The Salem witchcraft was a major social crisis within British colonies. The Salem witchcraft trials was a prominent topic that led to twenty individuals sent to be executed because they were accused of practicing witchcraft. In the eighteenth-century many rebellions took place within the colonies…
The history of the Salem witchcraft epidemic is well known. In the winter of 1692, two girls suffered convulsions and hallucinations, alarming fast their families and subsequently the entire community. When a medical diagnosis was not forthcoming, a religious explanation was accepted: the girls were acting strangely because "the hand of Satan was in them." The drama was intensified because the two girls were the daughter and niece of the town's minister.…
The Salem witch crisis was a terrible event where girls were accused of being witches. The people believed that witchcraft was the reasoning behind the excruciating pain some girls were experiencing. The Salem witch crisis lead to 20 people killed, and over 100 in jail. I believe the Salem witch crisis was caused by religious leaders trying to prove the bible has all of the answers. One example of that is Cotton Mather, a religious leader, mentions that many people experienced the horrors of witchcraft for themselves. He also mentions that witchcraft was mentioned in scripture. This supports my thesis because being a religious leader of the Puritans, many people would listen to him. So having said that witchcraft was…
The witchcraft emergency started in the mid of January 1691, two young ladies were living in a place of the Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village or now named Danvers, Massachusetts they all of a sudden began enduring that abruptly their older folks that they lived with ascribed to witchcraft. Months passed by however numerous individuals blamed that they were being tormented by nebulous visions of witches or of apparition of dead individuals guaranteeing that the witches killed them. Neighbors of the suspects likewise griped that there creatures were beguiled by the demonstrations of the…
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,…
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…
Great job explaining your answers in great detailed. I found it very captivating how they viewed the witchcraft craze as evil and unsafe. How the people who practice it were severely punish. This was a craze that quickly spread from the big cities to the smaller towns. How it was mostly associated with women because they consider them as inferior. However, by the mid 17th century it had decrease as people became more educated and the government became stronger.…
In the article “Salem Witch Craft Trial” it tells the history of the mass hysteria behind the whole Salem witch craft trials. The mass hysteria occurred from 1692-1693 and lead to many people dying. There were one hundred and forty arrests, nineteen hangings, one rock crushing and several people dying in jail while awaiting their trial. Everything…
The year 1692 marked a major event in history in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. During the year 1692, Salem, a colony filled with Puritans who believe in religion very strongly, but as their beliefs grow, the more the people were starting to die. The problem or question is what caused the Salem witch crisis hysteria of 1692? There were many causes for the Salem witch trial hysteria but the possible three main reasons were the conflicts between young and older women, the “afflicted” girls were acting throughout the trial, and the town’s differences in wealth and power.…
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.…
In January 1692, A hysteria developed in a Salem Village located in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The beginning of the Salem Witch Trials started when two girls, Betty Parris, 9 years old and Abigail Williams, 11 years old began acting strangely. They began by having “fits” that could not be explained by the local doctor. The doctor who had no explanation for the fits or convulsion like symptoms deemed it witchcraft. This was the beginning of the hysteria that developed in the village and the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials.…
The elite perspective is the perspective of those in power. It may be the perspective of the monarchy but it may also be administrative/judicial or that of the church. Popular conceptions are those held by the common people. These two perspectives were not very distinctive because the elite and common people did not live completely separate lives from one another there was some mixing of culture, and thus there were many similarities in the conceptions held. The main differences between the popular and elite beliefs were regarding the type of accusation of witchcraft: the common people tended to make accusations of maleficium whereas the elites made accusations based on diabolism. Maleficium is magic that is controlled by the person themselves; "It is the performance of harmful deeds by means of some sort of extraordinary, mysterious, occult, preternatural or supernatural power" (p. 4 Levack). Diabolism is worshipping the devil: when a witch acquires his or her powers from making a pact with the devil and often then pays some sort of homage (p. 8 Levack).…
Although the belief in witchcraft was widespread the prosecution of the witches was sporadic and only a few towns executed the witches. Many towns held trials, because they didn’t want to rush to judgment. However it was not easy to prove witchcraft, until 1692 when things turned for the worse and problems increased dramatically. Desparate for an answer the towns people finally started to believe this was the only explanation.…
The witch panic started in Salem but started to spread to neighboring towns. The towns it spread to were Amesbury, Andover, Salisbury, Topsfield, Ipswich and Gloucester. After the "witches" were arrested in these towns they were escorted to Salem to be put on trial in the new court.…
The witch craze in Europe lasted from the fifteenth century through the seventeenth century. Women were targets to persecution. Witchcraft had already been considered evil but religious conflicts from the Reformation started another uprising. People, women in particular, were being persecuted as witches for suspicious behavior, fear of the unknown and religious beliefs along with ignorance. People being suspicious and accusing of others was a main source for persecution.…