Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

Salem Witch Trials In the summer of 1692, 104 people were accused and put into trial for witchcraft. These trials were called The Salem Witch Trials, there has been a huge debate about why it happened for multiple years and no one has yet had a guaranteed reason why. So what actually caused the Salem Witch Trials? I believe the Salem Witch Trials was caused by a secret rivalry between two sides.

There is a fungus called Ergot that could be to blame for this hysteria; both the symptoms that Ergot causes and the girl's experiences are similar. The fungus Ergot mainly grows on and is most likely to grow on opened-pollinated crops because “it allows easy access of the fungus into the flowering head” like rye (“Ergot of Cereals and Grasses | Disease”). If the infected grain is eaten, the most common symptoms are convulsive fits, hallucinations, vomiting, and a prickling sensation under the skin. This was also what the girls did: "They vomited, screamed incomprehensibly, claimed to see things that weren’t

Parris eventually called in the local physician, William Griggs, who found the girls convulsing on the floor and barking like dogs. The doctor was perplexed and unable to offer a specific medical explanation, but suggested that it might be the work of evil. Parris consulted with other local ministers, who recommended he wait to see what happened. As the word of these inexplicable fits spread around town, a man named Thomas Putnam, Jr. came forward and admitted that his girls were also behaving out of the ordinary. The women of Salem were scared and under pressure, so they named three women who were also behaving strangely “witches” to make themselves seem normal.

The trials are one of the most talked about events of hysteria and scapegoating in American history. It all started in January of 1692, when a group of eight young girls started having random outbursts of seizures, contortions and screaming fits. The girls then started accusing innocent women of being witches, and working for the devil. The first three unfortunate victims the girls accused of this crime were Tituba, a slave, Sarah Good, a

The witch trials had a big impact not only in the past but also today, but how did it begin? As a group of girls begin to act strange people start to question what is wrong with them.

The Salem Witch Trials were caused by townspeople accusing people with different social classes of witchcraft and mass hysteria. The only reason why the witch trials started was because of townspeople pointing out the outcasts. In the video “Salem Witch Trials, The World Behind the Hysteria,” states,”The first women accused of witchcraft were seen as different unwanted people.” This shows that the townspeople were afraid of different people and decided to confront them of witchcraft to kill them off.

In 17th century puritan Salem everything seemed serene and tranquil, but shockingly that wasn’t the case, and it only got worse with the Salem witch trials. The little

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

The town Salem decided that the people in their town that resembled witches would be put on trial and persecuted, but the people weren’t witches and were being killed for being different from the rest of society. The convictions of the first people started a continuous strain of executions and imprisonments throughout the community. The courts of the time were corrupted with religious views and biased, so convictions were not far when it came to the accused. No one from this community was safe from the chance of being accused of being a witch. Salem, Massachusetts was a very religious community that held a fairly large amount of power over the people and laws.

But due to the lack of medical knowledge, the girls were pressured into incriminating women who were said to be witches (Salem Witch Trails). While there is no definitive cause for the trials, these are the most well backed, and accepted

My theory of the Salem Witch trials is quite simple. I believe that these trials were fueled by panic, stress, and rumor. I say rumor, due to the fact that young, adolecent girls usually seem to spread the word a lot. Girls followed strict rules withtin their religion, as well as boys, BUT, girls were usually tending to the house. They never got outside, as boys did to hunt, and explore the outdoors, as written in Evidence Set C: Puritan Children.

Ergot is a fungus that commonly grows on many grains, but more often than not it is found on rye. Ergot was commonly found in America and European rye during the 19th century. The effects of ergot poisoning include; fits of convulsions, hallucinations, under the skin prickling sensations, and vomiting. An extract of ergot was used to make the hallucinogenic drug LSD. The town of Salem stored their grain to consume during the winter, and ergot being a fungus grows in dark and damp areas.

N) also brings up the possibility of a fungus called ergot triggering the hysteria of 1692. Ergot grows on cereal grains and can be poisonous which was a “common condition resulting from eating contaminated rye bread” back in the seventeen hundred´s. Ergot is believed to have affected the accusers by causing symptoms such as “crawling sensations, tingling in the fingers, vertigo and hallucinations”. To better understand how ergot played a role in the Salem witch hysteria, an additional document listing how much rye and other cereal grains were consumed during the year 1692 would help determine a

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.

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.