The Causes Of The Salem Witch Trials 1692-1693

Between the months of June to September of 1692, the infamous witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts resulted in the hanging of 19 men and women; the deaths of five others, including two children, while imprisoned in jail; the pressing to death of an 80-year old man, and the stoning of two dogs for collaborating with the Devil. Hundreds of others faced accusations and dozens more were jailed for months during the progress of the trials. For over three hundred years these events have not only captured the general publics' imagination, but that of the academic community. Beginning with Charles Upham, in 1867, historians have attempted to explain the mass hysteria that swept through Salem in 1692. These accounts vary both in their

Puritans settled in the Massachusetts town of Salem in 1630, with their leader John Winthrop. Winthrop claimed that Salem would be “As a City Upon a Hill,” meaning that the Puritans coming to the New World would set a religious and civilized example among other colonies. However, this wasn’t the case. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of accusations and persecutions due to what was thought to be witchcraft among Salem townspeople. King Philip’s War played a role in the trials. It caused regional mass hysteria which lead to the accusing of witches in Salem. Samuel Parris was the local preacher of Salem and in 1691 he started preaching about the devil and focused more on hell instead of more positive things which also played a role in the crafting of the witch trials. Rich versus poor feuds, the desire to feel around and inspect women, and easily being able to have someone punished by accusing them of being a witch, fueled and motivated the Witch Trials of Salem in 1692.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of trials in the 1690s which accused society members of practicing witchcraft, they took place in Salem, Massachusets. What caused this mass hysteria to occur? Some contributing factors could include some socio-economic reasons, an overbearing Puritan society and the influential sense that witchcraft was taking place all over the world.

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

Robert Calef was a merchant in Massachusetts during the witch hunts of 1692. The primary source that is being analyzed isn’t about him but is from many stories that he collected and put them together in a manuscript. This manuscript that contains true accounts about the trial and it included the attempted escape of Mrs. Cary of Charlestown Massachusetts told from her husband Nathaniel Cary’s viewpoint. I believe that Nathaniel Cary wanted this account to be written in order to highlight and expose how the puritans handled the witch trials and specifically the trial against his wife and to inform people of what was truly happening in New England at the time. In this primary source analysis, I will be discussing what this document tells us

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he writes, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 77). This partially fictionalized tale of the Salem Witch Trials points to one of the causes of the trials, vengeance, but the over dramatized tale 's early stages were quiet. The Salem Witch Episode had humble beginnings in the town of Salem Village, Massachusetts, but evolved into one of the most widely known witch trials in American History. The gallows in Salem claimed the lives of nineteen men and woman during the spring and summer of 1692 due to the accusations of witchcraft with over a hundred people who were accused. After all the terror and the uproar of the trials occurred, everything came to a screeching halt (Linder 1). Due to the unique circumstances of this particular set of witch trials, from the rampant accusations to the discontinuation of the trials mass hysteria does not seem to be fault as with other witch trials, but a variety of factors. The Salem witch trials were not just a simple case of mass hysteria, but a combination of factors ranging from poisons to superstitions to scapegoats, resulting in the outbreak of the Salem Witch episode.

The Salem Witch Trials were a sequence of hearings, prosecutions, and hangings of people who were thought to be involved in witchcraft in Massachusetts. These trials occurred between February 1692 and May 1693("The Salem Witch Trials, 1692." ). The Trials resulted in the execution of twenty people, in fact, most of them were women. The first of the trials began in several towns in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, such as Salem Village (currently known as Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover("Salem Witch Museum." ). The most infamous trials were tried by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692, in Salem Town. Robert Calef, the author of More Wonders of the Invisible World, a book composed throughout the mid-1690s denouncing the recent Salem witch trials of 1692, summarized the trials saying

In 1692, Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem was shocked to discover his nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth (known as “Betty”) and his eleven-year-old niece Abigail Williams acting extremely strangely. The young girls were screaming and crying and contorting their bodies into strange and uncomfortable positions. The girls said they felt like their bodies were being pricked with hundreds of needles. Their hysterical episode was described as "beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect". An unknown doctor, (historical evidence suggests that it was Doctor William Griggs) examined the girls and could not find anything physically wrong with them. There were no signs of any illness that he knew of. Most accounts say that this doctor was the first one to suggest that the girls’ behavior could be a result of witchcraft.

In 1692, a town in Massachusetts by the name of Salem Village found itself in one of the most well-known cases of mass hysteria. This saga started with three girls Elizabeth Parris, Abigail Williams, and Ann Putnam a neighborhood friend. Abigail Williams, the niece of the town’s minister, began to display weird and questionable behavior. The town’s physician William Greggs, was called to determine the cause of this sporadic behavior. The town’s physician determine that the three girls were under “the Devil’s influence” and they had been bewitched. What started as a silly game between children, slowly brought the town of Salem to the edge of insanity. This insanity lead to the killing of 25 innocent people due to their crimes of witchcraft. When scholars look back at the Salem Witch Trials they often time ask the question “What were the key factors in the spread of hysteria throughout the town of Salem?” Most scholars contribute the widespread of hysteria to three important factors; these factors include social, political, and religious tension that occurred in Salem Village. Each one of these factors played a key role in the start of the Salem trials and why it spread so rapidly throughout Salem Village.

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

The hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials commenced in the spring of 1692 when, the daughter of Reverend Parris, Elizabeth Parris, the niece of Reverend Parris, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam a girl who associated herself with Elizabeth and Abigail and began to act strange and have bizarre fits. This was nowhere near ordinary to the villagers and the word began to spread through the village. After a doctor visited the girls to see the reasons for their strange attitudes, he concluded that the reason behind all of it was due to something unnatural. The doctor determined that the girls were being bewitched by someone. Soon after recovery the girls began to blame women of witchcraft causing an uproar in the village (1).

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).

The events that happen throughout history influence the world as they happen. History can be good or bad, fact or fiction, globally influential or locally influential; it is important for people to learn about the events that happened throughout history in order to study the past failures and past successes. One globally known event from history is The Salem Witch Trials. During the Salem Witch Trials, different types of people were wrongly accused of practicing witchcraft. When a person was accused of being a witch, he or she was put on trial. Because a person accused of witchcraft was already considered guilty, many people were either put in jail or put to death. The Salem witch trials were a bad part of history that were influenced by religious

One of the biggest events to ever shake the small town of Salem, Massachusetts took place in 1692. During this time many people, both men and women, were being accused of witchcraft, which was very frowned upon and had lethal consequences if the “witch” was caught. Throughout the entire Salem Witch Trials, a total of one hundred and forty one people were accused and arrested for witchcraft. Out of those one hundred and forty one who were arrested, nineteen of them were hanged, and one person was crushed to death. Many researchers have come to

The Salem Witch Trials began in the spring of 1692, in Salem Village, Massachusetts. A group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several women in the village of witchcraft. Betty Parris and Abigail Williams started the witch mania in Salem. Supposedly the Parris’s slave, Tituba had told the girls stories about witchcraft. After that the two girls began to have strange fits, which William Griggs, a doctor, claimed were because the girls were bewitched. As a rise of mania spread throughout Massachusetts, a special court was organized in Salem to hear the cases. During the time of the trials, the Puritan religion was dominant. Puritans believed that all sins should be punished. They also believed that the weak, less fortunate, and women were more open to the influence of the Devil’s hand. These factors meant that during the Salem Witch Trials they would be very harsh against those who were convicted. During this time religion played a huge role in the government. During the trials the accused were judged based on what the Bible said, looking for actual evidence and considering what people who saw had to say.