The Salem Witch Trials were a series of events that occurred during 1692 in Salem, a Puritan colony in North America. Many people were accused of being witches and a large number were hanged, or died in jail because they couldn't prove themselves innocent. These events show how the Puritans were insecure in their new home, and therefore had to accuse things that they were ignorant about of being witchcraft.
When two girls, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams began to behave peculiarly and the people in their town did no know what was wrong, they quickly claimed it to be witchcraft. When the girls were questioned, they named three women, and claimed that they were the ones afflicting them. One of the women accused was Tituba, a slave from Barbados who always told the girls tales and entertained them.
The event that followed was even stranger: even though two of the women accused denied having anything to do with witchcraft, Tituba confessed, claiming that she had been working for the devil and that there was a whole conspiracy of witches in Salem. I am not sure of what led Tituba to say such things, but I do believe that she was simply scared for her life. After her statement, a "witch-hunt- began. Everybody was suspicious of everybody, and many people were accused. Most of these people were poor or different in some way from the rest of the society. outcasts, or simply people whom the society did not care so much for. These people were put in jail, trialed, and sometimes hanged, for they refused to confess. Many died in jail. There was never any physical (or tangible) evidence to prove that they really were witches, only vague accusations. Some of the village people even signed petitions claiming that the ones accused were not witche4s! Still, it was no use: everyone was much too convinced that they were, in fact, witches.
The Salem Witch Trials only ended when Williams Phips, governor of Salem, dissolved the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer (that was responsible for the Witchcraft Cases) and replaced it with a New Superior Court of Judicature.
