“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”, Exodus 22:18. In 1692 , in Salem Massachusetts , the Puritans believed everything in the bible, they also believed in witches and that witches should not be able to live.There were at least 3 causes for the Salem witch trial hysteria. There are: age, gender, and marital status , lying girls, and a divided town.
The Salem Witch Trials took place in the summer and into the fall of the year 1692, and during this dark time of American history, over 200 people had been accused of witchcraft and put in jail. Twenty of these accused were executed; nineteen of them were found guilty and were put to death by hanging. One refused to plead guilty, so the villagers tortured him by pressing him with large stones until he died. The Salem Witch Trials was an infamous, scary time period in American history that exhibited the amount of fear people had of the devil and the supernatural; the people of this time period accused, arrested, and executed many innocent people because of this fear, and there are several theories as to why the trials happened (Brooks).
In Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Disaster in Salem, the author discusses how the Salem Witch trials started and how the Puritans believed the witches should be tortured or killed for being a witch. Many people were accused of being witches. Many people thought the accused should die but some were somewhat nice and didn’t think they should die just in prison. Every puritan believed them because the dad was a reverend and everyone believed him so they all accused people. The causes of the Salem Witch Trials were disease, revenge, and attention.
The Salem Witch Trials is a well-known topic taught in history classes and in English classes. It was a time in which numerous, innocent people (mostly women) were killed because they were believed to be partaking in witchcraft. There are many possible causes as to why the Salem Witch Trials occurred. These known causes stemmed from the belief that Satan is acting in the world whether it be through giving a disease or recruiting new witches to work for him, kids that were bored and brought it upon themselves to lie that they were witches to have fun, and confessions leading town officials to believe that their belief that witchcraft may exist is true since people are coming forward and confessing.
The year 1692 and early 1693 saw the prosecution and execution of nineteen witches, an old man stoned to death, several accused witchcrafts dying in jail and close to 28 being cast out of the infamous Salem Village (present day Danvers, Massachusetts) on the belief they possessed power to sway people into doing what they wanted (Goodbeer, 2011, p. 2). Early 1692, the daughter; Elizabeth and niece; Abigail Williams of first Salem Village ordained minister; Reverend Parris experienced and had frightening episodes of screaming, uttering voices and throwing things around. Another girl Ann Putnam also experienced the same and under magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hawthorne influence, the girls blamed their conditions on three women: Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne for performing witchcraft on them (Goodbeer, The Salem Witch Hunt , 2011, p. 14).
In Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, many people have realized that the witch trials may have started for a variety of reasons. In the witch trials, people started accusing the innocent, saying that they have bewitched either themselves or someone else. The trials took place in the little town of Salem. In Salem, the majority of the citizens had beliefs in the Puritan religion, which is where they believe word for word the bible. Some of the possible reasons as to why the Salem witch trials started could be peer pressure / bribery, illness and/or emotion, and something that happened in the past, for example grudges that people might have.
...urse was accused as well, but found not guilty in the trial. Over 40 friends and neighbors testified in her favor, telling of her good faith and character. But the verdict from the jury caused such an outcry of fear, that the jury was asked to re-consider and she was then found guilty and hung. Mary Esty, Rebecca Nurses sister was also accused of being a witch, but she argued her case so well and in such a convincing manner, that the girls relented and she was found not guilty. She was released, a first in the witch-trials, but before long she was arrested once again on the claim that the girls had been haunted by her ghost. She was convicted and hung on September 22, 1692. Although all of the "witches" were hung, a certain man named Giles Cory was killed in a traditional English manner. He was pressed, pressing was where they would place heavy stones on a person till they died. Cory died two days later, crushed. 25 lives were taken during these Salem trials. 19 "witches" were hung at Gallows hill. One was tortured to death by pressing. And five others died in prison, including an infant. The Salem witch trials were mainly caused by these two girls imagination.
The fairness of the Salem Witch Trials was anything but what you would think. The trials, held in Salem, Massachusetts, were a tragedy in the 1600s where dozens of innocent people were accused and hung for supposedly using witchcraft. The very young (mostly 9 year old) girls accused witch after witch across the town of Salem. The book, Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, by Rosalyn Schanzer, gives a historical account of the trials and of those accused. The unfairness of the Salem Witch Trials is revealed through the use of spectral evidence, false evidence, and the underlying reasons some were accused.
The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a time of hysteria, stress, and destruction. These dreadful trials took place in Massachusetts (“A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials”). During these trials, more than two hundred people were accused of being witches; 24 of them were executed (“A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials”). All of these innocent people were falsely accused. However, it is not possible to fully blame the girls who initiated it, because they most likely had Ergot of Rye which occurs as a plant disease, affects the girls, and caused this incident.
