Salem Witch Hunt Research Paper

During the seventeenth century supernatural played a huge role in everyday life for the people in North America. The peasants during this time would use witchery to invoke particular trinkets for farming and agriculture. As time progressed white magic, which was known to be good, turned into dark magic, which was correlated with demons and evil life forces. However, witchcraft became common between the years 1560 and 1670. In Salem people believed that their town’s misfortunes could be credited to the work of the devil. The people of Salem blamed the supernatural for their tragedies, such as crop failures, infant death and societal hostility among the congregation.

Have you ever been called a witch or heard it someone else be called it? Now and

Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials were several victims being accused of witchcraft and conspiring with the devil. After very disturbing events, the Reverent Parris decides to take things into his own hands and find out who is making the young women of the village suffer. So you might be wondering what really happened during the Salem Witch Trials? Witchcraft Phenomenon •White magic was a type of “good” magic that was more so performed by young girls.

Would you be able to tell if someone was possessed by a witch? An often repetitive problem that comes up with investigations into the unknown, is if you can tell if someone was or is possessed by a being. One of the biggest times this was brought into investigation was during the Salem Witchcraft Trials, where witchcraft was brought into suspect. The trials being the effect of witches possessing the girls who lived in Salem.

The terror that raged through Salem Village in 1692 caused the citizens to accuse and execute each other because of suspected witchcraft. The afflicted girls’ mysterious behavior activated a hysterical fear of witches, causing the Salem witch trials.

The Salem Witch Trials was quite something that was not just or done properly. Throughout the video I have examined some things not right and sometimes humorous because of how they judge and condemn a living soul. The judges acted like God and judge right there at that moment to decide that person's fate to live or to die. How they judge according to the video was they have the so called possessed young girls and then the girls seem to decide the person fate.

Witch hunts are infamous throughout in history. A barrage of witch hunts happened around the time of the colonization of the New World. Most particularly, the Salem Witch Trials which showed how much people were influenced. The majorities of the accused were women because of being unmarried, childless, widowed, and had reputations in their communities for assertiveness and independence. The Salem witch trials brought forth the idea of the “social strain theory”: which is defined as “The Salem witchcraft scare may have reflected social tension that found their outlet through an attack on people perceived as outsiders” (Faragher 51). It was mass hysteria that made this Witch Hunt in their community. Surprisingly, witch hunts still happen today.

The topic I chose to discuss for our research paper is the infamous Salem witch trials. I find the Salem witch trials to be fascinating because you have religion working side by side with government law; I mean what could go wrong, besides everything? You have a battle of two great systems working together fighting for due justice, it sounds like an ideal situation, how could their logic fail them? These are a few of the questions I tend to answer with the following sources; “The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Inquiry into the Salem Witch Trials” by Marion L. Starkey, “Witchcraft” by Charles Alva Hoyt, “Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in the 17th-century Massachusetts” by Richard Weisman, and a few other sources I have not yet found. There

The causes of the salem witch trials are superstition and panic. Superstition is part of the salem witch trials because the reasons commonly alleged for this superstition evidence used against witches, 1693. They say that the witches hate the water whereas the have many times desired that they might be cast on the water in order to their purgation.these things premised, i answer the question affirmatively evidence used used against witches, 1693. They thought that the girls were possessed by demons and they believed everything that they said. panic is part of the salem witch trials because witchcraft.

One of the major reasons for the start of the Salem Witch Trials, though there are an abundance of theories, was partly caused by an economic crisis happening throughout the villages, even Europe was included in the mass hysteria that was the witch trials. The major theory was during the "little ice age" food shortages and economic hardships, just about everyone believed that all there problems were caused by witches, it also didn’t help that there was a widely believed theory that witches were capable of almost anything in that time. "The economic hardships and slowdown of population growth could have caused widespread scapegoating which, during this period, manifested itself

Running Head: THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS The Beginnings of The Salem Witch Trials Cameron Fritts Kankakee Valley High School The Beginnings of the Salem Witch Trials Cameron Fritts Kankakee Valley High School Introduction The Salem Witch Trials were portrayed in The Crucible as being sparked by the sickness of Betty Parris and the accusations of many girls dancing in the woods with Tituba but, what really sparked the trials? Betty along with other girls of Salem had uncontrollable outbursts of screaming and violent contortions. These symptoms were diagnosed as bewitchment.

When I think of witchcraft the first thing that comes to mind, is the Salem Witch Trials, and the fact that so many innocent people were accused, convicted and executed for being a witch, and more times than not this was done over such ridiculousness. Scott sheds light onto how ridiculous some of the accusations as proof of witchcraft really were. For instance in this “story” he explains how it was assumed that Margaret Simons was a witch because a boy became ill have he had an “altercation” with her dog, and she reprimanded him a few days prior to him becoming ill. And because of rumors, and because the father thought he was so “perfect,” there was no way that God would make a child sick, especially his, it had to be witchcraft, and Margret

Hitchens is unimpressed by any instance of charitable or humanitarian work undertaken by a religious person… Of course, [his challenge] proves that religious belief is not necessary for virtue. However, it is far from exculpating non-believers for most of the barbarity in the world. We might ask Hitchens, in turn, the more pertinent question: to name a crime committed by believers that has not been surpassed by non-believers. (37)

The Religious Freedom Institute has joined forces with the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project to determine how Christians from all over the world respond to persecution and to raise awareness of their situation.

The issue of witch-hunts was more visible in countries such France, who had a total of 10,000+ people accused and executed, but less in more stable countries such as Italy. Critics such as Levack and Thurston have a general belief that religious change may have exacerbated the witch-hunt but not are a direct cause.