The purpose of this book was to examine the history and social life of Salem Village to try to figure out what was the cause of the events that occurred there. I believe that the authors achieved their objective at least they did to me. Boyer and Nissenbaum's explanation for the outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Salem hinges on an understanding of the economic,…
In January 1692, 9 years old Elizabeth Parris, and a 11 year old Abigail Williams began exhibiting strange behaviour. Elizabeth was the daughter of Samuel Parris, an ordained minister and Abigail was the niece. The two started making odd sounds, and screaming. Contorting their bodies and throwing objects. Elizabeth and Abigail said that an individual being was biting and pinching them. An 11 year old girl named, Ann Putnam and other girls in Salem began acting similarly to Elizabeth and Abigail. Their behaviour was attributed to supernatural causes according to a doctor diagnosis. There was only one doctor in Salem Village and he can only read and cannot write. In February 9, 1692 the girls accused 3 women for causing their bizarre outburst.…
One was anger followed by mischief – a sidelong glance by the suspected witch followed quickly by an accident to the victim. The last and most fragile evidence, testimony by the afflicted that were “visited” by some demonic form (Salem DBQ 9). In my opinion this is not real and valid evidence. Two reasons why I say this, for one, I don 't fully understand because in my mind it 's saying, that if you look suspicious or do suspicious things someone is allowed to follow you and if they believe you are practicing witchcraft they have the right to accuse you and send you to jail and give you a trial. Now if I’m right I think that is very and I mean very stupid because if your neighbor is the one accusing you then the your land will become a free for all and that neighbor will have most of your land and become a little more powerful in the social status. Secondly those “ afflicted “ girls could have been faking and lying about what they seen or did therefor their evidence is also…
The Salem Witch Trials "When the lines between reality and delusion become so blurred, you can no longer know what's real and what is not. " This is a quote by A.B. Shepherd. This can be a direct example of those women accused of being witches in the Salem witch trials. For these women, most of their lives during the year of the trials could have felt a little like this.…
The Salem Witch Trials are known as a series of people being accused and prosecuted of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts beginning in February 1692 until May 1693. The trials began after a group of girls claimed that they were possessed by the devil. Several local women were accused of witchcraft and this began the wave of hysteria that would forever haunt Salem and leave a painful legacy for a long time to come. Nearly every major school of historians has attempted to explain the answer to the mystery of the trials, trying to understand why they occurred. From Marxists who blame class conflict, to Freudians who believe in mass hysteria, the more ecologically based historians who put the blame on hallucinogenic ergot fungus, and now more…
Abigail Williams was a suspicious 11 or 12 year old girl who was the leading cause of the Salem Witch Trial hysteria. There is not much background information on her, but as far as history goes, Abigail was born 1680 and lived with her Uncle Samuel Parris’ family, who was the head Reverend of Salem, Massachusetts at the time. “Although it was ordinary practice for young girls to live with relatives to learn about housewifery, we know very little about Abigail, including where she was born and who her parents were.” (Yost, 2002) In an indirect way, Abigail has contributed to American history being that she was the main cause of the Salem Witch Trial accusations. The 6th amendment of the American Constitution was highly influenced by the Salem Witch Trials. With the 6th amendment, the accused are entitled to have a witness, an attorney for their defense, and will be heard before a jury in court. The Salem Witch Trials affected the way America viewed reliable evidence used in court cases because they stopped using spectral evidence. During the Witchcraft trials, the only evidence available was hear-say information from the girls who were “afflicted.” More than 45 innocent people were killed, because the court believed Abigail and the girls without looking into further detail about the spoken "witches." Nowadays, the accused are able to have a witness with them as well as some one who will look into their case and use accurate evidence to prove their innocence "until proven…
Starting in January of 1692, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, Samuel Parris’ (minister of Salem Village) daughter and niece are experiencing very extreme and absurd behavior and is defined by the locals as “fits”, which included…
In Rosalyn Schanzer´s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, extreme disorder in civilization took place due to massive amounts of unjust witch accusations. In early 1692, mass chaos struck Salem Village, Massachusetts. In a ravenous sprint to gain revenge and play a game of kill-or-be-killed, approximately 200 people were accused of witchcraft. 20 of these were executed. Families turned on each other, civilians accused one another of unimaginable things, and all because of two girls. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams who together accused a staggering portion of the innocent so called ´witches´. Many people question the motives of these two. It is hard to imagine two young girls under the care of such a high public figure…
