COLEGIO JEFFERSON

Alexandra Aranda
9th Grade Red
February 10th, 2021

Salem Witch Trial

When you here about this historical event, the first thing that comes to your mind will probably
be why, why did the village of Salem have a witch trial, killing many people, that had no serious
allegations whatsoever. They had no evidence that today would be taken seriously, still back then
it was reason enough to end their lives.

It all started on 1692, when two young girls got sick. These girls showed no symptoms of the
diseases that were common back then. A doctor came to check them out and figured out what
was wrong with them, the doctor said that the girls were victim of dark magic. In this period of
time a lot of puritans (certain kind of Christians that lived in the 1600s) lived in Salem, in fact
the father of this girls was the minister of the puritan church. This religion believed in good and
bad magic, so people talking about witchcraft was something normal. The girls were questioned
about who was hurting, the girls said the family slave named Tituba and two other women from
the village (Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne) were torturing them. These three women were sent
to a place where they would be checked for moles, birthmarks or warts, since people believed
this were given by the devil to speak through them. Later on, other girls started to have the same
Symptoms, this included twitching, jumping, screaming, and strange movements. Other girls
started to name other women; the total number of people accused is more than 200 people.

The trials started on March of 1692 and lasted a whole year. People who went into trial most of
the time were found guilty. There was no serious evidence showed on the trials, just the girls that
were in the trial started saying that they were being attacked, and that enough to found people
guilty. Specters were ghostly like figures that people believed were sent by the witches to
torture/attack the girls, specters was also a thing a lot of people believed in, just like
superstitions, charms for luck and fortune telling. The first hanging was on June 10, 1692, after
that other 18 were hanged and one was killed by pressing (putting rocks on his/her chest). People
later on started to realize what a big mistake this all was, some started to feel guilty and
confessing that they might have lied during the trials. A lot of people started to believe that the
girls were faking the “fits”, or that the bread they ate had was moldy and old. There is not much
evidence about what people said during the trials since most people afterwards only wanted to
forget this event.

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, the Salem witch trials were truly a time were
people got the chance to experience something very awful, even though witch hunts very
common, people did not expect to take to such extreme measures. The trials were really unfair
and would not be justified by anyone.