Main Point 1: The Puritans had a very strict religion and thats what brought them to America.…
“Extraordinary body postures, inexplicable pains, deafness, numbness, and blindness, meaning I was babbling, refusal to eat, destructive and self-destructive behavior…” Witchcraft was common in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts a slave named Tituba was the first “witch” accused. This accusation came about when two younger girls and Tituba, their fathers slave, attempted to see into the future through an egg white. When they looked in the egg white they supposedly saw a coffin and began displaying the symptoms of being possessed, or being overcome by the ‘devil’. When she was accused she confessed she was guilty and also confessed to there being other witches. There are many alleged causes to the Salem Witch Trials such as undiagnosed encephalitis, paranoia, and an unjust class structure because of heightened religious beliefs. Little did she know this would start a mass hysteria of witchcraft and cause excessive paranoia in Salem Massachusetts.…
When people think about The Salem Witch Trial, the first thing that comes to mind is “oh it 's just a bunch of wannabe witches being killed.” But in reality they were innocent people being accused by a bunch of little girls trying to get got of trouble. People were very suspicious and paranoid about everything back then-if a few people in the village suddenly became ill, it was because of a "witch". Remember, they had no science to explain anything, so they had to make up stuff that seems ridiculous to us today. They feared what they didn 't know and understand, therefore seeking any kind of solution . . . in this case their fear led to The Salem witch…
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…
Ergotism is believed to be a theory in the cause of the Salem Witch Trials. Ergot is a common grain fungus . In this case, rye was commonly used in Salem, as it was one of their main grains harvested. It was used in bread, alcohol, animal food, and much more. Ergot contains compounds that attack the central nervous system. This commonly causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, burning/itching of the skin, convulsions, and hallucinations. These were the exact symptoms shown by the “bewitched.” Ergot thrives in warm, damp, environments, just like the ones that occurred in Salem. Most of the people that were accused lived in very wet, swampy conditions, perfect for ergot to grow. The crop harvested in the fall of 1691 would have been baked and eaten…
Witch trials were mainly caused by young girls hallucinating that some people were witches and that they were being attacked by their specter. This hallucination was caused by ergotism which is a fungus that grows on…
¨Sarah Osborn, the sick old woman who was among the first three people accused of being a witch, died of the fever in prison, too¨ (Schanzer 128). Sarah Osborn was a sick, bedridden old woman, it wasn't as if she was a cantankerous old woman who went about causing trouble in Salem. She was accused of being a witch because the pious Puritans believed she was in the predicament she was in due to being punished for previous unknown sins. This, along with her feebleness, made her an easy target for accusers. “Even though it later became apparent that the way to survive an accusation was to confess and to point fingers at others, Sarah Osborne repeatedly affirmed her innocence” (“Sarah Osborne”). She dismissed all opportunities to confess and this eventually cost her her life. Another way illness was a plausible cause for the Salem Witch Trials was a fungus called ergot that effects rye grain. Due to the lack of modern science, this possibility went unheeded. “Caporael, now a behavioral psychologist at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, soon noticed a link between the strange symptoms reported by Salem’s accusers, chiefly eight young women, and the hallucinogenic effects of drugs like LSD” (“Clues and Evidence”). The ergot poisoning caused hallucinogenic symptoms which would perfectly explain some of the outlandish sightings made by residents of…
people have summoned Salem as a warning against actions they perceive as bogus “witch hunts”. The…
Bryan F. Le Beau. The Story of the Salem Witch Trials Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.…
In 1692, Salem, Massachusetts broke out into hysteria all because of an accusation about a witch. When a few teenage girls began accusing the older woman of Salem of witchcraft, suspicions started flying around. Soon neighbors were accusing each other, calling the Puritan church to get involved. After the church got involved many innocents lost their lives. Most of the teenage girls that accused the women of witchcraft, wanted their husbands for land and money. Not that the women did anything to the girls, they were just segregated on opposite sides of town. This made the wives an easy target for the girl’s allegations. Salem Village had self-segregated based on wealth and power and contributed to one of the many reasons the Witch Trials of 1692 came to be.…
The Salem Witch Trials of 1690s was an extremely dark time in American history. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were killed during the hysteria. The events that led to this hysteria caused the people of Salem to be deeply affected by this terrible time in our history. With that in mind, the outcome of these trials caused people to be killed even if they were innocent. Historians believe that this time in our history was immensely unfair and no one had a fair trial.…
“Some historians and scientists argue that the girls continued with their accusations because they suffered from hysteria” (Sutter). Betty Paris and Abiail Williams were young teenage girls who allowed their imagination to fervently take over. “The girls spent a great deal of time divining information about their future husbands by dropping egg whites into a glass of water and interpreting the images” (“The Salem Witch Trials”). The girls became frightened when people found out about their secret activities, so they began to act strange and go into convulsions. The girls were afraid of being condemned, so they “howled, thrashed about, and rolled around on the floor” to get other women charged with guilty verdicts of witchcraft…
Mass hysteria consumed the people of Salem in 1692 due to eight mischievous girls accusing neighbors of witchcraft. Fear, vengeance, arguments over land, sexual restraint, and the placement of ergotism were the ignition of the fire in Salem. Consequently, there is a wide variety of symptoms in ergotism therefore leading to many different cases of the disease. Ultimately, the girls were impaired due to the outbreak of encephalitis, which was an inflammation of the brain. Even today, there are very few people that believe those hanged actually practiced witchcraft. All in all, this shows that a reason behind calling someone a witch was for personal gain or…
“About 139 people have been falsely accused in 2014, and the numbers have increased since,” according to the Huffington Post. When people are thrown into jail, their lives change and they become a different person; additionally, the ones around them also see them differently. Of the many falsely accused people, Brian Banks was a victim of a modern day witch-hunt that changed his life.…