Salem Witch Trials: Accusations Rooted in Social Disparities

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The book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale Of Disaster In Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer is about the Salem Witch Trials. In January 1692, three women were accused of being witches by two girls who claimed to be “tortured” by them. More and more women and men were accused for about a year until the trials stopped. Overall, more than 200 people were accused, but why? There had to be a reason for these people to be accused. Some of the top reasons for people to be accused of witchcraft were poorness, feuds or revenge, and different opinions/beliefs.
One main reason for accusing a person could be because they were poor. People like Sarah Good were accused. “-for early in February a homeless woman named Sarah Good came knocking at Parris’s door, begging for food for her baby and her four-year-old daughter...Were her words curses, the king that caused crops to fail and …show more content…

One example of a person accused because of revenge is George Burroughs. George Burroughs was a well liked minister, “-most everybody liked and respected their minister, a short, strong, dark-haired man named George Burroughs with a history of performing heroic deeds for his neighbors” (Schanzer 63). But the Putnam family had a feud with Burroughs over money that he owed, so they never liked him, and the witch accusations gave them a chance to accuse him of being a wizard. “If the Putnams and others every laid plans to ensnare any one person in the course of the witch-hunt, that person was [George] Burroughs”(Revenge in Salem). So soon enough, Ann Putnam claimed to see an apparition of the minister. Ann even claimed that the man had told her “he was above a witch, he was a conjurer”(Schanzer 66). However, Ann Putnam could have just been running out of people to accuse. It is not for sure that she was accusing him just for revenge or because of a feud. She could have just been an imp trying to get attention by accusing someone

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