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Essay On Salem Witch Trials

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Essay On Salem Witch Trials
In 1692, two young girls asked upon a slave to predict their fortune. After the sessions,the girls started to show devil like behaviors. The father of the girls, once discovering the sessions accused the slave of being a witch. Then once the behaviors continued to occur, the witch trials began. There are many conspiracies as to why the witch hysteria happened. Religious beliefs, social class tension, and bored girls are to be the cause of the witch hysteria in Salem.
One conspiracy for the cause of the witch trials in Salem is religious beliefs. Majority of the citizens in Salem were Puritans who practiced predestination, which means they followed God’s word and God’s actions. The Bible spoke of witches and the devil: therefore they believed in them. Before the trials had even begun Cotton Mather a leading minister and intellectual gave a providence. (Document 3) Mather told of evils spirits that were to be lingering among them. (Document 3) The …show more content…
Two young girls were curious as to what their future would contain. They asked the help of a slave named Tituba. Tituba met with the girls several times, after those sessions the girls seemed to act afflicted as if they were possessed. Then other girls in Salem began to act afflicted. That then sparked the Salem witch trials. Tituba was not the only one accused, shortly after the trials began Bridget Bishop supposedly used her body motions to cause pain to the afflicted girls according to the examination. ( Document 6) Charles Upham, however, disagrees with the fact that the girls were actually afflicted. (Document 7) Upham states that all those afflicted were great actors and that they did not reflect upon the great ordeal they caused. (Document 7) Upham’s statement and the examination give evidence that the girls, getting caught up in all the attention and excitement from acting since they were no longer bored resulted in the witch
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