Chapter Summary: 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. Many practicing Christians, at the time, believed that the Devil could persuade people to use the powers that he gave them to harm others. The Salem Witch Trials occurred because of resource struggles, many women were accused and tortured, and in the end the Governor realized that it was a big mistake. (“Salem Witch Trials”, 1).

One cause of the Salem witch trial hysteria was jealousy. 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

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.

Witch-Hunt Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials by Marc Aronson, is a text about the intricacies of the Salem Witch Trials. The author explains how the trials were started for various reasons. One factor leading to the trials was the lack of scientific knowledge to explain natural phenomenon paired with the people’s extreme faith creating a culture of fear. Another factor that influenced the trials were family feuds.These two factors family feuds and lack of scientific understanding together made up the root cause of the Salem Witch Trials.

The Salem witch trials was one of the most famous witch hunt in history. More than 200

Salem witchcraft trials started in New England and caused a lot of deaths and hysteria for the people of Salem, Massachusetts. Innocent women and men were hung just for being accused by their fellow friends and neighbors. Witchcraft in the 17th century was a big taboo that people feared.

The first four colonies of America were, New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rhode Island, following with Connecticut. John Winthrop, Thomas Hooker, Roger Williams, along with Anne Hutchinson, were few of the founders of the first colonies. Centered around religion, after escaping religious persecution, these colonies based the way they lived their lives around the Bible, Church, along with the New testament.

gives information about the salem witch trials.The surroundings of the trials(such as weather)changed from winter all the way through spring 1692.They also were very paranoid of a lot of things.Such as witches and the devil.The main theories i will state are Reasons for the witch hunts.

The belief of witchcraft can be traced back centuries to as early as the 1300’s. The Salem Witch Trials occurred during 1690’s in which many members of Puritan communities were accused and convicted of witchcraft. These “witch trials” were most famously noted in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Many believe this town to be the starting point for the mass hysteria which spread to many other areas of New England. Bridget Bishop, a resident of Salem, was the first person to be tried as a witch. Surprisingly, Bishop was accused of witch craft by the highest number of witneses. After Bishop, more than two hundred people were tried of practicing witchcraft and twenty were executed. Many of these accusations arose from jealous, lower class members of society, especially towards women who had come into a great deal of land or wealth. Three young children by the names of Elizabeth, Abigail, and Ann were the first three people to be “harmed” by the witches. They claimed that spectral beings in the form of Tituba, a slave, Sarah Good, a beggar, and Sarah Osborne, an elderly woman who suffered financially, assaulted them. These girls were put under pressure by the magistrates

where they falsely accused or did they actually make a deal with a devil? The people that had to die or suffer were either witches or innocent peopIle.The colonial people back in 1692 were unaccepting of differences in people; therefore, they killed anyone they believed practiced witchcraft whether it was true or not.

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,

Our topic, on the Salem Witch Trial, was chosen because we were inspired by a lesson taught by our 7th-grade social studies teacher, Mr.Wong. He had discussed the Salem Witch Trial as part of the 7th-grade curriculum; we were fascinated by this topic that we wanted to learn more about this event. What captured our interest? It was mostly due to the fact that this topic involved witchcraft since at this day it would most likely not be accepted. We found that the Salem Witch Trial was significant to the US’s history since it foretold the fragility of the US’s society in the past when reacting to a magical threat. However, due to the overwhelming amount of school work last year, we did not have the necessary time to do an in-depth research on this topic; therefore, we decided to do this topic for this year’s social studies fair.

In the book, The Witches: Salem 1692, the author Stacy Schiff attempts to condense a large volume of research into a cohesive narrative that tries to avoid to much speculation. There is some contention that the book does speculate into the motives of primary accusers that some reviewers have intimated are bordering on fiction. However, the author defends her arguments logically, and her inferences do seem to bridge the gaps effectively.

The religiously motivated Salem witch trials of 1692 left a permanent stain on Massachusetts’ history, but one overlooked factor could have sparked the tragic ordeal. The trials are best summarized as an inexplicable and unforeseen frenzy of accusations, aimed at the social pariahs of the community, that led to multiple deaths in a previously tranquil place. An intense type of food poisoning known as convulsive ergotism provides a seemingly simple, yet understandably deceptive to the ignorant, explanation. Due to optimum conditions for the disease, the correlation between the bewitched and the expected symptoms, and the religious fanaticism of the time, one can conclude ergotism was an influence on the Salem witch trials.

Salem was the place, where infamous Witch Trials since 300 hundred years. There were 14 women and 5 men died at Gallows Hill. Witchcraft was (and is) the survival of fragmented pagan belief systems mainly collected from the folklore of Celtic Britain and Ireland. Among the groups labeled witches, most practitioners were women, and women were the primary leaders (The vulnerability of women to witchcraft Accusations- by Christian Day, 1992, n.d).