Salem Witch Trials :: essays research papers

The Salem Witch Trials: Fact or Fiction   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  American history is a collaboration of all of the wonderful events and the not so successful ones that make up this great country that we call the United States. Records of this fabulous nation date back all the way to dates way before our original founding fathers. However, few episodes of American history have aroused such intense and continuing interest ad the trials and executions for the witchcraft which occurred in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. Historians have scrutinized the event from many perspectives; novelists and playwright from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Arthur Miller have capitalized upon its inherent dramatic possibilities. The value, then, of a collection of primary documents relating to this event would seem to be clear, or would it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Witchcraft had been around long before the Salem witch trials. â€Å"Indeed by 1692 the â€Å"witch craze,† which had begun in Europe around 1500, was distinctly on the wane so that the trials in the Salem Village were among the last of the major outbreaks-if the execution of only twenty persons entitles this outbreak to be called â€Å"major† in the history of European witchcraft.† However, if this was one of the last instances of witches, why is it so famous? They are different in many ways. â€Å"Before the outbreak at Salem Village, trials for witchcraft had been fairly common events in colonial America, but they had not invariably resulted in executions or even in conviction.† The other reason the trials are so famous, is the highlight of this paper about proving that the trials were just an act put on by the children who started this outbreak. â€Å"Only in 1692 did the accusations multiply so quickly and develop an entire commun ity.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On February the 29, 1691/1692, the warrant for the arrest of Sarah Good was handed to Constable George Locker, who would go to the home of William and Sarah Good and arrest her. It was written in her warrant, that she had displayed witchcraft on the children of the village: Elizabeth Paris, Abigail Williams, Anne Putnam, and Elizabeth Hubert were the children involved. An interesting point however, is that the children did not make the complaint to the courts. It was the fathers and relatives of Joseph Hutchinson, Thomas Putnam, Edward Putnam, and Thomas Preston that went to the courts and made the complaint for the children. In addition, in the warrant for her arrest, it said that she had hurt the children several times over the past two months.