Lastly, I am going to talk about the final and the most important and impacting reason of the witch trials, and that was people and their beliefs. Everybody had their own way of living and doing things just as we do now. If they saw something that was against their belief they automatically assumed there was evil or something that was not right. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” That was their religion so if they thought they were a witch they were put death instantly. The puritans take the written word of the Bible very seriously. That all changed though after September 22nd all hanging stopped because the governor's wife was accused and then everyone knew that things were going to far. So belief took a very big part in the trials.
Ultimately, I believe that the Salem Witch Trials’ main cause was mass hysteria and paranoia among the group. I can predict this, because in Exhibit A, Cotton Mather states, “ I will prove that Witchcraft exists. Those who deny it exists argue that they never saw any witches, therefore there are none.” I believe this is strong evidence supporting the over exaggeration of most people towards the trials and how hysterical people can become towards an unrealistic assumption like witches and witchcraft. Another piece of evidence supporting mass hysteria as the cause of the trials would be in Exhibit B, where Abigail Hobbs a 16 year old girls pleads guilty.
Over 100 individuals were suspected to be witches in result to weird behavior before a disaster happens. The puritans set fairly high standards on themselves and others. True puritans could show their commitment by going to church and working their hardest. They also believed God was not the only powerful force among their community.
The lying caused the witch trial hysteria. In 1692,In salem massachusetts. The puritans believed of what they read in the bible and becasue of the fales accusations twenty people died. One of them was a man and he was pressed to death. The three causes of the salem witch trails were the dividing towns,lying,and age.
The Causes of the Salem Witch Trials Much of modern America’s fear and infamous interest in witches has been derived most likely from the profound Salem Witch Trials. “The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft,” stated History.com authors. However, many historians still deliberate how such events occurred in the first place. Based on several presented documents, some conclusions suggest that there was a prominent cause to the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials. All in all, the cause of the Salem Witch Trials was the attempt of Salem citizens to either defend or create family
“Fanatics in power and the funnel of a tornado have this in common -- the narrow path in which they move is marked by violence and destruction.” The Salem Witch Trials are (not unlike) a destructive tornado that causes mass devastation. A tornado is defined as a localized, violently destructive, windstorm occurring over land, and is characterized by a long, funnel shaped cloud extending toward the ground that is made visible by condensation and debris. Before a tornado touches the ground it causes mass hysteria much like at the beginning of the play. Abigail and the rest of the girls are found in the forest dancing, which led many to believe that something bad was going to occur.
The witch trials in Salem in the year 1692 was a scowling time in American history. The New York Post explains about The Crucible play that “... at a time when America was convulsed by a new epidemic of witchhunting, The Crucible brilliantly explores the threshold between individual guilt and mass hysteria, personal spite and collective evil.” In The Crucible, John Proctor and his wife are hit with many situations which burdens their relationship. While this is going on, many people were being accused as witches for little incidents which they thought would add up to witchcraft. During this time period, the grudges and personal rivalries between people makes these witch trials immoral and unethical.
I believe that society did learn from the witch trials because it taught us not to judge people for their beliefs. It taught us that the witch trials were a harsh time, and taught us that no one can be trusted because they could be lying. When a crime comes to a court, they could've found the actual criminal or the person could be lying. That person could then take the fall for that criminal and the real criminal could be set free. That criminal could be committing more crimes while the one person that took the fall is rotting in jail.
It is evident that the Salem witchcraft accusations were facilitated by numerous factors, and there were key figures who were accountable for causing the most damage. What caused and led the false trials into fruition was the naivety of the Salem theocracy and the influence by an allegedly infallible group. Thus, the Putnams and Abigail were the principal leaders of the group who accused, Reverend Gale spurred the initial craze on religious pretext, and the baseless and easily swayed judges, in particular Dansforth, allowed the claims to be turned into hangings. Foremost, among those responsible for the witch trials are the accusers made up of the town girls as well as the Putnams, who occasionally exercised their hidden agenda.
Do you know what affected America the most? The Salem witch trials had a great affect on America; so great that Christianity had to change their ways. This also was one of the great mistakes America had made at the time. The salem witch trials began as a misdiagnosis on a woman named Betty Parris in Salem, she was ‘strangely’ sick.
The 1692 events in Salem were not caused by a single person. Rather, the horrific miscarriage of injustice that was unfair persecutions under the guise of witchcraft could be blamed on natural phenomena. When young girls of the Massachusetts town developed strange symptoms, such as vivid hallucinations and strange bodily sensations, the local town doctor could not explain why they had suddenly taken ill. Confused, he diagnosed them with the one thing that made sense to the suspicious religious town: Witchcraft. Now, modern science concludes that a simple fungus was responsible for the girl’s symptoms.
The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,
Imagine being a wealthy 45-year-old woman in 1692 being accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch trials were caused by jealousy, fear, and lying. People believed that the devil was real and that one of his tricks was to enter a normal person 's body and turn that person into a witch. This caused many deaths and became a serious problem in 1692. First of all, jealousy was one of the causes of the Salem witch trials.
In Witches: The Absolutely True Tale Of Disaster In Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer people in the town of Salem were Condemned for being witches. By the end of it all more than 200 people were accused and 20 were executed. Horridly they accused people from all ages, everyone from teenager to ancient was accused. But why? The Salem Witch Trials were caused by hysteria, popularity, and revenge.
The Salem witch trial was a time about accusing your fellow neighbor or being accused yourself, this all began in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. During this time many people were being accused of being a witch, a majority of the time it was because either someone truly believed that you were a witch and were reeking havoc or they were trying to find someone to take the blame if they were to being accused. So this leads us to question, what began the Salem Witch Trials? There were at least three causes of the Salem witch trials hysteria. These were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams story, Ergotism, and the acknowledgment of hysteria.
Not many people know much about what actually happened in the Salem Witch Trials. Maybe someone would think that it was just about witchcraft and crazy people being hanged, but it is a lot more than that. The Salem Witch Trials only occurred between 1692 and 1693, but a lot of damage had been done. The idea of the Salem Witch Trials came from Europe during the “witchcraft craze” from the 1300s-1600s. In Europe, many of the accused witches were executed by hanging.