First, there were accusations on three women. Those three women were Tituba, a West Indian slave and two other women, Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good. These women were accused of witchcraft by teenage girls in 1692. There were up to 19 people hanged in Salem for witchcraft and one man was pressed to death for the suspicion of witchcraft. Accusing people for witchcraft was very dangerous in the 16th century.
Many of the characters get overly worked up in the possibility of evil spirits and such ideas that they forget the other half of their belief that tells them that there is a God looking down upon them and protecting them. It is human nature to stress about the bad to the point where all good is blocked out, even if it overpowers the bad. It is very possible that people would bend their own wills through witchcraft out of fear. It is human nature to try to pick the lesser of two evils, in this society, witchcraft is the ultimate evil, and even though it is just an illusion, the citizens are frightened of the repercussions of not admitting to witchcraft and being hung. This can be found in the instance where Tituba is found guilty.
The Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Massachusetts in 1629. Many people were accused of being a witch and many lives were lost. In Author Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail Williams is the most to blame for the events of the Salem Witch Trials.
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.
Three Puritan children in the year 1692 accused women of being witches, and after the accusation was made the witches were put on trial. The women that were accused of witchcraft were outsiders, which made it easier to believe. According to the text “This made it easier to believe that they could be witches, especially after one of them admitted that she was guilty.” The trials of witchcraft went on for months, eventually they stopped and many people doubted of witchcraft. However, some of the people that were supposedly witches got away with it because they were found innocent.
Most all people who accused others for being witches were young girls. Many people were put to death because of these people accusing them. After the trials were done they were very deeply regretting their decisions when they found the women that were accusing were lying and found guilty. On February 29, the girls blamed three women for cursing them: Tituba, a slave; Sarah Good, a homeless woman; and Sarah Osborne, an elderly woman. Not until 1957, 250 years later, did Massachusetts apologize for what they the Witch Trials did.
“She claimed there were other witches acting alongside her in service of the devil against the Puritans” (History.com). This admission created a panic within Salem village; people were terrified that the devil was loose in their community. Ann Putnam’s daughter and other Salem girls began to experience similar symptoms and accusations rapidly flourished. The Putnam’s became influential accusers in the Salem Witch Trials, testifying against over one-hundred people. Neighbor accused neighbor.
Bridget Bishop, a resident of Salem, was the first person to be tried as a witch. Surprisingly, Bishop was accused of witch craft by the highest number of witneses. After Bishop, more than two hundred people were tried of practicing witchcraft and twenty were executed. Many of these accusations arose from jealous, lower class members of society, especially towards women who had come into a great deal of land or wealth. Three young children by the names of Elizabeth, Abigail, and Ann were the first three people to be “harmed” by the witches.
Women were believed more likely to side with the devil then men due to their lustful nature and obedience to men. The first 3 people to be accused of witchcraft was: Sarah Good(a beggar), Tituba(a native) and Sarah
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.
Nearly anyone from the New England has heard of the famous Salem Witch Trials. A year of persecution, leading to the accusation of nearly 200 citizens of all ages. No one was safe; men, women, children, even pets stood trial and 20 were hung for the supposed crime of witchcraft (Blumberg). 1692 was a year of witch hunting. Most today blame the trials on hysteria, or perhaps a bad case of paranoia.
Although, surely other causes may help explain the hysteria, for example, a common misconception that those with fits from illness were bewitched, to show the power of the town’s government in the slightest of situations, and etc. However, the most powerful argument was that ergot caused the “signs” of a witch and the Putmans’ western part of the village used that as a way to falsely accuse those infected with ergot. The three main convincing reasons for the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria, like the ergot a parasitic fungus that was a big cause misclassification of “signs” of the bewitched, the Putman family’s motivation to reacquire their position in the village, and the Puritans’ duty to not let a witch suffer to live. The Salem Witch Trial Hysteria
What were the causes of the Salem Witchcraft Trials? One of the causes for the Salem Witchcraft trials is Abigail Williams not telling the truth to her uncle Rev. Parris, after he caught them dancing in the woods around a fire. Also the next morning when her cousin Betty Parris didn’t wake up, then Mrs. Putnam saying that their daughter Ruth is acting strange. Then when the grown ups walked out room Betty wakes up and saying “You drank blood to kill Goody Proctor”(p.837)
Salem Massachusetts was a puritan town and their religion was a main part of their daily life(King and Mixon, “Religiosity and the Political Economy of the Salem Witch Trials”). Which is why the Salem witch trials were such a huge problem during this time. Three girls by the names of Abigail, Betty, and Ann were the family of Parris and Putnam and they were huge factors in the Salem witch trials. There are often theories that the girls were faking their strange behavior such as twisting their bodies into strange shapes and saying words that made no sense (“The Salem Witch Trials''). The girls accused three women that didn’t have a dominant role in the town of Massachusetts.
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.
