The salem witch trials book report

It was one brutal year for the colonists of Salem that year Brooks. It all started out in January of …. The Salem witch trials occurred around the s in Salem, Massachusetts. Some young women started to have fits and their bodies would seize. These fits had seemingly no medical explanation, so the people of Salem deemed it witchcraft. The people of Salem then had to decide which people were witches. They accused both men and women of witchery, and when they were found guilty, they were hanged, but why were these people found guilty?

The people of 17th century Salem were convicted of witchcraft due…. The Salem Witch trials were started in But why? According to History. The book is laid out chronologically to help readers understand these events as they happened.

Norton is a historian and a professor of American History at Cornell University. Published in , The Devil in Massachusetts takes the dialogue of the Salem Witch Trials court records and uses it to tell the story of the trials in a dramatic narrative.

Many authors of newer books on the trials have cited The Devil in Massachusetts as one of the first well-researched and investigative books on the Salem Witch Trials. Starkey, who died in , was a former newspaper editor who later became an author. The Crucible by Arthur Miller.

The Crucible is a play that first premiered on Broadway in Although the play is set in Salem in and depicts the events of the Salem Witch Trials , it is actually an allegory for the Red Scare that took place in the United States in the s. In the Crucible, Miller was comparing the witch hunt in Salem to the witch hunt for Communists in the s. The Crucible is both a blessing and a curse for anyone interested in learning more about the Salem Witch Trials.

On the plus side, it was responsible for kick starting a renewed interest in the witch trials and it fueled the start of the tourism industry in Salem. Yet one major drawback is, because it is based on the trials many readers mistaken believe that the play is historically accurate and think many of the things that happened in the play actually happened in real life. As a result, a lot of myths and misunderstandings have stemmed from this play as well as the movie adaptation released in Miller took a lot of liberties with the story, which he had the right to do as a playwright, and injected his own theories, ideas and events.

Miller was inspired to write The Crucible after reading Charles W. The book was one of the first contemporary books published on the topic and is cited as an important historical book on the topic. Originally published in French in and later translated to English, this novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Tituba, a slave of Reverend Samuel Parris, who was one of the first women accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.

This novel is interesting because Tituba is an often overlooked individual in the trials and this novel tries to remedy that by shining a light on her life. In doing so, the novel explores the role of gender and race in the witch trials and challenges traditionally white, male dominated historical narratives.

Conde, a French author and former professor at Columbia University, has written numerous historical fiction novels, including the book Segu. Her novels typically explores social issues such as race and gender. Published in , this novel is a fictionalized account of the afflicted girls of Salem Village.

The story explores the theory that the afflicted girls were lying about their afflictions in an attempt to punish people that their families disliked. Rinaldi is a former newspaper columnist who later became an author.

The trials were deemed unlawful and Samuel Sewall, the leading justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, publicly apologized for his role in the matter Schiff In , the Massachusetts Colony passed legislation restoring the names of the condemned and provided financial restitution to their heirs.

There are museums dedicated to preserving the history of the Salem Witch Trials and it continues to be a popular topic of. There are museums dedicated to preserving the history of the Salem Witch Trials and it continues to be a popular topic of early American political thought. Even today, there is much debate on whether the accusers were really afflicted with any condition that caused them to act out the way they did or if they were simply bored children telling stories.

Theories include such things as mental illness , stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis Linder. This condition is brought on by ingesting rye that has been infected with ergot, a fungus that invades developing kernels of rye grain, especially in the warm and damp conditions of the previous rye harvest in Salem Linder.

Convulsive ergotism can cause violent fits, hallucinations, choking, vomiting, and a crawling sensation on the skin of the afflicted. In fact, the drug LSD is a derivative of ergot. Another possible explanation is the power of suggestion. At the time, Cotton Mather has recently published the very popular Memorable Providences , a book describing an Irish washerwoman in Boston who was suspected of witchcraft. It was easy for readers to believe that, with the turmoil of life in the colonies during this time, the devil was nearby, watching and waiting.

The well-documented hysteria of the Salem witch trials is an unflattering piece of American history that remains popular to this day. Men and women were wrongfully executed because some young girls accused them of practicing witchcraft, conversing with the devil, and possessing magical powers.

Despite confessions by a number of the accused, it is clear that there was some other cause for the erratic and irrational behavior of the afflicted girls. Whether it was boredom, infected rye grain, suggestion, or some other affliction, we may never truly know.

It can be confidently said, though, that the frenzy of the Salem witch trials will remain a point of interest and mystery. Blumberg, Jess. Linder, Douglas. UMKC, n. Schiff, Stacy.

The New Yorker, 7 Sept. Salem Witch Museum, Ibis Communications, Inc. Ultius, Inc. Ultius Blog, 15 Apr. Click here for more help with MLA citations. Research Report on the Salem Witch Trials. Click here for more help with APA citations. April 15, Click here for more help with CMS citations. Click here for more help with Turabian citations.

She accuses Elizabeth of bewitching her to kill her. The court will not kill her because she is pregnant but John Procter ends up being hanged because he was accused. Most all people who accused others for being witches were young girls.

Many people were put to death because of these people accusing them. After the trials were done they were very deeply regretting their decisions when they found the women that were accusing were lying and found guilty. On February 29, the girls blamed three women for cursing them: Tituba, a slave; Sarah Good, a homeless woman; and Sarah Osborne, an elderly woman. Not until , years later, did Massachusetts apologize for what they the Witch Trials did.

Such similarities include the false imprisonment of innocent people based off of prejudice beliefs and heavily biased justice systems. When confronted, the girls began accusing others of practicing witchcraft Schiff. Many people were soon accusing others or being accused of witchcraft; they were being accused for various reasons such as unexplained illnesses, failed crops, or a woman could even be accused if she could open something a man could not Brandt, p.

In this book, Stuart A. Kallen, wrote about how these witch trials began, what happened during them, and how all of this madness finally came to an end. Kallen also wrote about how the town of Salem went from being a rather peaceful Puritan establishment to being a town obsessed with hunting supposed witches. Today, the thought of witchcraft sounds outrageous, but it was actually rather common in the seventeenth century.

Rosalyn Schanzer wrote the book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, which is a book that describes the life in Salem during the witch trials.