Salem witch trials
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The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft, in Massachusetts, British America, during the period between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people.
History
In February 1692, the young Dorothy Osborne inexplicably became sick in Salem with an illness no one could explain, having extremely disturbing symptoms. This situation attracted the attention of the British Templar Samuel Parris, who believed that the illness was the result of exposure to an unidentified Piece of Eden. For unknown reasons, Parris then pushed his daughter Betty and niece Abigail Williams to fake having the same seizures, which started a mass hysteria in the town as other women also became "ill". The Puritan Church declared that the illness was the work of the Devil and witches. Neighbors began accusing each other of witchcraft and people were arrested and tortured, often for something as futile as a wrong look on someone else.[1]
In June, the Templar William Stoughton was appointed as the chief magistrate of the court tasked with judging the individuals accused of being witches. On 10 June, the American Assassin Tom Stoddard, who had just arrived in Salem, witnessed the execution of Bridget Bishop, the first victim of the witch trials and the Templars. With Jennifer Querry, a nurse and Assassin present in Salem to gather information on the situation, Stoddard infiltrated the place where the Templar kept the people accused of practicing witchcraft, to discover if one of them had a clue on the location of the Piece of Eden. The two Assassins found the prisoners and Dorothy, who told them that she knew where the artifact was, but they later discovered that there was no artifact and that the young girl was the one with special psychic abilities.[1]
Unfortunately, the Templars had expected Stoddard's arrival and planned to use his legendary skills as an artifact hunter to let him find the artifact before taking it from him. Stoughton then used the mass hysteria he created with Parris to counter the Assassins, sending a crowd after Stoddard after declaring him as the Devil incarnate and telling the populace to bring the man back to him.[1]
They eventually caught up to the Assassins in a swamp and[2] Stoughton later tortured the Assassins for information and threatened to hurt the mute boy David, secretly Querry's son. The worried Querry then offered to give them information when Consus once again possessed Dorothy, much to Stoughton's glee. After he killed an escaping Querry, Stoughton threatened Stoddard and revealed that he planned to experiment on the captured women to create more oracles.
However, Dorothy, hearing Stoughton's words and overcome with guilt, killed herself in the fire. Enraged, Stoughton tried to kill Stoddard, blaming him for the loss of his oracle and ranted on that he would find another even if he had to try every woman in the colonies as a witch. Before he could kill the Assassin, Parris interfered and shot Stoughton in the shoulder. Parris then freed David and Stoddard as he clearly objected to Stoughton's ways of violence.[3]
Gallery
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The execution of Bridget Bishop
Appearances
References
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