Essay - The Salem Witch Trials in the Months of June to...

The Salem Witch Trials

In the months of June to September 1692, nineteen men and wo***** were hung near ***** Village, Massachusetts, for ***** crime ***** witchcraft. One man, Giles Corey, close ***** eighty years of age at the time ***** the accusations, was crushed to death under heavy s*****nes for refusing to be tried. Hundreds of other people also faced accusations of witchcraft, and a l*****rge proportion of the accused spent many months in jail without ***** *****nefit of trial.

They hysteria that led to the Salem witchcraft trials has its roots in the strict Puritan religion ***** the colony of *****. However, economic conditions, personal jealousies, discontent within a congregation, and teenage boredom all played an important role in the events that swept Salem ***** summer.

*****'s hysteria over witchcraft sparked with ***** strange illness ***** Betty Parris, the daughter of the Salem minister. She exhibited a ***** variety of symp*****ms, including contorting in pain, ducking under furniture, and complaints of fever.

Talk of ***** increased as several of Betty's playmates, ***** Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott began to show similar symptoms.

Salem's easy acceptance of the idea ***** witchcraft came partially from the ideas espoused in Cotton Mather's book, Memorable Providences. This book, popular just before the trial, described the suspected ***** of an Irish servant in Boston. The behavior ***** the woman ***** the book was eerily similar to that of young Betty Parris, who ultimately claimed that her afflictions were ***** result of witchcraft.

***** Parris' slave Tituba, a West Afric*****n native, soon became implicated in the growing hysteria. Her exotic origin and the tales ***** voodoo ***** omens from her folklore made ***** an ***** scapegoat. The number of ***** girls who reported having the str*****ge symptoms included to grow.

Soon, the ***** of witchcraft turned to ***** courts.

***** ***** Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn were the first to be accused ***** witchcraft. All three ***** socially disempowered, ***** ***** a slave, ***** a beggar, and Osborn was old, irritable, and did not often attend church.

County magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne scheduled examinations for the three women ***** March 1, *****. The afflicted girls performed their contortions when presented with the ***** women on trial. Villagers offered stories of cheese and butter ***** had ***** sour, and animals that were born ***** deformities after a visit my *****e of the three women.

Tituba's testimony brought ***** proceeding to a fevered pitch.

***** declared that she ***** a witch, and that she and four other *****es, including the other accused women had flown through the air. Her confession helped ***** quiet ***** sceptics, and local *****s, ***** Parris, ***** ***** the witch-hunt with renewed zeal.

***** afflicted girls quickly named ***** ***** as witches. These ***** Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, ***** Cloyce, and Mary Easty. The four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good, Doris soon became accused ***** witchcraft ***** ***** girls ***** her spectre of biting them. The child ***** eight *****