As their puzzled father ,Samuel Parris, observed the two mysterious little girls creep under chairs and spin around on the ground he pondered where this weird behavior was coming from. In Salem there were two little girls who were envious of the rich, so they made it clear that they could make people tremble in fear if they did not like you or wanted what you had. Everyone in Salem was terrified because there were so many people being accused of witchcraft. 22 people were hanged because the two little girls were pretending to be afflicted. The Salem witch trial Hysteria of 1692 was caused by two poor, young girls who claimed to be afflicted because of jealousy. The young very greedy, single women wanted what the older Married women had.
One cause of the Salem witch trials was boredom. Community placement, beliefs, and strict religious laws caused isolation from other societies. The Puritans were very strict when it came to religion. “The churches usually do within themselves to manage their own discipline, under the control of their elders.” (Cotton Mather Wonders of the Invisible World; pg13)
The Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 ended almost as soon as it began. Why did this happen, and why did it happen in Salem? Between June and September of 1692, over 20 men and women were hanged, an 81 year old man got pressed to death under heavy rocks and hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft. In 1689 Samuel Parris moved to Salem as the village minister.
What caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? The Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692 was a series of persecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts from 1692 to the 1700s. This terrible event ended up with 20 dead people who were accused and executed. Eventually, this catastrophe ended, when the governor's wife was being accused.
Thesis statement: the instability of the government and religious beliefs led to paranoia among the colonist during the salem witch trials. Question: How did the religious aspects and unstable government in the colony affect the outcome of the Salem witch trials?
In January 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, innocent citizens began to be accused of witchcraft. Two young girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams hid under furniture and contorted their bodies into unusual shapes. They screamed and cried out that the spirits of innocent citizens in the town of Salem were torturing them by stabbing them and trying to convince them to sign the Devil’s book. They were thought to have been under witchcraft’s spell, causing the young girls to accuse many people of witchcraft such as their own slave Tituba. More and more people of the town became afflicted with the same symptoms as Betty and Abigail, in the end causing over 200 people to be accused of witchcraft and all found guilty.
Death and hysteria loomed over the town of Salem during the dark period known as the Salem Witch Trial of 1692. Over the period of 15 weeks, witch hunts and a number of unnecessary killings occurred. Although there is many speculations as to what caused this outbreak, it’s known that there is multiple reason. The Salem Witch Trials were caused by the accounts of Betty Parris and her cousin, the hysteria that consumed the town, as well as the idea of Ergotism overcoming Salem. One cause for the witch trial hysteria was the case of Betty Parris and her older cousin Abigail Williams.
The town of Salem is known for its infamous witch trials that took place in 1692. The gruesome trials resulted in the hanging of nineteen people and the imprisonment of hundreds. The nineteen that hanged were put to death for refusing to admit to witchcraft. In the trials, the only evidence proving the accused to be witches is the actions of a dozen teenage girls. The girls claim to be possessed by the people they are accusing as witches.
In Salem, Massachusetts 1692, there were no true witches, meaning no one really signed the devil’s book and went around hurting others; even the ones who confessed to being witches were guiltless (“World”). The witch trials of Salem in the spring of 1692 were a “classic example of scapegoating”(Brooks). Today’s theories as to why these trials happened include epilepsy, boredom, abuse, suffering from a disease from eating rye, or mental sickness (Brooks). As illustrated in The Crucible, social and political tensions contributed to the mass hysteria that resulted in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. There were many factors that sparked the witch trials.
The reason that the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony could condone the acts of genocide that occurred during the Salem Witch Trials is because, while they had set themselves up to be a utopian society, it had not yet happened. Various reasons could have led to their settlement towards not becoming a utopia. The main reason for this is the very origin or the greek word “utopia,” which originally meant “impossible.” Other factors included simpler human concepts such as greed, hatred, and lust. These emotions were all present in the town of Salem, but they were hidden from notice by the towns folks devoutness to their church.
Crucible Essay What were some of the causes of the Salem Witch Trials? What caused the Salem Witch Trials? How did it all start?
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.
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.
There were bizarre things that happened throughout history, but the most bizarre thing was the women in the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials happened in 1692. The Salem Witch Trials was the oddest thing that happened in Massachusetts. During the Salem Witch Trials young girls displayed odd behaviors, physicians were called to examine the girls and could not find any natural causes of their odd behavior, and the young girls were pressured into revealing who was controlling them ( “The Salem Witch Trials, 1692”).
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.
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.