In late 1691, witchcraft started to become a belief when a group of teenage girls got together with Reverend Parris’ slave Tituba. Many historians believe there is only one cause for the hysteria of 1692 in Salem. On the other hand, historian G believes there are many reasons for the instability in the town. Historian G’s theory is that the unstable conditions in Salem caused the native accusations to start the hysteria.
Although historian G’s theory can be proven, it is simply based on of thought and occurring events. S/he states events such as Bacon’s Rebellion, Leisler’s Rebellion, and a revolt in Maryland, but there is nothing that connects the events to witchcraft. A number of factors given are almost too many, as the author provides no evidence with each factor. S/he begins to blame the loss of the charter and Sir Edmond Andros, who came to power of New England, for a fraction of the cause of this hysteria.
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S/he gives many factors that may have caused the madness of 1692. Along with the events mentioned previously, historian G vocalizes the colony in 1691-1692 was diversified by threats, weather, economy, opinions, and diseases. The village was divided due to countless arguments and regional disagreements relative to land claims. These influential incidents were the prime root of the panic in Salem.
As for the historian being able to provide a connection between the cause and the effect is vague. The information given is acceptable except there is no way of knowing that when Massachusetts lost its charter, it was part of the reason of witchcraft. The author proves that there were unstable conditions, but they did not relate to witchcraft at all. S/he believes because the atmosphere was all tense around them, that when one thing had been triggered, it all just exploded at one
The Salem Witch Trials was an uncanny and eerie event of hearings and prosecutions of people being accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. Although it lasted from 1691 to 1692, it lead to more than 200 people, including men and women, being accused and arrested of witchcraft and 20 of those people executed. The hysteria began with two young girls: Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams claiming to be possessed by the devil, causing the “witch-fever” among the Salem village. In this essay the circumstances behind poor harvest, sickness and the conjecture of witches and witchcraft being highly considered as a cause in this era will be described. The Salem Witch Trials were caused by environmental factors because the Salem community had limited understanding of natural causes such as poor harvest, sickness and diseases.
Relationships between people and families seemed to crumble in the light of hysteria as children accused parents and friends pointed out friends (Boyer, p67). Some confessed to witchcraft and saved their own lives, others refused to tarnish their names and proclaimed innocence to their grave. The fact that these people did not have freedom of speech and were proven guilty without any tangible evidence caused even more hysteria throughout New England. People realized that at anytime anyone of them could be pointed out and so the society fell even more.
1692 was a hard time to live in. People could be accused of being a witch even without proof, so if you had an enemy at this time it was easy to say she's a witch. So you might be asking yourself, what caused the Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692? There really isn't a right there answer to this question, it could have been a lot of things, but the most logical answer would be either malicious intent, empowerment, or jealousy.
What really happened during Salem 1692? Many questions still haunt many Americans in the beginning of the twenty-first century. During 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear about satanic afflictions, like the same way everyone else feels about terrorism around the world today. Everything about witchcraft outbreak during that year was strange. Many responses to the information were never answered during the late seventeenth-century when the witchcraft crisis occurred. During this time there were horrifyingly Indian attacks that mainly scared northern frontier of settlers, refugees, and also the main accusers of witches these groups all fled to communities like Salem. But on the other side colony’s leaders were very defensive about
Salem, Massachusetts became famously known for the witch trials that took place in the late 1600’s. For the men and women residing in Salem, Massachusetts it was a time in which they lived in fear of allegations and deceit. Twenty men and women lost their lives during what is known as the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria. Socioeconomic tensions within the community are to blame for the witchcraft hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts during the late 1600’s. Factors such as politics, religion, and social status all played a role in the deadly and devastating era.
During 1692 it was a very confusing time for the new Americans, known as The Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was finger pointing and blame about who was a witch and who was not. People were afraid of the unknown and turned to religion and blamed witch craft on everything. This outbreak caused extreme confusion and disorder among an abundance of colonists in a community. The events that occurred describes a shameful time for colonists.
There were many things that caused the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. One of the things that caused the Salem Witch Trials started with Parris’s, the one who experienced these things first, Indian Slave, Tituba. Tituba even admitted to being a witch and said that four women and one man were causing the strange illnesses. Another thing that caused the Salem Witch trials was an accused victim, Abigail Hobbs. She claimed to have seen the devil, which she said made her make a covenant with him, which made her wicked and have the ability to use witchcraft. Also, another thing that caused the Salem witch trials was when Cotten Mather argued that there was witchcraft in the city. He argued that a scripture said that there was witchcraft in the
In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts was the setting for an infamous American witchcraft. It was the years when people are plagued with superstitions and monstrous fears that spawned witch-hunts on both sides of the Atlantic. That also maintains a wide witch panic that was a product of a community undergoing severe religious and cultural change. Besides, the Puritans had lost the royal charter that had allowed them to govern their colony free from interference by the mother country. The result was that many leaders and citizens began to see satanic conspiracies at work that eroded the cherished institutions of their already shaky society.
