Salem Witch Trials Essay

Cotton Mather accounts the witch trial of Martha Carrier through reporting the accusations and crimes prosecuted against her. This trial was unjust because prosecution occurred to explain unnatural events by using unfounded, spectral evidence. All unnatural events affected the witnesses negatively in matters of health or occupation. This led the people of Salem to create a scapegoat for their misfortune and other ‘witches’ to persecute those near to them in the fear of death.

Throughout the trials, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft and 20 were executed. The people of Salem lived in constant fear of witchcraft accusations being brought against them, which only enhanced the hysteria in the village. The females got really sick when they went back home that could cause illness or death. The main point is that a large group of

What Caused the Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? Nineteen people hung and one was pressed to death but what for? Boredom and hatred filled people’s empty lives in 1692, especially in Salem. The biblical quote, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” was taken seriously, and a feud between the east and west side of the town caused controversy.

There were all kinds of different theories going around which made the people of Salem think those girls were witches. One big theory that small town had was the bread that the girls ate they were all thinking that that bread had some type of poisoning, which that was a theory that bread had caused the girls to become witches. In the article the New Yorker Stacy Schiff a newsletter writer states that “Salem witch trials followed an outbreak of rye ergot. Ergot is a fungus blight that forms hallucinogenic drugs in bread.” That ergot poisoning was a serious thing when that drug was in the bread the girls that had ate it would be crazy, they didn’t act the same that’s why they would accuse them of being witches.

During the witch trials, many people were reported having hallucinatory fits, seizures, muscle spasms, and delusions. These reactions, are symptoms of ergotism (ergot poisoning), which many people thought to be the signs of

Ergot poisoning mostly affected women and children with effects of skin crawling, tingling in the fingers, and mania to name a few. But very similar to what the “witches” were going through. The town of Salem was bored at this time in history. They didn't have any TVs, no government, they read all the books, and there was not much to do in Salem.

One of the lead causes of the Salem Witch Trials was disease also know at the time as Ergotism. Rye was a grain that could become troubled by the fungus ergot. Ergot can be compared to the modern drug LSD, “...most common symptoms include seizures, convulsions,

In Salem, young girls threw things, uttered strange sounds, vomited, contorted themselves into strange positions and began to have spasms. In the early 1970’s, a scientist named Linda Caporael had been studying the Salem witch trials. Studies of hers linked symptoms and strange behaviors of the afflicted girls to the hallucinogenic effects of drugs like lysergic acid diethylamide. LSD is a derivative of ergot. Ergot is a fungus that grew on the rye grain in Salem during the 1690’s.

The Salem Witch Trials occured on February 1692 - May 1693 and caused many of issues and effected a lot of people. It caused a lot of people to be killed for no reason. People abused it in so many ways and just had people killed because they didn't like them or wanted their land, and it could even because they wanted to be with that person's husband or just be cause of jealousy. It made them fear people because if you make anyone mad they could just turn on you and try to say your a witch to have you killed or sent to jail. But it also didn't take much to convince people and get people to act like someone casted a spell on them to have them executed so that they could get attention.

Salem, Massachusetts, USA and occurred between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned and even more accused; but not pursued by the authorities. 29 were convicted of witchcraft but only 19 were hanged. The best known trials were in the Court of Oyer and Terminer.

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.

Even though the Salem Witch Trials began in Massachusetts in the 1600s, the fear of witches and witchcraft existed long before then. There was a witchcraft craze in Europe, lasting approximately from the 1300s to the end of the 1600s and resulting in the deaths of thousands (Blumberg, 2007). The Salem Witch Trials began in January 1692 when Reverend Samuel Parris’ daughter, Elizabeth, and niece, Abigail, began exhibiting strange behavior. Another girl by the name of Ann Putnam Jr. started exhibiting similar behaviors around the same time. The girls would scream, throw things, utter strange noises, and contort themselves into unnatural positions, and the local doctor blamed the girls’ behavior on the supernatural.

The population was highly influenced by West Indian slaves’ superstitions and tales. While this was happening, the slave Tituba, was in Samuel Parris’ house, who was the Salem minister of the time. She started telling them about witches and devil-related stories and tales. Specially telling them to Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, Samuel’s daughter and niece. These girls were starting to believe this stories little by little until one day, they came to the conclusion that two other women and themselves, were possessed.

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

This tells that it was not just women affected by the trials but at the same time many women were still executed. But there is a chance that women did actually perform rituals and attempt to gain power and magic from the Devil. Women who were on the bottom part of society, looked down by everybody. It’s possible in their time of desperate need for money or food they begged to the Devil or sought to use his power to punish those who would not give charity or disrespected them. After all these were women who were treated as rats and in their eyes God had forsaken them, they needed some support in their lives and turned to Satanism.