Witchcraft is understood by being a religion that includes reverences for nature, and belief in rights of others and includes own spirituality. People that practice witch craft now focus on doing good things and helping others. They also refuse to be connected to the devil. Their beliefs go back to ancient times, long time before the advent of Christianity. In current culture witches have been confused with the belief they have black pointy hats, green faces with broom sticks. This is often how witches are portrayed in movies and…
On one instance Abigail Williams ran through the house with her arms outstretched, screaming. She also pulled logs from the fireplace and tossed them around the room. After this episode the number of afflicted girls grew from two to eight. When the afflicted girls were question about their behavior, they accused Sarah Good, Sarah Osbourne and Tibuta Indian of bewitching them. However, it wasn’t just young girls who accused these adults of bewitching them, once the erratic behavior began to sweep its way across Salem, it was Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, the nearest members of the upper house of the provincial legislature, who began physical examinations and determined that Martha Cory was guilty of witchcraft and that she needed to be thrown in jail with the other women. Abigail Williams also affiliated herself with the accusations when she accused George Burroughs, a former minister in the Village, of being the mastermind behind the entire breakout. However, perhaps on of the saddest victims of false accusation was Sarah Good’s four-year-old daughter Dorcas Good, who was sent to Boston Prison where she was chained up for nine months. It can therefore be seen that the vast majority of accused witches were women. Most history books pass over the fact quickly or conclude that witches were scapegoats for tensions that…
A legitimate cause for the accusations may result from a mental disorder. In the article The Witchcraft Trials in Salem: A Commentary, it is acknowledged that, “The cause of her symptoms may have been some combination of stress, asthma, guilt, boredom, child abuse, epilepsy, and delusional psychosis” (Linder). Many of the possible symptoms may have caused the outbreak, yet delusional psychosis is more sensible. The form of a mental disorder causing the symptoms is a probable cause. The people of Salem were completely oblivious to the additional causes of the accusations. Salem could have avoided several lives may have been saved if some form of common knowledge was used.…
In 1692, an event called the Salem Witch Trials occurred, because of this, the people from a village called Salem, Massachusetts were fearful because they could be accused a witch. This all started when a group of young girls began to act very strange. The behaviors of the girls’ ranged from, screaming, copying body movements, pain, falling on the floor, twitching, and many other symptoms.…
The most popular historical perspective of what occurred is that in early 1692, the Rev. Samuel Parris’s 9-year-old daughter Betty and his 12-year-old niece Abigail, “began to fall into horrid fits”. There has been debate as to whether these fits were real, or if the girls were just acting. The village doctor could not explain these bizarre “fits”, and blamed it on the supernatural. One must understand that these were Puritans, their belief system at that time gave a great deal of power to the spiritual world. If something good happen to somebody they were said to be in God 's good graces. If something bad happened to somebody, it was said to be the devil 's work.…
In Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, author Rosalyn Schanzer discusses the outbreak of the Salem witch trials and tells about the murderous colonial period of 1692. The trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts when the Puritans of England migrated to New England. The accusations of witches started when two girls began having fits, and a doctor tried to use elixirs and everything he could to cure them. He then diagnosed the two girls of being plagued by witches. After these events, the first 3 accused witches were arrested on February 29,1692, and the Salem witch trials began. When the accused were tried at the courthouse, they were already walking into death’s gate. Exodus 22:18 says, “ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” This scripture set the tone for the Salem witch trials..The Salem Witch trials indirectly helped change the American legal system due to moral and ethical issues with spectral evidence, lack of legal representation, and how the accusers only…
The belief in witchcraft, or supernatural actions and the devil’s ability to give certain humans the power to harm others, in return for their loyalty, had been a part of traditional village culture in Europe since the 14th century. (history.com) The Salem witch trials took place between 1692 and 1693 in colonial Massachusetts. Two hundred people were accused of witchcraft and twenty people were executed. (smithsonianmag.com)…