During the time period of 1691 to 1692 the town of Salem, a small thriving community within the Puritan Massachusetts Bay colony, was struck by widespread hysteria in the form of witch trials. The way these trials and accusations played out are historically unlike any other witch trials found in European and American history. Historians have pointed to a number of economic, political, and social changes of the then existing institutions throughout the Massachusetts Bay area to be the cause of the Salem witch trials, along with the direction they took. If studied closely however, it becomes apparent that the main cause for the Salem witch trials can be found in the way the people of Salem viewed and
In the 1680’s and 1690’s there was mass hysteria in New England over supposed witchcraft. The most famous outbreak was in Salem, Massachusetts, hence the name Salem Witch Trials. In Salem, there were young girls who started acting strangely, and they leveled accusations of witchcraft against some of the West Indian servants who were immersed in voodoo tradition. Most of the accusations were against women, and soon the accusations started to shift to the substantial and prominent women. Neighbors accused other neighbors, husbands accused their wives, etc. and it kept going on for a while. There was this nature of evil and the trials didn’t end until nineteen Salem residents were put to death in 1692, more importantly before the girls
In 1692, in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts, 20 people were hanged for offenses they did not commit. But what was the charge against the 20? The answer would be witchcraft. The charges deeply affected the small community. Neighbor turned on neighbor. Every act that a person made would be carefully scrutinized, dissected, and repeated to others. This would lead to the question. What caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? The 3 main factors that would cause widespread panic in the town of Salem were gender, marital status, and age, actors and attention seekers, and neighbor conflicts within the village of Salem.
In 1692, the British colony of Massachusetts endured abnormal accusations of witchcraft against more than 150 people (Prentice Hall Literature, p. 1087). Many factors caused the witchcraft hysteria to come alive during the 1600’s. Two important factors were: Daemonologie, written by England’s King James I, and the bewildering behavior of the accusing teenage girls. While Arthur Miller explains that the accusations could have been made over the lust for land, there are also reasons not explained: how the role of women and children during the 17th century may have affected their behavior and the theory of Ergot fungus poisoning the girls’ minds.
The salem witch trials hysteria of 1692 was caused by the Puritans strict religious standards and intolerance of anything not accepted with their scripture. The largest account of witch trials as well as deaths by witch trials occurred in Salem, a village heavily populated with the Puritans. Because most of the trials were occurring in Salem, this meant that the accusations were happening among the Puritans themselves, which could very well be anything as long as the Puritans found it as contradicting their bible. Not only did the strict religion intolerance fuel the accusations and trials, but also the possible factor of ergot being involved which has been known to cause symptoms leading to hysteria.
It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister 's daughter began to scream and convulse, while other girls manifested the same symptoms. Their doctor suggested one cause, witchcraft. That grim diagnosis launched a Puritan inquisition that took 24 lives, filled prisons with innocent people, and frayed the soul of a Massachusetts community called Salem. It ended less than a year later, but not before the hanging of 20 men and women, including an elderly man who was crushed to death. The hysteria spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in Salem. Aside from suffrage, the Salem witch trials represent the only moment when women played a central role in American history. There are many theories as to what caused the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials and the bewitchment of several young girls including the lack of freedom and want of attention from young girls, the role of religion and Satan in Salem, lack of verifiable evidence, economic and social divisions within the community, and the possibility of ergotism.
The largest outbreak of witchcraft in America took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. A group of girls, including the Parris’s Indian slave Tituba, gathered in the Salem village and were attempting to see the future by decoding “messages”. Shortly after this gathering the girls started showing signs of the possessed (pg. 73). To this day people all over America are still amazed with the events that took place in this time. But why is that? The fear of the village fell heavily onto the judicial system, which later made people focus on the proper separation of government and religious beliefs. Mass hysteria broke out amongst the village and many people were being accused, therefore leading to many innocent deaths. Although there could be many theories as to the reason the witch trials in Salem began, there are two points of view that are very commonly shared amongst people. Some believe that the Salem witch trials were women unconsciously searching for power, whereas others believe it was an encephalitis epidemic.