Causes And Effects Of The Salem Witch Trials

Two of them were Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Parris. The girls started to exhibit strange behavior. The girls dashed about rooms, dove under furniture, talked in gibberish, and complained of pain and fever. In mid-February doctor, William Griggs went and examined the afflicted girls, and suggested that witchcraft were the causes of their symptoms ( Linder, D, an account of Salem…). There was no cure for the girls at the time,but their neighbor Mary Sibley suggested counter magic. Mary told Tituba to make a witches cake and then feed it to a dog. Dogs were seen as a witch's helper, so feeding a dog the urine of an affiliated person was believed to cure the symptoms of

The town was stressed and anxious. It was a bad time for the colony according to the author of the novel Salem Witchcraft by Charles Upham as he states “…they considered the machinations of the Devil – they supposing he was the cause, operating through the agency of witches, of all the torture and misery they beheld, and that, by their opposition, they were liable also to suffer from his malignancy.” Based off of this quote, the colonists believed their time of misfortune was because of the Devil and these witches which added on to

The Salem Witch Trials were a time of paranoia and mass hysteria. In this small town of Massachusetts hundreds were accused of witchcraft and 19 people were executed. Salem was home to very devout Puritans. The worries arrived when young girls would become sick with no explanation or cure. The doctors not knowing what the cause of the illness was, quickly pronounce the girls bewitched. It spread terror through the town. The girls, as well as other residents, started accusing others of witchery. Many accusations were because of vengeance or self-interest. There were rivalries between families over land or wealth. Neighbors started accusing each other in order to gain their land. The religious community had an intensified sense of fear that the Devil was walking among them. They believed witches were out to destroy the Puritans. In order to purify the village of evil they had trials for the accused.

Belief in the supernatural–and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans, witches, the power to harm others in return for their loyalty–had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town. Amid these simmering tensions, the Salem witch trials would be fueled by residents’ suspicions of and resentment toward their neighbors, as well as

Witch hunts have been going on for a long time- since the 15th century. The earliest known witch trials in which the accused were associated with the fully developed stereotype of the demonic witch was in the valais with trials of 1428, that took place in the western Alps. Witch hunts mean a search for and subsequent persecution of a supposed witch in other words hunting for witches so they can kill them.

The first cause, is accusations. “ In late April, a deluge of new accusations spewed forth, spreading like a plague farther and farther away from Salem Village itself…” (Schanzer 55). accusations did not only stay in Salem; people living in the city wanted to abolish all

During the late 1600s, Salem, Massachusetts faced a period of witch trials due to panic stirring among the Puritans in the area. Because of these

While researching texts written about the Salem Witch Trials, I found a few authors who published articles and books about the Salem Witch Trials. These authors often showed that the most likely cause of the fits coming from the victims was produced by ergot of rye. However, I could not find much discussion about another important source of the fits’ cause: witchcraft. My goal in this paper is to produce a convincing argument that the victims during the Salem Witch Trials that experienced strange behaviors came from ergot of rye rather than witchcraft.

As the somber wind blew, the victims of injustice swayed eternally from the tree of insanity. New England was supposed to be a land of opportunity for the Puritans. During the summer of 1692, Salem Village proved to be a wretched example of this; twenty people were falsely accused of witchcraft and were accordingly jailed and executed. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody knows in entirety what caused the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The answers as to how the trials came to be are still shrouded in an ever-growing cloak. Although most hypotheses as to what happened have yet to be confirmed, there are three major factors that may have played a part in this disaster:

Dr. Griggs couldn’t find an exact cure and noticed that the afflicted were only children. Mary Sibley, a neighbor, suggested making a witch’s cake. Tituba baked a rye cake with Betty’s urine and fed the cake to Betty. When the afflicted would eat the cake, it was assumed that the beast would fall under the spell and reveal the name of the guilty witch and what all the witches had done to the girls. Betty’s illness wasn’t cured. She did, however, eventually accuse Tituba as the evil one who afflicted her. Betty and Abigail accuses Tituba of pinching, pricking and grievously tormenting them, and that they saw her here and there, where nobody else

In the year (1692) witch trials held the Salem area hostage people were terrified. People of

Furthermore, many other difficult situations were appearing for colonists in Salem Village, including a smallpox epidemic, threats from neighboring Native Americans, a rivalry with Salem Town, and the arrival of many Canadian refugees following a war with France (“Salem Witch Trials”). The numerous issues leading up to the Salem witch trials caused large amounts of stress and trepidation, and initiated a chaotic chain of events.

This event took place in the household of Parris, where a woman name Tituba, an Indian slave, headed the rituals. Another reason causes this event to occur was belief in the supernatural and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans or witches the ability to harm other community people in return for their loyalty (Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive). When Tituba and other witches began to practice these devil rituals, girls who had been involved, even including the Master Parris’ daughter and niece, started becoming sick. In other words, their condition didn’t seem normal and they were twitching, crying, making odd noises and huddling in corners (Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive). Due to the bad condition of girls, families had a fear to loss their daughter that made them to called the doctors in, the doctors treated the girls for many illnesses but nothing helped (Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive).

The Salem witch trials were also fired up by the residents doubts of and bitterness against their neighbors, along with being scared of

Belief in the supernatural–and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans (witches) the power to harm others in return for their loyalty–had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community