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Bridget Bishop and Giles Cory were the only executions that were down individually. Every other hanging was done in groups. The reason for this was that people were kept in jail until the execution so they could make a spectacle for the people by hanging large groups. This just added more fear to the crowds and villages adding to the hysteria in the witch trials.

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When a group of puritans settled in New England, this started the domino effect that let up to the start of this historic event. They believed the bible to be fact and one of the subjects talked about was the devil, who was clever and quite real. Satan had the power to possess a human to make them do terrible things, which led to witch craft becoming a crime in the 17th century (background essay).

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A lot of the time, when one person was accused, their family would be put on trial as well. If you look at Document A, you will be able to see that many of the people who were hanged had the same last name.

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The Salem Witch Trials Page contains information and court transcripts dealing with the events and persons of this tragedy.

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We think this tragic event should not have occurred. Charles Upham believed that this all started with great acting but terrible consequences. We agree with this because we don't think real witches exist. The girls were just acting out of greed, jealousy, and fear.

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The girls who first accused Bridget Bishop were completely oblivious to the chaos and hysteria it would cause. What was mean't to be a cruel joke turned out very differently. They had started a massacre.

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There were many instances where witches seemed real due to evidence. One very convincing one was when they tortured other girls. It would be very hard to act like you were being tortured and in pain. However, the accused always denied it making it questionable whether or not the afflicted girls were acting. Doc C shows, "[Bridget Bishop] shook her head, and the afflicted were tortured... Then she turned up her eyes, and the eyes of the afflicted were turned up."

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The people were so terrified and hysteric that they weren't reasonable enough to see what was really in front of them. It seems that if they were sensible, they wouldn't have believed witches were real right away without evidence.

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According to Document B, the main gender for the accused and the accusers were women. At first we believed that this was just because of a possible stereotype that stated women were more vulnerable to the devil then men. But later we realized that this may have been caused through jealousy of the younger ladies (accusers), to the older women (accused).

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During 1692 in the Village of Salem,  the wealthy and the poor never got along. They lived in separate lands, the eastern and the western half. Once the Witch Trials started, three categories of people were formed; the accused, the accusers, and the defenders. In Document E, there is a map claiming how many of the accusers  were shown to be poor, and many "witches" and defenders were mainly the rich, which tells a story of its own. The poor were overcome with greed and this caused them to do some things they might have regretted later on.

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Rope. A rope was placed around her neck. Bridget Bishop. Dead. All of this because of fear. Hysteria. Ignorance. The Salem Witch Trials had begun. In 1692, 20 innocent people were hung for being accused of witchcraft.