of the trials. They also “confess that [they] were not capable to understand, nor able to withstand the mysterious delusions of the power of darkness and prince of the air”, so they were not even sure of what was going on