The Salem Witch Trials

For 327 years, the Salem Witch Trials have sparked world wide interest. At the mere name, people will stop and listen with enrapture. The curious case of how people could suddenly turn on each other and commit mass murder is a fascination of past civilizations. In this curiosity, people have began to explore the Salem Witch Trials through multi-media ways: movies, books, songs, museums, food, and websites. However, this exploration has harmed the actual history of the Salem Witch Trials and modern historians have forgotten what actually happened in 1692.

With all the literature, movies, and rumors about the trials, it created a lack of interest in preserving historical sites of the trials.*5 The picture on the left is the 1992 memorial for the victims of the trial, the first and only memorial in 300 years. However, it is only a select few as Tituba (an Arawak slave to Minister Samuel Parris) the first victim of the trials, does not have a plaque in the memorial. Most likely forgotten due to her being buried outside of the village because she wasn't white, but also she has been painted as a black voodoo priestess by film and movies.

In 2017, a group of archeologists finally located the hanging tree of the trials. It had been up for speculation for many years, despite maps and accounts that had located the exact spot from 1700-1800s. However, due to lack of careful preserving of the trial documents, petitions, information, and maps of the land have been lost or painted over. In Danvers' haste to start anew, the victims were long forgotten and disappeared from history.

Thousands of people travel to Salem, MA to visit museums, shop in city centers that profit off of the witch trials' names, and go on tours of the city looking for ghosts. Most people do not know that the original Salem and the actual location of the trials is in Danvers. The modern town of Salem makes profit off of the victims of the trials, despite it not even been near the actual location. To put it in perspective, this would be like if the city of Columbine created museums, restaurants, and shopping centers about the students and the shooter for profit.

Watching movies, reading books, and theorizing why the Salem Witch Trials happened has been a pass time hundreds of thousands of people have contributed to. Witches, Devils, poison, and murder are all fascinating components of the 1692 massacre. However, with this consumption of mass media that depicts the victims as anything but victims, we lose the focus of the actual trials themselves.

The Salem Witch Trials arrested 150 people, executed 21 victims (20 hanged, 1 pressed by stones), and 5 died in prison. This tragedy has been lost to history because of careless interactions between those studying this phenomenon and documentation. Blind racism has changed Tituba's ethnicity which people still believe is true, modern cities like Salem are making profit of the victims, and modern historians and archaeologists have been lazy for more than 300 years in caring or searching for those victimized.

Let this story be a lesson to you: if history isn't preserved and is changed for entertainment for millions to consume, those fictional stories become the ever-lasting truth.

1. “Salem Witch Trials: Abigail Williams vs. Sarah Osbourne, Tituba, and Sarah Good.” Salem Witch Trialsek, Blog Spot, 16 Feb. 2011, http://salemwitchtrialsek.blogspot.com/2011/02/abigail-williams-vs-sarah-osbourne.html.
2. Roach, Marilynne K. “Salem Witch Museum.” Salem Witch Museum, https://salemwitchmuseum.com/product/salem-village-map/.
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13. Ocasia, Mike. “Agatha ' Aggie' Prenderghast #Paranorman #Laika.” Agatha, Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346566133795009850/?lp=true.
14. Ilovepeterpan1. “The Ghost of Judge Hawthorne.” Laika Animation, Fanpop, http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/laika/images/36847550/title/laika-animation-photo.
15. ParaNorman Official Trailer #2 - Stop Motion Movie (2012) HD, YouTube, 2 Mar. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgwSpajMw3s.
16. “Puritan Family Praying.” The Witch (2015), Alex on Film, https://alexonfilm.com/2017/02/22/the-witch-2015/.
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19. “The Salem Witch Trials Memorial.” Remember 1692 at the Salem Witch Trials & Proctor's Ledge, Haunted Happenings, https://www.hauntedhappenings.org/remembering-salem-witch-trials-memorials/.
20. Baker, Emerson W. “The Gallows Hill Project.” The Gallows Hill Project, Salem State, http://w3.salemstate.edu/~ebaker/Gallows_Hill.
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*1: Metaphor: or, the Map- Maps suggest explanation and explanation reassures.

*2: Visual Rhetoric and Spatiality- Maps make reality as they represent it.

*3: Maps Blossom- People use maps to connect their minds and selves.

*4: Graphical Practice- Maps are important to track human disasters.

*5: Plato- The more we write, the less we remember.