What Was The Right Factor In Salem Witchcraft Hysteria

The first set of witchcraft persecutions occurred during Elizabeth 1st reign, this was Around 1563. Commonly people associated witches with a woman and the beliefs were the following of that they have made a pact with the evil spirit Satan. The rush of the witch persecutions mainly happened after 1563 and by the time period of 1750 roughly 200,000 witches were tortured, burnt, or hung across the whole of Western Europe. Therefore, in this essay, I will be mainly focusing and arguing which of the hysteria surrounding witchcraft and witchcraft trials had a greater impact in Britain or the American colonies in the time period of the 17th century. And I will be arguing it following different factors which could contribute to this such as the social factors geographical factors, religious factors and also control law and order.

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.

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.

Oh my God! You won’t believe what happened in Salem, MA in 1692. Yeah I know it’s so many years back, but I bet you didn’t know what happened in Salem, MA. in 1692 and 1693, more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft- the Devil’s magic- and 20 were executed.

A theory has been brought up by Charles Upham that the victims, Betty Parris and Abagail Williams, were lying. For example, Upham writes in DBQ Document D, “It is dreadful to reflect upon the enormity of their wickedness... [T]here can be no doubt that they were great actors.” This illustrates the idea that the afflicted girls, or the “witchcraft victims” were just faking it, and their acting killed the 24 people. Furthermore, in DBQ Document C, the text states, “[Bridget Bishop] shook her head, and the afflicted were tortured.”

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.

It was the peoples’ reactions to their children being possessed that led to one of the most horrifying parts of history, the Salem Witch Trials (Chadwick 20). To begin with, the children diagnosed with witchery thought that they could jail anyone and started to target certain people due to the hysteria (Chadwick 22). As they started to see the wave of hysteria sweeping across of Salem, they “began to confess to the crazy charges in order to avoid hanging” (Chadwick 22). Consequently, suspected witches could confess to their sins and be welcomed back into the community, but some people couldn’t bear to lie, even to rescue their own lives. Soon after, many sent pleads to the court were sent: however, they were ignored due to the hysteria that reached the judges (Chadwick 22).

By copying the actions of the accused woman, the girls make it more likely that the “witch” will be put to death. Furthermore, girls normally tend to overreact in certain situations just for attention, which is the case in the Salem witch trials. Getting attention is satisfying and make people feel like they are needed, so the girls acted just to have the upper hand. Even though acting was a reason why the witch trials hysteria occurred, actual panic could’ve triggered the many

Part of the culture in Salem in the late 1600’s was that children were expected to be very mature - almost adult-like. “Children were expected to do chores, excel in school, and attend all religious events” (Brooks). Children acted, and were treated, much differently than what we see in today’s society. There were no toys, little reading, few peer interactions, and therefore there was a great lack of imagination. This is believed to be a major factor in why the girls were so intrigued by Tituba’s fortune-telling games and magical stories (“Inside the Salem Witch Trials”).

In the seventeenth century, the belief in witchcraft was spread among Europe and the colonies. According to the textbook, America a Narrative History, “Prior to the dramatic episode in Salem, almost 300 New Englanders had been accused of practicing witchcraft, and more than 30 had been hanged.” This outbreak of witches ruined Massachusetts Puritan utopia. This paper will discuss the settlers of Massachusetts prior to this calamity, what happened during, and the outcome.

The accusers in this situation, a group of young girls in the town led by Abigail Williams, took advantage of the town's fear of witchcraft in order to spread false accusations about innocent people, who were powerless to defend themselves. The chain of fear would continue in the community because the accused, would have to accuse others of witchcraft, knowing they did not really commit the crime, out of fear of being executed. The girls’ first witchcraft accusations were based on fear because the girls were afraid of being ridiculed or punished for dancing in the woods. They spread false accusations of witchcraft to cover up their deeds. When the girls got a taste of the power they received from accusing others, they were consumed by it and began using the accusation for their own personal gain.

In the Salem witch trials thing there was a lot of irrational fears. The reason why they have these fears is because they don 't know much about how the world works yet no matter if it was how we work or how ecosystems work or how medicine work or how the earth works. Hey the people in Salem were was a community of people that build their community off of the Bible. they didn 't have there any of their ideas built of of science and logic so when which was bought brought up Salem immediately the one thing that they have known OB/GYN for all their life. Because it 's all being known they think that the behavior of a person that was in the slightest bit of difference from the rest of the community with bad was not natural and so again they jumped to conclusions and immediately go after what they think would be the safest solution for them and their families.

It reveals how people commit cruel acts out of selfish intentions. In this situation, the girls claim to “come to Heaven’s side” by pointing fingers at others for witchcraft, although they were only doing so to get themselves out of their own trouble. These acts of cruelty reflect upon the evil motives of the perpetrators that become more common after it is done once, as seen through the continuous trials and suspicions, which acts as one of the most major conflicts in the play. Without these cruel accusations, there would be neither plot nor ending. With this same situation, it can be concluded that accusations become more frequent during an interval of time when there are more people accusing.

Revenge, Everybody has done it. Revenge is defined as’’ the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands’’. What I believe is that parents of the “suffering” children had an argument with another family. This resulted in the parents to blame the others of being witches or conjurers. It was the perfect way to get revenge and nobody would suspect it.

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