The Massachusetts Bay Colony, prior to the period of the Salem Witch Trials, was a strongly Puritan society, centered around devout families, small villages, and agricultural economies. There was a massive “great age of witch hunts” that “spanned roughly from 1400 to 1775” and led to “at least fifty thousand people sentenced to death.” Specifically, in the American colonies, only one large outburst of accusations and trials occurred– the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Witch trials were not an uncommon occurrence in Europe and sometimes even in the American colonies, though in America, they were much fewer and more far-between than those that occurred in Europe. Abigail soon takes an even more evil approach, when she accuses her ex-lover, John Proctor, and his wife of witchcraft. The trouble increases when Judge Danforth begins to put people on trial for witchcraft and execute those who do not confess. Abigail becomes a ring leader as the girls begin to accuse and frame more people within the village for witchcraft. The girls, including the love stricken Abigail Williams, latch on to the idea that Tituba is the witch, despite knowing it is false. The townspeople begin to believe that a witch has cursed the children, and the servant Tituba is automatically accused, with two other women getting accused soon after. The film begins with girls in Salem Village having strange fits after a night dancing in the woods.
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