The book going over in this essay is called Witches! by Rosalyn Schanzer, and is a book about the events that have taken place in the town of Salem. This is a very weird and mysterious subject because so many people died in a very strange and concerning manner. First of which is “attention” this could be a factor in this crisis because some people could have accused people just to get attention from the people around them and be in the center of activity. Second is people just doing it for fun or “sport” if they're bored they could enjoy people being killed or harassed in jail. The last and most probably biggest one, is revenge, people could have hated another and wanted them dead and realizing this was a very efficient and good way to do it or at least get them arrested.The accusations in the Salem Witch Trials were motivated by attention, sport, and revenge.…
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…
Overall I think the salem witch trials were caused by ergotism, growing lies and fame/jealousy. Ergotism was causing many problems throughout the colonies which eventually caused innocent men and women to be hanged. Also once the girls started lying, they could not stop because their superstition kept growing. Lastly the girls might have wanted to get famous for their work and to get rid of…
Nowadays people will look for reliable evidences before they accuse someone. However, the Salem Witch Trials show that people are mindless when something is about witchcraft. Many people do not believe that there’s witchcraft in the world today, but in the Salem Village in the 17th Century, people believe that witchcraft exists and they are scared of the witchcraft, they are scared that other will use witchcraft to harm them, so people just use this opportunity to eradicate other people that might harm them or people that they dislike when the trials are going on. The Salem Witch Trials show that women have low social status in the society in the 17th Century, most likely women were executed from the trials since witches are most likely are…
The Salem Witch Trials has been a debatable topic for many historians enamored by its deviation from the normal as seen in Europe or other European Colonies in North America. As presented in Bryan Le Beau’s book The Story of the Salem Witch Trials, the story of Salem is unique in that it is centered primarily around the communities incapability to harmonize with one another. In the first two chapters, the book introduces its readers to a brief history of witchcraft trials, including how they began in Europe and followed colonists to the New World. In chapter three, the book describes Salem as it was before the trials and its ultimate path to the devastation it eventually created. It describes the division of the community and how that led to “…the point of institutional, demographic, and economic polarization” (p.50). Le Beau’s thesis is that “New England communities…suffered from the economic, social, political, and religious dislocations of the modernization process of the Early Modern Period, but to a greater extent than others,” he believed, “Salem village fell victim to warring factions, misguided leadership, and geographical limitations that precluded its dealing effectively with those problems” (p.43). The chapters following Le Beau’s thesis chronologically present the Salem Witch Craft trials and what was left in the wake the realization that followed.…
The 16th and 17th centuries experienced a great shift of ideals with the Reformation that contributed to the rise of witch-hunts. Although the Reformation is notorious for the disagreement between the Protestants and the Catholics, what both groups agreed on was that witches were to be punished for their evil deeds. The two major religious figures during this time were John Calvin and Martin Luther. These two men believed in non-clerical celibacy, and less stress on chastity before marriage. Now, “obedience had replaced chastity as a women’s prime virtue”. This lead the image of the Virgin mary to become less important, and because there are no other positive, important female figures in the bible, Eve took Mary’s place. This had two major…
What caused the Salem witch trials of 1692 to begin? Although this might seem like an easy question, it does not have a simple answer. Many different perspectives are taken into account therefore ending in various different answers. Some of the main factors that helped influence and create the trials were politics, religion, family feuds, economics, and the imagination and fear of different people. Many had strong beliefs that Satan was acting in the world. Such satanic acts included disease, natural catastrophes, and bad fortune which all attributed to the work of the devil. Another cause was a belief that Satan recruits witches and wizards to work for him. A time of troubles contributed to the causes making it seem likely that Satan was active. Such troubles consisted of smallpox, congregational strife in Salem village, and frontier wars with the Indians. Having no television, no CD's, and lots of bible reading along with strict and humorless households contributed to teenage boredom which could have been another cause for witchcraft. During this time period it was said to believe that women were starting to have a higher power then men. Therefore many historians believe that the charges of witchcraft were a way of controlling the women who actually threatened the power of men. A major cause of the Salem witchcraft trials was superstition. The Puritans in Salem had even more…
In early times people didn’t understand reason. Especially the Puritans who only saw God’s will and the evilness of the devil. During the Salem witchcraft crisis, Puritans struggled to decipher communal security and find the truth around them. They believed that Satan recruited humans to do his evil and be servants to him, i.e. witches. The witches had a magical power that allowed them to harm others. To protect the community the judges of the town took it upon themselves to hold jury trials and hang the witches as punishment. Many believed the witches were burned at the stake, however that is untrue.…
