Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

Historians nowadays still have no complete idea as to how the madness of the Salem

witch trials spread so far; many believe that the main cause of it spreading was because most

women were defying Puritan choices such as how they choose to live their life, with what they

were reading, making, and eating, making more traditional Puritans furious. “Most of the

accused witches were women, and some historians say that many of them were relatively

powerful property owners who defied Puritan expectations for submissive female behavior”

With how little known the reasoning behind peoples thought process back then were we can’t

fully comprehend why they made the choices they did we can only learn from their mistakes into

not making irrational …show more content…
Majority of them stood on the ground that they did nothing dealing with the devil instead of

facing eternal damnation by saying they wrote their name in the devil’s book. Those who said

they were not guilty were proven “guilty” and sentenced to be hung in front of the people of the

village. It was a very controversial time because if you said you were guilty dealing with the

devil you would be hung and if you said you weren’t guilty, but still accused of witchcraft then

you would still be hung. “You tax me for a wizard, you may as well tax me for a buzzard I have

done no harm.” -George Jacobs Sr.” the quote debunks the myth that it was only women being

accused when in fact there were men too; it is true that mostly women were accused, but men

Kailyn Rawlinson

December, 11, 2016

Washington 3rd period

also had to fear making a stance on defending their friends, wives, siblings, and children for fear

of them being found “guilty”.

People went out in mass hysteria thinking they could be accused of being a witch …show more content…
“Satan’s design was to set up his own worship, abolish all the churches

in the land, to fall next upon Salem and so go through the country.” -William Barker Sr.” The

main reason people contributed the trials were happening was because they thought the devil was

trying to destroy the town as stated about in the quote from William Barker Sr. everything was

happening because the people in the town weren’t pure enough so they thought if they got rid of

the bad people their town would be left alone.

After the year 1692 the governor of the colony heard his own wife had accused of being a

witch and that put an official end to the witch trials and nonsense the total amount of people

killed was 20 men and women and 2 dogs. Only one girl (Anne Putnam Jr) out of the 7 who

accused people of being witches actually apologized to the public; none of the girls were ever

prosecuted after the witch trials and went on to live relatively normal lives many people think the

girls chose to ignore their past. Reverend Hale the father of Betty who was the first accuser was

slow to admit fault about being wrong during the trials and by the time he admitted to being

Kailyn Rawlinson

December, 11,

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