The people of Salem, Massachusetts wanted to do more than repeat the same things everyday. People of Salem Town claimed that a “Rampant fear among the Puritans in the New England village of Salem sparked attacks against anyone who was suspected of witchcraft.” (History.com “Salem Witch Trials”) yet, it is likely most of the people, accused or not, knew that the accused weren’t witches. People have said that the Betty and/or Abigail were just sick and were being pressured to see if they were being bewitched by so called “witches” to be acting like they were and seeing what they saw. More and more accusers, mostly children, were being caught, but still recanted(page 96). As the judges were being rapt(page 70) listeners, they were wasting their time listening to the attention-hungry accusers. Most accusers used “spectral evidence” so they could get away with saying lies that sounded worthy of execution and “Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence, his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials.” (History.com”Salem Witch Trials”). The girls fervently(page 65) said that the accused were indeed witches, trying to act believable and they succeeded. The accuser’s “belief in the power of the accused to use their invisible shapes or spectres to torture their victims had sealed the fates of those tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer.” (Salem Witch Museum “ The 1692 Salem Witch Trials”) and brought sadness to
In the past, the word Salem has always been somewhat synonymous with the infamous witch trials. Thanks to works such as Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”, many people find it hard not to envision a community torn apart by chaos, even though Miller’s play was not so much about the witch trials but instead a commentary on the rampant McCarthyism going on at the time he wrote it. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, however, see a very different picture when the Salem witch trials are mentioned. Rather than overlook the “ordinary” people living in the towns in which they write about (in the case of Salem Possessed, the town of Salem, Massachusetts), they instead take the instance of the witch trials of 1692 and springboard from them into a detailed inquisition into the entire history of the small village of Salem; or, in their own words, Boyer and Nissenbaum have “exploited the focal events of 1692 somewhat as a stranger might make use of a lightning flash in the night: better to observe the contours of the landscape which it chances to illuminate” (xii). That is to say, the authors strive to show how the witch trials were not simply a completely spontaneous event, but rather a long, horrible process by which individuals were singled out, tried, and executed in order to vent emotions of hostility towards change. The way in which the authors go about this, however, is in a somewhat difficult to comprehend style that goes back and forth between the years, forcing one to rethink all the facts thus far each time a new chapter is introduced. In addition, the authors tend to focus mostly on the social and economic aspects of witchcraft, with little to nothing as far as further explanation of the actions of the women accused.
The notorious witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts occurred from June through September. It is a brief, but turbulent period in history and the causes of the trials have long been a source of discussion among historians. Many try to explain or rationalize the bizarre happenings of the witch hunts and the causes that contributed to them. To understand the trials and how they came to be, we must first examine the ideals and views of the people surrounding the events. Although religious beliefs were the most influential factor, socioeconomic tensions, and ergot poisoning are also strongly supported theories. A combination of motives seems the most rational explanation of the frenzy that followed the illness of the two girls. This paper looks closely at the some of the possible causes of one of the most notable occurrences in history.
In the book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, Rosalyn Schanzer describes what happens all because two girls fell ill. When Betty and Abigail started having fits, a doctor diagnosed them as bewitched. Almost immediately they accused the first witch, their slave Tituba. From there all the accusations started pouring out, Ann Putnam Jr., a friend of Betty and Abigail, became “afflicted” as well as multiple others, and soon the jails were overflowing. The first “witch” was hanged on June 10, and the last “witches/wizards” were hanged on September 22. The most likely reasons for the accusations were a thirst for revenge, boredom, and peer/parental pressure.
...in their family to become sick and possibly die. Many people were accused of witchcraft. More than twenty people died all together. One person was flattened to death because he was accused of witchcraft. When people were accused they had to go to jail, which the conditions were terrible. Then, they had to get a trial from the Court of Oyer and Terminer. After an accused witch had their trial, and went to jail, they would be carted off to Gallows Hill. This was the hill where all the witches were hanged. After a witch was hanged, later that night, their family would usually take the body down and give it a proper burial. The Salem Witchcraft Trials were one of the most terrible times in the history of America. As you can see the chaotic Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were caused by superstition, the strict puritan lifestyle, religious beliefs, and hysteria.
The best example of this was during the seventeenth century. The Salem witch trials began in 1692, and lasted less than a year. The first arrests were made on March 1, 1692 and the final hanging day was September 22, 1692. The first noted arrest, was of Tituba, a Carib Indian from Barbados. She was Reverend Samuel Parris' slave. Her role in the witch trials includes the arrest and confession of witchcraft on March 1, 1692.