Abby B.

The Salem Witch Trials

Introduction:

Have you ever wondered about the Salem Witch trials? Or how or
who caused them? Well, in this book all your questions about these
trials will be answered. There seemed to be a strange illness going
around. If you were caught or said that you were practicing magic
then you had to go into the trials. If you were tried and found guilty
then you would either be hung or thrown into jail. That doesn't
sound fun.   

Chapter 1: Who caught the strange illness?:

It was late 1692, when Betty Parris a nine-year-old girl first started
to act weird, really weird. Abigail Williams an eleven-year-old girl,
started to act weird as well. The two were cousins.  They probably
had no idea that all of the things that happened in that short year
were real. During this long one year span of the trials both of the
girls together named about 100 witch suspects. Abigail was born
with the name Abigail Rogers but her name was changed somehow.
Abigail was the very first accuser in the trials. Betty on the other
hand was the first person to have claimed that she was being
attacked by a witch. But both girls took part in an act that had killed
about 20 people by hanging. The reason that so many people were
killed for said being a witch was because of what was written in the
“Bible”: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Chapter 2: What you got for being called a witch:

If you were called out for being a witch then you were tortured.
Some of the things that they did were: hanging, dunking in water,
the malicious mallie carta, and some more. They thought that if you
were a witch then you would float, because witches are evil and that
the water was holy and wouldn't let the witch into it. It was called
swimming a witch. You were also put into jail and you would have
to pay for the chains around your wrists and ankles. If you didn't
pay then you would be in jail for the rest of your life. In my opinion,
that's scary and I wouldn't want to be in that situation.

Chapter 3: What trial?:

The trials happened in a courtroom (scary). They had you
tested because they didn't know what you could be capable of
if you were a witch and many people were put in jail because
of what they thought the results pointed to. The trials could end
up lasting from a day to a week or maybe even more. When
you were tested you were either being put in water, pinched, or
stripped of you garments to be tossed and turned by a scary
machine. The trials were scary if you were the person being
blamed for witchcraft. But, it was also scary for the girls that
were being pulled, punched, and tugged by your supposed
spector even though it could have just been a weird illness that
was very common at the time (rye infected with a fungus called
ergot or rare type of food poisoning ). The girls screamed and
cried at the top of their lungs. In my opinion I would have
either moved away from Salem or kept to myself and stayed in
my house.

Conclusion:

In the end you figured out about the strange illness and who
caught it. You definitely wouldn't have wanted to be a witch or
wouldn't have wanted to get caught. Lastly, the trials seemed
very scary. And hard to get out of. In my opinion, the trials
should have never happened. Do you think that the witches
were kind or mean? Do you think that the trials should ever
happen again?

Thanks for reading!

                                      -Abby