Essay on Witchcraft in the Small Village of Salem

Many lives were lost in Salem Village during the summer of 1692. Twenty people, primarily married women, were executed for alleged witchcraft. Many individuals, primarily historians, continue to ponder the causes of the Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1692. Clearly, there were a few possible causes of the hysteria; however, envious, young women; lying girls; and sexism stand out as the main causes.

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.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of accusations, trials, and executions based on the supposed outbreak of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. The trials began during the spring of 1692, and the last of them ended in 1693. It all started when two young girls, Abigail and Betty Parris, began experiencing violent convulsions and outbursts, which were thought to be brought about by witchcraft. Whether they were faking these symptoms, were afflicted with an actual sickness, or were experiencing them because of some sort of psychological reason is widely debated, though it is known that the sisters accused their maid, Tituba, of forcing them to participate in witchcraft with her. Some who theorize about the causes of the trials dismiss the Parris girls involvement in the beginning and instead attribute the outbreak of accusations to judgement upon the members of society who break social or religious rules, or who struck the upright members of society as ‘strange’ and ‘suspicious’, such as the homeless, the poor, and old or widowed women. The cause of the hysteria that went on in Salem after this is what is speculated by so many. There are probably hundreds of theories out there, but a few in particular are more widely known, accepted, and supported than others.

Three centuries ago, the Puritan religion was the base of the Salem village and many townspeople strongly believed in the existence of witches and witchcraft. According to the common Puritan belief, witches were in alliance with the devil and were granted power to harm. People were blamed for illness, failed crops, to bad weather, and many other things that were evident centuries ago. Due to the belief in witchcraft villagers were, perhaps, inclined to the most improbable explanations. The Puritans held strict views, ways of living, perspectives fears, and fantasies. Many Puritan ministers used the the fear of witchcraft to scare the believers into following the church. Historians believe these strict Puritan ways of life may have brought upon the witchcraft hysteria in Salem. At the time, witches and witchcraft were a serious and viewed as a real threat; almost as real as

Salem Village was a very traditional, colonial community where the women stayed at home cooking and cleaning while the men worked and made the decisions. After watching Three Sovereigns for Sarah I noticed that the girls were bored of the same bible study and were immediately fond of the idea of voodoo and magic which came about because of Tituba, their housemaid. The girls wanted to believe there was something there, a spirit of sorts so they forced themselves to act in such a way that they would cause question and suspicion among the villagers. The girls wanted attention whether it was on good or bad terms so they played along with the hysteria of witchcraft, blatantly lying to the faces of those who were superior to them. The girls knew there was no evil spirits

Life before the infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials was extremely mundane and normal. Salem villagers led a simple life in the customs of the Puritans. The Salem village and society was based and founded on the Puritan religion. The people had a very set lifestyle with very little individuality. Ministers and preachers taught the Salem community that there was an ongoing battle with God and Satan. They were also taught that Satan had witches as his helpers to destroy them by causing terrible things to happen to their lives.

In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, hysteria broke out throughout the town in an event that later became known as the Salem Witch Trials. They were the largest account of witch hangings ever in America, as 20 women and men were put to death for being accused of practicing witchcraft. Historians have been debating about how these trials were caused. The frenzy in Salem happened because at first, young girls were afraid of punishment and wanted to avoid it so they blamed older women and accused them of being witches. These accusations began to spiral out of control when the religion of the town supported the allegations, which causes paranoia and panic to spread throughout Salem, which blinded the townspeople from clues revealing that the

Following this, in January 1692, nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and eleven-year-old Abigail Williams began having fits. The fits included violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor by the name of William Griggs diagnosed the girls with bewitchment, other girls in the area began to exhibit similar symptoms. After Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams both had symptoms of being witches, it spread like wildfire in the community, followed by many others having similar symptoms. As stated by A&E networks, a historical archive website, “As hysteria spread through the community and beyond into the rest of Massachusetts, a number of others were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse–both regarded as upstanding members of church and community–and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good.” After a while the trials became very overwhelming and concerning to others in the community. The historical events of Salem are documented, however historians have yet to come to consensus on the true cause of the hysteria.

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.

Twenty four people died during the Salem Witchcraft trials of 1692, and at least a hundred more were sent to jail under the accusation of witchcraft. These trials first began when Betty Parris, Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott were behaving oddly. The girls dashed under furniture, contorted in pain, and hallucinated, among other things. The people of a small Massachusetts colony called Salem panicked, not knowing what was causing the girls to act so oddly. There were three major reasons why this happened: childish behavior, religious beliefs and personal tensions between the two sides of the colony.

The Salem people were all Puritans and Fundamentalists. This means that they took every single word in the Bible literally. One example is found in Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to die”(Document A). If this verse were to be taken literally, then it means to kill any person convicted or accused of being a witch. Another example is found in an entry from one of the Colonial New England’s top ministers, Cotton Mather. Before the Salem Witch Trials even occurred in 1692, Mather was preaching/writing about invisible forces and evil spirits that lived among them(Document C). Therefore, because the villagers were fundamentalists, they felt that they had to kill witches because even the top ministers had been preaching about sinister forces years before the witch

A good example was with Adam and Eve being punished for the sin of pride,

The events which took place in Salem in 1692 could be described as awful and unjust. 19 innocent people were hanged, another person pressed to death and 4 others died in jail. Witches or Wizards are what they called these people, people who made pacts with the devil. The idea of witches provoked fear into the puritan fundamentalist society. Further more, two young girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, were said to have been acting strangely.

Salem Witchcraft Trials and Its Possible Causes - Adolescent girls in Salem MA used spectral evidence for accusations against others about witchcraft; an actual belief in witchcraft by Puritans hysteria from the rigid society a way of poorer and less landowning farmers getting back at the rich way to target women (especially widows or those with land) who were seen as inferior

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.