Salem Witch Trials Hysteria

In January 1692, when a group of juvenile girls began to display bizarre behavior, the tight-knit Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t explain the unusual afflictions and came to a conclusion. Witches had invaded Salem. This was the beginning of a period of mass hysteria known as The Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were falsely accused of witchcraft and many paid the ultimate price of death. Nineteen people were hung, one was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen more died in prison. One of the accused Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, a faithful wife and mother, endured her fictitious accusation with honor and integrity.

The Salem Witch Trials was an uncanny and eerie event of hearings and prosecutions of people being accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. Although it lasted from 1691 to 1692, it lead to more than 200 people, including men and women, being accused and arrested of witchcraft and 20 of those people executed. The hysteria began with two young girls: Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams claiming to be possessed by the devil, causing the “witch-fever” among the Salem village. In this essay the circumstances behind poor harvest, sickness and the conjecture of witches and witchcraft being highly considered as a cause in this era will be described. The Salem Witch Trials were caused by environmental factors because the Salem community had limited understanding of natural causes such as poor harvest, sickness and diseases.

First of all, according to document N in Paragraph one Ergot is a parasitic fungus which grows on a variety of grains especially rye. This fungus contains 10 percent of LSD which can be found in seeds used by the Aztecs that are linked to hallucinogenic drugs. Warm, damp, rainy springs and summers were a great time for Ergot to grow. According to document B the hangings happened around summer (June-September). This means that the fungus Ergot was around because of the warm weather. So the people could have very well been eating this plant.

The Salem Witch Trials started in 1692, when a doctor was called to examine a group of teenage girls, who would act strangely by barking like dogs, throwing tantrums, and be seen performing dances in the woods. After the doctor gave them a thorough examination, he diagnosed them with bewitchment. The community came to the conclusion that punishment should be delivered to the person who did the bewitching. In July of 1692, a nine year old girl named Elizabeth Parris, the daughter of local reverend, began acting out suddenly. Elizabeth and her cousin, eleven year old Abigail, would shout blasphemies, have convulsions, enter trances, and “bark like dogs”. Eventually, Reverend Parris called the local physician, William Griggs. The doctor never

On February 1692- May 1693 there was witch’s going around and killing/threaten families. We know that that this all started when these three girls were accused of witchcraft because of numerous sources. The girls in the Salem Witch Trials were mentally ill and that made them act strangely because they were throwing objects, behavior and odd sounds going around. This all started when Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams started showing strange behavior. The symptoms of figuring out if they were witches or not were: having strange behavior, odd sounds going around, contouring their bodies and throwing objects. children stated that there were an invisible being scratching and bitings of the bodies. The doctor’s stated that the scratching and bitings of the bodies were being caused by supernatural

The Salem Witch Trials were a controversial part of history as many innocent people lost their lives for many reasons, one mostly that the girls pretended to be bewitched so they can get rid of their enemies. The consequences of these events were long lasting as many mysteries of the Trials were uncovered long after. The important topics are on how the girls quite possibly faked being “sick”, which led to the executions in Salem, the mass hysteria and many repercussions after a certain crisis in Colonial America nearly three-hundred and fifteen years ago.

The Salem witch trials began in the year of 1692, after a group of young girls in the village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil. These young girls incriminated several local women of witchcraft. As the wave of hysteria spread throughout Salem, a special court got together to hear the cases. People who believed in supernatural powers or the devils practice of giving certain people the power to harm others was considered witchery. Medical examinations found no evidence of physical illness or ailment. Soon after the first two girls showed symptoms, supplementary women began to show the symptoms too. I believe that the hysteria could have commenced

From the time of the 1690’s the entirety of Salem, Massachusetts were Puritans. “The Puritan lifestyle was restrained and rigid: People were expected to work hard and repress their emotions or opinions. Individual differences were frowned upon.” (Salem Witch Trials, The World Behind the Hysteria). These people believed that doing anything sinful would result in punishment from God. Just as much as they believed in God, they also believed in the Devil. Keeping up with the Puritan code, it led to the first women being accused of witchcraft. They were viewed as pariahs, and seen differently. Had the Puritan government let the afflicted defend themselves, not be so dependent on religion, not investigating the facts or scrutinize the trials the killing of many could have been prevented. The hangings from the trials would ultimately be the last in America.

