Nineteen men and women hung from the tree of destruction, for they were the ornaments of hysteria. New England was supposed to be a land of opportunity for the puritans. During the summer of 1692, Salem Village proved to be a wretched example of this, twenty people were falsely accused of witchcraft, and were accordingly jailed and executed. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody knows in entirety what caused the mystery of the Salem witch trials of 1692. The answers as to how it came to be is shrouded in an ever-growing cloak. Envious, young, single women, a cross-town rivalry, and lying little girls are all possible causes of the mass hysteria known as the Salem witch trials. …show more content…
Document B states 23 out of 34 accusers were single women. On the others hand only 6 women were married and only 5 of the accusers are men. This evidence helps to explain the hysteria because only 11 accusers were single women. That is less than half of the number who were single women. Document B also shows that of the 29 female accusers, most of them were under the age of 21. It also states that most of the accused were married women. This is important because it leads to signs of the younger women being envious of older, married women. To sum it up, these pieces of evidence point to young, single, women accusing older, married, women of witchcraft because they were envious of the older women being happily
Add to this the ever-growing resentment between the more conservative (and religious) farmers of Salem Village, and the more liberal (and wealthy) merchants of Salem Town (ISH). It was in this atmosphere of tension that the incident known as the Salem Witch Trials
This evidence helps explain the jealousy and boredom the young girls experienced during this period of time, Another possible cause for the Salem witch trials was that the girls were great liars and
In Document B, Demos presents that most of the accusers of witches were single females in their younger years of age. In the late 1600s, women were extremely dependent upon men for their financial stability, overall safety, and mental/emotional well being. In an interpretation of this document, it can be assumed that these younger female women were seeking family ties and protection in a harsher time period. On the same hand, Document C, a most likely extremely biased account, recounts the “bewitched actions” of Bridget Bishop, a witch, upon the afflicted. Samuel Parris, the examiner of Bishop, seems to shed a negative light on Bishop.
Accusations of witchcraft were not taken lightly by the Puritans. The accused were imprisoned and taken to court where public hearings would take place and questions would be asked that would leave the accused with no right answer. No matter what the accused would say in their defence the Puritan courts would use the accused’s words against them to make them appear to be guilty. Even though the Puritans had no evidence that this was without a doubt true the accused were still determined to be guilty because they would simply look over the lack of evidence because of their fear of of
Ty Landis Morgan Roediger ENGL 103-008 12 January 2023 I am interested in how historical events have shaped modern events. I enjoy exploring “butterfly effects” in which one event has led to another event occur. An infamous example of this, which happens to be the concept’s namesake, is a butterfly flapping its wings causing a tsunami. Obviously, the former event does not cause the latter, but the two could be connected by many smaller events. When reflecting on topic I have researched in the past, I always take special interest in the Salem Witch Trials.
This jealousy was created from other’s female gender, age and marital status. Based on document B provided, the accusers were around the age of 16-20, female, and accused mostly women (41-60), that were married of being a witch. Drawing to a conclusion, the accusers, younger and single girls, were jealous of old, married women who had their future set for them
Nearly anyone from the New England has heard of the famous Salem Witch Trials. A year of persecution, leading to the accusation of nearly 200 citizens of all ages. No one was safe; men, women, children, even pets stood trial and 20 were hung for the supposed crime of witchcraft (Blumberg). 1692 was a year of witch hunting. Most today blame the trials on hysteria, or perhaps a bad case of paranoia.
REVIEW OF LITRATURE A.) SUMMARY SOURCE A Although the whole book had information on the Salem witch trials. The introduction, chapter 1 and 2 and the conclusion had information regarding the research needed • Introduction: states what the Salem witch trials where and who they accused.
The first accused women had been of low status in the village. Those who followed were upstanding members of the community. For example, a woman by the name of Rebecca Nurse hardly fit the image of a witch. She was an elderly woman in her seventies who was very infirm and deaf. Rebecca Nurse’s reaction to her accusation was typical of the guilt-ridden Puritan mentality.
Salem, Massachusetts, USA and occurred between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned and even more accused; but not pursued by the authorities. 29 were convicted of witchcraft but only 19 were hanged. The best known trials were in the Court of Oyer and Terminer.
The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,
Women often accused other women for various reasons. The accusation was threatening to their future even if they were found innocent. So, to protect themselves, they accused other women in fear of being without a spouse as they grow older and unable to fulfill the duties that a puritan women was characterized by: taking care of her children and husband. This vulnerability in the minds of women allowed the prosecutors to persuade them of their devilish acts even if they weren’t actually guilty.
The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.
Imagine being a wealthy 45-year-old woman in 1692 being accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch trials were caused by jealousy, fear, and lying. People believed that the devil was real and that one of his tricks was to enter a normal person 's body and turn that person into a witch. This caused many deaths and became a serious problem in 1692. First of all, jealousy was one of the causes of the Salem witch trials.
Not many people know much about what actually happened in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe someone would think that it was just about witchcraft and crazy people being hanged, but it is a lot more than that. The Salem Witch Trials only occurred between 1692 and 1693, but a lot of damage had been done. The idea of the Salem Witch Trials came from Europe during the “witchcraft craze” from the 1300s-1600s. In Europe, many of the accused witches were executed by hanging.