Salem Witch Trial Case Analysis

At the start of 1692, two adolescent girls from Salem village started to ail from mysterious fits. Seventeen months afterwards, after lawful action was taken on 144 individuals, with 20 of them being sentenced to death, the humiliating Salem witchcraft court proceedings ended at long last. (Norton, 2003 pg. 3 -4) During those times, the magistrates who headed court cases paid no attention to women as well as girls who were aged below twenty five years old but in that witch case, things took a different turn as women were the prevalent accusers and the magistrate gave them opportunity to air their views (Norton, 2003 p.7). Norton's supposition regarding the 1692 hunt for witches at Salem village support a clash of traditions thesis and some…show more content…
Norton’s argument for that case supports a conflict of traditions thesis to a very big extent. Prior to the 1692 Salem witchcraft cases, many other related cases had been reported and the accused taken to court but there was no form of punishments given to the accused instead, they were acquitted. The reason for why the magistrates behaved in that manner in dealing with the 1692 witch cases is based on the fact that, the magistrates were at that time the outpost’s councillors and also martial leaders in addition to being the judges of the unique court that was founded by the ruler in May that year to deal with the witchcraft cases. In the previous witch cases, the judges were intensely occupied with the war against the Wabanaki Indians and then afterwards the insidious New England in 1988 and thus did not have much time to spend on court trials (Norton, 2003,…show more content…
The stage for the 1692 hunt for witches was set by the 1688 war between the English people, and the sinister England. The most compelling evidence is that from Tituba and the other two women who were accused alongside her. The final conclusion of Tituba testimony she cannot see who hurt the children.

References

Brinkley, A. (2002 ). American history:a survey, Volume 1. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Douglass, F., & Harriet Jacobs. (2004 ). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Random House Publishing Group .
Hoffman, E. C., Blum, E. J., & Gjerde, J. ( 2010). Major problems in American history : documents and essays . Boston, MA :: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Norton, M. B. ( 2003). In the Devil's Snare:The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. New York: Vintage