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?
Context: Explore the different events that led up to the outcome of the Salem witch trials.
Thesis statement*: Throughout time, it has been proven again and again that new concepts create fear among society. In modern times, people fear the advancement in technology. While in the 1600s, people feared the advancement of the government, religious or scientific ideas. How did this fear develop into panic and affect the colonies?
Background paragraph 1: Origins
People are moving to America
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Mainly puritans.
Paragraph 2:
Women are gaining more “rights”
Instances of natural disasters massachusetts government is unstable
Lack of scientific education
Analysis: Salem Witch trials
Secondary source: (Hoffer, Peter Charles. "Salem Witchcraft Trials." In Encyclopedia of American Studies, edited by Simon Bronner. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.)
Transitioning religion: people still believe in ghosts and magic
Notable scientists Newton and Boyle both believed in their own ideas of magic but knew that they had to scientifically verify the situation.
Widowed women own their own land, start having children out of wedlock
Massachusetts lost their government for going against the royal charter, leading to anxiety among the colony.
Paragraph 3:
Reports of children being bewitched
Women who are accused of being witches
Types of cures performed
Analysis: A fever in Salem
Secondary source: (Carlson, Laurie M. A fever in Salem: a new interpretation of the New England witch trials. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.)
Two young girls start feeling ill and blame a slave, Tituba of bewitching them. This claim is also backed up when other kids come down with an illness and it can’t be
The Salem Witch Trials were a series of court trials in Salem, Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693 alleging the practice of witchcraft and murder by a number of women and men. With Massachusetts descent from a Puritan England, these accusations were serious, and they developed into mass panic. Among those accused was Bridget Byshop who was the first to be executed after she was found guilty. The document, “The Examination of Bridget Byshop at Salem Village 19. April.1692 by John Hauthorn & Jonath: Corwin Esq’rs” was handwritten by Samuel Parris, and recorded the lawyers examination against Bridget Byshop.
Diamond Brant Hist 2010 12:20-1:15 Deanna Carter, MA 11-14-15 Annotated Bibliography Rosenthal, Bernard. “Tituba”. OAH Magazine of History 17, No. 4 (2003) 48–50. Accessed Sept. 22, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163623.
Section 1: Identification and Evaluation of Sources This investigation will attempt to answer the question “How did the causes of the 1647 Connecticut witch trials differ from those of the 1692 Salem witch trials?” Two sources that were crucial to this investigation, and will be evaluated, are Cynthia Wolfe Boynton’s Connecticut Witch Trials: The First Panic in the New World and Chadwick Hansen’s Witchcraft at Salem.
A diverse array of historiographical arguments concerning the preliminary causes of the Salem Witch Trials have emerged subsequently to their occurrences, clashing along a vastly debatable spectrum of economic, social, and political influences (Brinkley, 2014, 74). Escalating accusations backed by miniscule evidence reaped terror among the Salem community. No one was truly immune to an accusation, and being accused had a high probability of ruining one's reputation for the remainder of their lives. Conversely to the linear notion of believing a singular cause was responsible for the atrocities among the Salem community, an intertwined network of various tensions set the anemic foundation for a monstrosity of inhumane punishment and hollow allegation
Between the month of June 10 and September 22, 1692, the Salem witch trial which took place in Salem Massachusetts, claimed 20 residents life’s from Salem. This event shook the American History and left historians with one question decades after, what caused the Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692? In a Christian community this must have seemed strange, but superstition causing religious role to intervene and also social/economic class fueled the witch hunt. The Salem witch trial of 1692 all started when two young girls (Betty Parris and Abigail Williams) in Salem village Massachusetts claimed to have been possessed by the devil, accusing three women who had possessed them. As this hysteria continued, a special court was built just to hear
4 girls, Elizabeth Hubbard, Susannah Sheldon, Mary Warren and Elizabeth Booth,were seen by a doctor because they had been having weird behavior after playing a fortune telling game. He didn’t detect anything wrong, so he concluded that they were bewitched. Two of the girls quickly accused their bewitchers, Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn and Tituba, an enslaved woman. They were arrested and interrogated March 1st. During the interrogations, Tituba confessed to being a witch.
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
he Salem Witch Trials could be seen as one of the steps towards America’s democratic emergence. However, instead of blaming the cause of the witch trials on deranged colonists it can be seen as the collapse of religious expression into affairs of state and government. At the time, overly religious and scared villagers made it seem as if the whole trials were the cause of a Devil and spirits. Also the sources today, on the Salem Witch Trials avoid the truth about what really caused the Salem Witch Trials. It can clearly be seen that without the separation of church and government, the religious fears of the colonists found itself into the government.
How two little girls (Abigail and Betty) where the first to suffer from fits of hysterical outbreaks and how many accusers came forward and described how they or their animals had been bewitched. It mentions the court cases and how there were more woman than men accused of practicing witch craft. It also states how historians believe the girls were faking their fits from the start. Also mentions how religious Salem was at the time which influenced the trials. •
The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,
The authors studied primary sources including church records, town history, and many undocumented local sources. Through the study of these sources, Boyer and Nissenbaum focus their attention of the people of Salem and how they interacted with one another. This demonstrates how the factions came to hate one another and how the class difference may have led to a more gruesome witch hunt. Ginzburg took a social history approach as well and studied mostly court documents from benandanti cases. These primary sources allowed Ginzburg to see the social differences between the inquisitors and the accused within the trial.
The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.
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
The Salem witch trials was one of the most absurd and tragic events in history of pre-colonial America. A fine example of how believing in accusations and hearsay could affect a lot of people in a short span of time. the justice system is flawed and prejudice was allowed to reign over the people. I found this topic very interesting even though it is one of the most regretted in history. I’ve always been the type of person who likes reading all those weird and peculiar things on the internet.
Many practicing Christians, at the time, believed that the Devil could persuade people to use the powers that he gave them to harm others. The Salem Witch Trials occurred because of resource struggles, many women were accused and tortured, and in the end the Governor realized that it was a big mistake. (“Salem Witch Trials”, 1). In 1689, English rulers William and Mary started a war with France in the American colonies which sent many refugees into the Essex County and Salem Village.