May 23, 2020 20:00:00

What happened to the 'Salem Witch Trials' in which more than 100 people were accused of being witches?

Witch hunting has a strong image of medieval Europe, but there has been a large-scale witch riot in the United States called the Salem Witch Trials . YouTube's educational video channel TED-Ed provides an easy-to-understand explanation of the witch turmoil that casts a dark shadow on American history and is said to have had a tremendous impact on the state of the judicial system.

What really happened during the Salem Witch Trials --Brian A. Pavlac --YouTube


I was tried for a crime I didn't commit ...

If you deny it, you will be executed as a sinner.

However, if you lie and confess and instead cite someone as a spearhead, you will be spared the sin.

This is the Salem Witch Trials that actually took place between February 1692 and May 1693 in the village of Salem in Massachusetts.

Those impeached as witches in this case were victims of paranoia, misguided religious enthusiasm, and a judicial system that emphasized repentance over truth.

The cause of the incident originated in the formation of the village of Salem. Salem was originally a village founded in 1626 by the Puritans who fled the crackdown in England.

In Salem, fighting with Native American and French settlers was a daily occurrence.

As a result, people's lives were tough, and even the villagers had a jerky relationship.

Another tragedy that struck the people of Salem was the 1692 cold wave. This winter was the coldest winter ever recorded.

The first anomalies were the 9-year-old girl

Betty Parris and her cousin, 11-year-old Abigail Williams .

The two behaved strangely, but the doctor was unable to find any physical abnormality in them.

The diagnosis made by the doctor was that 'the two are in the hands of the wicked.'

This is based on the worldview of the Puritans at the time, 'The devil brings disaster to the world through his agent, the witch.'

When the news spread that the village was obsessed with demons, anomalous symptoms spread among the villagers.

Early records report that twelve girls who were allegedly 'sick' had symptoms such as abnormal body twists and seizures, and complained of tingling skin pain.

Four out of twelve girls complained that three villagers were afflicting them.

The three people who were accused were labeled as 'foreigners' with some kind of difficulty and were imprisoned one after another.

Sarah Goode , a poor pregnant woman with a young daughter, was arrested on February 29, 1692 for committing a witch's spell ...

Sarah Osborne was arrested for not going to church for a while.

Tituba , a female slave at Betty Parris's house, was tried for telling her child the story of a witch.

The first person to start confessing was Tituba. At first, Tituba denied that he didn't bother his child, but later confessed that he practiced magic at the command of the devil. He also testified that it was Good and Osborne who forced him to do so.

Good and Osborn continued to appeal for innocence, but soon Osborne died in prison.

Instead of protecting his wife, Good's husband, William, testified in court that 'she is a witch or will soon be part of a witch.'

Good's four-year-old daughter

Dorothy Good was also imprisoned and cross-examined with her mother, eventually giving a testimony against her mother.

Good gives birth in prison, but the child born will soon die.

Shortly thereafter, Goode himself was convicted and died by hanging.

Meanwhile, Tituba, who accused the two women, was released in May.

Since then, the number of victims of false accusations has continued to increase. There is also a statement in the interrogation record that it was stated that 'if you do not confess your sin, you will be hanged, and if you confess, you will be released.'

The people involved in the trial showed no interest in investigating the content of the accusation, but the defendant pleaded guilty and begged for forgiveness, promising that he would never engage in magic again. Just asked.

The court accepted no matter how suspicious the evidence. It also includes

'spectral evidence ' that claims to have seen the witch's crime in dreams and illusions.

Many of the jury trials were relatives of the accusers, which spurred the court's dysfunction. As a result, there is no objectivity in the trial.

Some were like Nathaniel Saltonstall , who resigned as a judge because he hated being involved in the witch trial, but only a handful.

By the following spring of 1693, more than 100 people had been imprisoned and 14 women and 6 men had been executed. By this time, witch trials began to extend to the villages and towns around Salem.

Even priests like Rev. Francis Dane have been the subject of criticism.

Eventually, the situation finally came to an end when

William Phips , the first governor of the Province of Massachusetts, where his wife was arrested, ordered the court to stop adopting 'spectral evidence.'

It does not have ascertained is what the hell that caused the witch trials of Salem, girl et al became the accusers is that it would be was suffering from 'hallucinations that cause food poisoning and brain tumors caused by fungi'

Some people pointed out I will .

One thing is clear: adults treated incoherent accusations by children as solid evidence.

'Even today, Salem Witch Trials is

a lesson about the dangers of group psychology and the psychology of scapegoating someone, and the power of fear that distorts human perception,' the movie concludes.