Nineteen men and women hung from the tree of destruction, for they were the ornaments of hysteria. New England was supposed to be a land of opportunity for the puritans. During the summer of 1692, Salem Village proved to be a wretched example of this, twenty people were falsely accused of witchcraft, and were accordingly jailed and executed. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody knows in entirety what caused the mystery of the Salem witch trials of 1692. The answers as to how it came to be is shrouded in an ever-growing cloak. Envious, young, single women, a cross-town rivalry, and lying little girls are all possible causes of the mass hysteria known as the Salem witch trials. …show more content…
Document B states 23 out of 34 accusers were single women. On the others hand only 6 women were married and only 5 of the accusers are men. This evidence helps to explain the hysteria because only 11 accusers were single women. That is less than half of the number who were single women. Document B also shows that of the 29 female accusers, most of them were under the age of 21. It also states that most of the accused were married women. This is important because it leads to signs of the younger women being envious of older, married women. To sum it up, these pieces of evidence point to young, single, women accusing older, married, women of witchcraft because they were envious of the older women being happily