Menta Mental Illness And The Salem Witch Trials

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692: Misunderstood Reasons for Behavior How can people tell what actually happened during the Salem Witch Trials? How and why did these trials begin in the first place? The Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Massachusetts in 1692, soon after Samuel Parris and his family moved to the town. Parris brought with him two slaves but one, Tibuta, was in charge of looking after the girls Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11. Tibuta told the girls and their friends about voodoo and magic and even made them “witch cakes.”

Contreras 1 Luis Contreras Yarisbel Rodriguez HIST 3401 19 September 2017 Revelations of gender and religious norms through the Salem witch trials There are certain events that when they occur they can reflect and show the kind of society we live in and sheds light on some of the norms we accept in our society. The events that occurred during the Salem witch trials revealed many norms about religion and gender. It demonstrated how religion and superstition was held in higher regards and standards than science and logic. It also showed how much influence people in the church had over the people.

Many of the different ideas of what Hysteria is came from other countries across the US like Greece, France, and some from Italy. A Greek physician provided a good description of hysteria, many of the people in Greece thought that the people had epilepsy, but the physician clearly distinguished hysteria from epilepsy (Tasca, Cecilia). “ During the first ten centuries of Christianity, with medical thought stagnating under the authoritarian influence of Galenic concepts, most cases of hysteria were probably mistaken for various bodily diseases. During the Middle Ages, as the attitude toward sickness changed from naturalistic to demonotheologic, many cases of hysteria, and undoubtedly of organic disease too, were interpreted as manifestations of witchcraft” (Hysteria). During the Salem Witch trials there was a huge case of mass Hysteria because of the many people that were accused of practicing witchcraft.

Due to religion, lying, and health problems, it caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692 to occur. Religion was important to the Puritans in their daily life. They would take every word from God and turn them into action. Without religion in their life, then the Puritans would not have come to New England. Religion was an extensive impact on the repercussion of the Salem Witch Trial.

The other theory that they had for the “witches” is that they were suffering from epilepsy. In January 1962 when the group of young girls who were known as the “afflicted girls” after they had played the fortune game, after that they were acting very strangely. They were starting to feel some type of symptoms, a lot of the girls would start to feel very sick, and they would get fevers and the strange part is that they would hide under furniture. In the town of Salem, they didn’t believe in anything else all that they would believe is that were controlled by the devil and, they had become witches. There was nothing that was going to convince the people in the town to believe that they weren't witches after they saw that the girls started to get symptoms about getting sick and acting very strange, they were certain that they were taken by the devil and became witches.

One of these things is politics. Salem village was into two factions, the traditionalists and the modernizers. The traditionalists were farmers who wanted the old ways of doing things, but the modernizers were business owners who wanted to expand on new things for the village. But the witch trials became a war for these two factions, with both sides accusing each other of witchcraft and using the trials to gain the advantage.

Many of these troubles are believed to be the cause of the Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were in the shadow of the French and Indian War. This was believed to have serious repercussions on the small community. Also around this time Indian attacks were increasingly common causing the community to be very fearful and on edge. Salem had just been through a smallpox epidemic, one of the coldest winter yet, and the small community was growing at an alarming rate, making it increasingly hard to acquire land.

These individuals may or may not been witches, yet the jury many times to chose to hang any accused individuals with or without reasonable cause. Due to fear of being wrongly accused during the salem witch trials erratic and chaotic behaviours stemmed across the town. People feared of being called witches so they hid, lied, cheated, and wrongfully their friends and family. Chaos grow across the town and more and more people were hung. Like on the day 9/11 when the planes hit the twins tower and the buildings fell, people hid, cried, and hurt, due to the destruction.

Jealousy could have played a part in which the town of Salem was sorta split into two. One side of the town was where the more wealthier people lived closer to the heart of Salem Town. The other side was where the farmer lived the less wealthy. If you were to pull up a map of where the people who accused people and where those people were and who defended them, you can see that most of the accusers lived on farms and were also single women, and the accused witches were mainly closer to the town with husbands, or the more wealthier side of town. When the Salem hysteria started and there was no good explanation as to why people were experiencing hallucinations, tingling, confusion, and mania.

This illness was like no other. It made the girls scream and try to climb under chairs, tables, and even up walls. The girls would hallucinate and feel weird sensations of tingling and things crawling under their skin. After they both were examined witchcraft was determined to be the cause. This was because the doctors in the 1600-1800s were extremely uneducated and when symptoms didn't make sense they would blame it on witchcraft.

Mental Illness in Salem Witch Trials Introduction Witchcraft is the practice of magic and the use of spells and the invocation of spirits. According to Salem Witch Trials, 2015, the Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts claimed to have been bewitched by several adults in the town. More than 150 people were accused and hung, including men, women, and children (Salem Witch Trials, 2015). There were three girls in particular that sparked the trials: Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and Ann Putnam. Also stated in Salem Witch Trials, their behaviors changed drastically; they began to hallucinate, shout in church, have fits, not eat, not wake up, attempt to fly, and feel as if they

Analyzing Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's book, Salem Possessed leads to the exploration of the pre-existing social and economic divisions within the Salem Village community, as an entrance point to understanding the accusations of witchcraft in 1692. Salem Village and Salem Town were politically a single unit, but socially as well as economically the two were diverse and because of this, it caused a rivalry. Salem Village had a lot of farmland, poorer people and was more rural as well as conservative. ; the Village was led by the Putnam family. Salem Town was more sophisticated, nautical, and prosperous, with wealthier and more respected people; They were interested in the mercantile and political life of Salem Town and were led primarily

Witch Trails Elizabethan Research Paper During the elizabethan era, there were people who suffered from mental illnesses; they had their own opinion on how to treat or diagnose it. People back then didn’t know much about diseases or what caused them. Doctors didn’t know much and there was hardly even medicine to treat anything.

This was more commonly found in women more so than in men, this is able to be seen in (Document N and E). While looking at the two tables in (Document E) it is divided into two subjects The Accused and The Accusers, in each table we see the majority of each table is centered around women. A majority of the people that consumed bread and showed the symptoms could be seen as a witch, the symptoms were usually a crawling of the skin sensation, hallucinations, delirium, etc. If you were seen in public seeing things that weren 't there or scratching your skin as if things were on your body you could potentially end up being seen as a witch and killed. This evidence helps explain the hysteria and the hangings because it showed that everyone was on high alert at all times everyone around them could be seen as a someone to blame or as a

These refugees were from northern New York, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. The displaced people created a strain on Salem’s resources because they did not have their own resources and they used others. That aggravated existing rivalries between families with ties to the wealth port of Salem. (“Salem Witch Trials”, 1). The first witch case involved Reverend Parris’ daughter Elizabeth, age 9, and his niece Abigail Williams, age 11, in January 1692.