I’m writing this report today to explain what happened in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692-1693. After reading this evidence in this case and also being able to analyze and physically look at the place where it all began, I came to a conclusion of what really happened . But, today I am writing this to give you some shocking news about why they started the Salem witchcraft trials started. Also, am going to tell you three out of four theories that i think might be true because the forth one didn’t really make so much sense, but the following three did, and I am going to tell which theory I think made the community of Salem react in a very brutal way.…
In 1692, a group of teenage girls were accused of being demonically possessed. This fear and uncertainty caused people to create a mythological supernatural being which they called ”witches.” Humans tend to make up stories or creatures to hide the reality of things or because it is something which they can not understand and that is exactly what they did during that time. Today people still believe that witches walk among us and we can not even tell the difference. Salem, Massachusetts the place where it all began was already under a great amount of distress because the differences between the Puritan community and the farmers. The main thing people think about when they hear the name Salem are witches and the Salem witch trials. Salem is and forever will be the grounds that were stained with the bloodshed of many innocent lives.…
The witch trials supply Reverend Parris in numerous key ways. Initially he was frightened that any indication of witchcraft be established in his home; he has been the Reverend after all, has not been establishing in effectively with the community. If it was established that it was his home that was the origin of witchcraft, he would end up being unemployed. However, it eventually ends up in his favor. As soon as witchcraft is found in his home, and his niece, daughter as well as his servant admit, out of blue they are all viewed as angels and saviors, come to save the city from the devil. Therefore, people actually began liking Parris and his family.…
Salem witch trial is a very significant part in the American history. There were various reasons why it took place. When I first learned about it I was very surprised how something like this could have happened in the US. How it took lives of 40 people. Salem witch trial occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. It started with a rivalry between people when Reverend Parris’s daughter and niece started having fits and doctor blamed it on supernatural. This small event leads to a very violent and terrible event in the history. According to colonial America video 344 people were accused in colonial period, and 80% were female and 50% men which were relatives of the accused witches. Females were more accused than men. On the other hand, there is a huge difference between in New England Colonies. In 1647-1663, 75 persons were accused, and 15 were hanged from them. It makes difference when we looked in 1692, 200 were accused and 19 were hanged. Many Salem village farmers wanted to separate from the town Salem. Because they had same thought regarding small and big city living. They thought town had more crime than village areas. Like, Revered Samuel Paris daughter, Elizabeth Parris, and his niece, Abigail Williams, had trouble. They had some problem, and he shows them to the doctor. When doctor didn’t found any kind of physical problem, and he decided one of them is witch like in witchcraft. After he asked from those girls, and they pointed the finger to “Tituba.” She is jailed. After that they were going to accuse other women of witchcraft like homeless Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. From fourteen to sixteen century, estimated 40-50,000 people were executed in witchcraft. The unusually authorities actually encouraged the people to be afraid from each other. If person was accused as a witch, then they had to provide the concrete evidence. In the 1486, the book “MALEFICARM”…
These factors created a tense environment in Salem (Brooks). Many historians believe that the girl’s parents were encouraging and pressuring the girls to accuse certain people in the community that they weren’t partial to, in a cold act of revenge. In addition, they have noted that a number of the accused were wealthy and possessed separate religious beliefs than their accusers. This, coupled with the fact that the accused had their estates confiscated if they were convicted, has led countless historians to believe that religious feuds and property disputes play a big part in the witch trials (Brooks). Not everyone supported the trials or believed in witchcraft in Salem.…
I believe that the real cause of the Salem Witch Trials stemmed from sheer ignorance from the Puritan people. The first factor in the ignorance displayed by the people of Salem was a result of their religion. The Puritans held a firm belief in the Bible and had a strict interpretation of the meaning of what was in the Bible. So they took the Bible passage that reads, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," seriously. I think that this is the very root of the problem: ignorance as a result of religion. Had the people of Salem not have taken the words in a book to be actual instructions for life, there would have been no ill feelings towards "witchcraft" in the first place. It would not have been a "sin" or a crime. In turn, there would be no…
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.…