How Did The Salem Witch Hunts In 1692

One of the most infamous witch trials to take place was the Salem Witch hunts in 1692. It caused much hysteria in the town and caused many people to be accused, which led to a total of twenty-five people being wrongfully accused and killed. It might be hard to believe that these accusations and deaths all spiraled from the untruthfulness of a bunch of girls. The girls had many different reasons to behave this way, it has been strongly evident throughout history that these are all just fraudulent acts. A major piece of evidence that was documented was “witch cakes” which were created by Tituba. These “witch cakes" were made from rye and the urine of the people who were believed to be afflicted by witchcraft. The cakes were used to expose the

When a person was accused of Witchcraft and was hanged while pleading not guilty, then all the land that they owned would not stay in their family; instead, the land would be put up for auction. A flaw people have seen in the fraudulent explanation of the girls behavior, is ergotism. Ergotism is a fungus that most commonly grows on rye. While rye is abundantly found in Salem, many farms grew rye there. Ergotism causes many different symptoms such as vertigo, hallucinations, painful contractions, headaches, disturbances, and crawling sensations. All these symptoms can be seen as descriptions of the girl's behavior and actions. So if the symptoms match up, how would it be fraudulent? Despite the popularity of ergotism being the cause of the incident in Salem, there are many things about the theory that don’t add up. One of those is why only the young girls are affected by ergotism. Ergotism has the ability to afflict anyone, but it’s more likely to affect women and children, which leads to credence as to why the young girls may have been afflicted, but why weren’t any young boys afflicted with the