The Salem Witches trials started with eight girls’ strange behavior they became ill with strange “distempers” in December 1691. A few months later, in February 1692, a local doctor suggested the girls were bewitched (Caporael 21). This ignited the sudden growth of witchcraft accusations in the Salem area. Today, there are various theories explaining these unusual afflictions including convulsive ergotism and an encephalitis epidemic (Caporael, Matossian 355, Carlson xvi). The Salem Witches were relatively short lived and all who had been imprisoned, and not executed for witchcraft were released in the spring of 1693 (Carlson 8, Matossian 355).

Witchcraft is the use of magical powers. Witchcraft is often regarded as “black” magic. The article called “The Salem Witch Trials: 1692-1693” states that “[s]ince the early fifteenth century, so-called witch panics had periodically swept across Europe, causing witch hunts, accusations, trials and executions” (“Salem” 1). Although some children and males were accused, the greater part of the arraigned individuals were female (“Salem” 1). A debatable amount of around forty thousand individuals were implicated and executed as witches between fourteen hundred and seventeen hundred and fifty (“Salem” 1). Although the causes of the witchcraft hysteria are debatable, there are three widespread and favored explanations for the hysteria within

However, it did not do much good. The girls started having painful fits which ended up placing Tituba in the court house with Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

In January 1692, when a group of juvenile girls began to display bizarre behavior, the tight-knit Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t explain the unusual afflictions and came to a conclusion. Witches had invaded Salem. This was the beginning of a period of mass hysteria known as The Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were falsely accused of witchcraft and many paid the ultimate price of death. Nineteen people were hung, one was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen more died in prison. One of the accused Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, a faithful wife and mother, endured her fictitious accusation with honor and integrity.

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister 's daughter began to scream and convulse, while other girls manifested the same symptoms. Their doctor suggested one cause, witchcraft. That grim diagnosis launched a Puritan inquisition that took 24 lives, filled prisons with innocent people, and frayed the soul of a Massachusetts community called Salem. It ended less than a year later, but not before the hanging of 20 men and women, including an elderly man who was crushed to death. The hysteria spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in Salem. Aside from suffrage, the Salem witch trials represent the only moment when women played a central role in American history. There are many theories as to what caused the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials and the bewitchment of several young girls including the lack of freedom and want of attention from young girls, the role of religion and Satan in Salem, lack of verifiable evidence, economic and social divisions within the community, and the possibility of ergotism.

Throughout history, there have been many cases of discriminatory accusations of people, including the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were a string of trials, hearings and prosecutions of many people accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts between the dates of February 1692 and May 1693. The trials ended up leading to the execution of twenty people, men and women, but mainly women. The Salem Witch Trials that took place about three hundred years ago affected the lives of everyday civilians during that time in ways such as politically, religiously, economically, fearfully, mentally, and sometimes in other various other ways.

The largest outbreak of witchcraft in America took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. A group of girls, including the Parris’s Indian slave Tituba, gathered in the Salem village and were attempting to see the future by decoding “messages”. Shortly after this gathering the girls started showing signs of the possessed (pg. 73). To this day people all over America are still amazed with the events that took place in this time. But why is that? The fear of the village fell heavily onto the judicial system, which later made people focus on the proper separation of government and religious beliefs. Mass hysteria broke out amongst the village and many people were being accused, therefore leading to many innocent deaths. Although there could be many theories as to the reason the witch trials in Salem began, there are two points of view that are very commonly shared amongst people. Some believe that the Salem witch trials were women unconsciously searching for power, whereas others believe it was an encephalitis epidemic.