Important things to Note Salem Town VS Salem Village Why is it that people began accusing others of Witchcraft How the Salem Witch Trials begun It all began when young girls in Salem village would meet in small informal gathering to discuss their curiosity with the future What began as a fearful curiosity turned into a sharp panic The witchcraft plague occurred in February 1692 It all began with two young girls Abigail Williams and Betty Parris Both girls were suffering from fits of screaming and convulsions Nobody knew exactly what it was but grown ups began to describe what was happening to their children odd postures fits distemper Samuel Parris first called a physician by the name of William Griggs Griggs was at a loss of what was going on He came to the suspicions that the evil hand was what was causing both girls to act in such an unnatural way Rumors quickly began to spread through Salem village that witchcraft was beginning to plague their village After the girls were pressured into revealing the names of the witches who were tormented the girls gave village authorities three names Sarah Good Sarah Osborne and Tituba an enslaved woman from the Caribbean owned by Samuel Paris Sarah Osborne and Sarah good both denied practicing witchcraft However Tituba did not she described things in detail She described how the devil looked All three woman were imprisoned Sarah Osborne died of Natrual causes With the three witches being imprisoned it was assumed that the plague would stop but it did not of witchcraft In the presence of god the children began to act out in a more strange manner Young girls continued to act strangely Deodat Lawson a former minister in the village was recruited by Samuel Parris Lawson soon discovered that Adults were no beginning to become affected by the plague Prayers and sermons were no longer the answer to help fight witchcraft Mary Cory was the fourth witch to join the other three in prison Dorcas Good daughter of Sarah Good was imprisoned in Boston Rebecca Nurse was the fifth one accused of Witchcraft During this time the outbreak was no longer controllable A great assembly was created consisting of the Deputy governor six magistrates and several ministers Days later Abigail Williams accused George Burroughs a former minister in the village of Maine was himself a wizard and had orchestrated the whole thing Months passed by and the Jails were no overflowing with accused witches and wizards The common problem was the no trials had been held yet This was because Massachusetts did not have an established government yet There was no Governor because of King George That was until 1692 when the village learned that about their new governor Sir William Phips they had to wait for him to arrive because without him if trials were to occur it would be considered illegal The only thing village authorities could do was throw accused witches and wizards in jail without trial Once William arrived he had a swift and bold response He constituted six members of his Advisory council as a special court of Oyer and Terminer to hear and determine the backlog of witchcraft cases As chief of justice of his court Phips named lieutenant governor William Stoughton The first session was held in Salem town Bridget bishop was the first to be hung The place of execution would late be called Witched Hill The trials continued and now 5 cases would be taken on a single day and if proven guilty the accused would be hung After dozens more we put up for trial and hung the trials came to an end for good Stopping the Trials Ministers Questions and evidence The trials soon became a colony wide concern Even in late September when 19 people had already been accused and 100 s had been imprisoned waiting for trial What finally did put an end to this was the organized intervention of the principal ministers of eastern Massachusetts From the outset of Salem Village and beyond there had been a strong undercurrent of opposition to the arrests examinations and trials Daniel Elliot went on to testify claiming that a girl had boasted to him that she did it for sport A member of the Court of Oyer and Terminer had resigned after the hanging of Abigail Bishop Cotton Mather of Boston s first church publicly supported the trials When the examination occurred the people examining would tend to look for supernatural evidence They discovered that Witches and Wizards found it difficult to recite an sort of prayers For instance George Burroughs was able to recite a prayer Mather gave a speech enabling authorities to proceed with the hanging Directed proof of supernatural attributes were by far the strongest and most acceptable forms of evidence Mather used this to further justify conviction and execution There was another form of evidence Mather failed to consider A second party would express how angered as to express and imply a threat Sometimes the damage would be done too property or livestock As powerful as the evidence seemed to be it was still flawed it was extremely hard to prove if the person had committed the deed since it was carried out through a supernatural intermediary Mather rejected most of these tests He believed that The tests involved toys with Satan s power but also they two easily lent themselves to Satan s powers The testimonies were also very uncertain and questionable how is one to prove of the evidence The trail records did not survive As the summer went on a general uneasiness emerged it became apparent that the executions no more successful than fasting and prayers a stop to things Pg 19 talks about how the 20th century felt about the trails Chapter 1 1692 Some new Perspectives Bewitchment and Conversion Why were the girls never chastised for their behavior which itself verged on Witchcraft It was also the adults who first concluded that witchcraft was in the picture at all pg 23
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