The Salem Witch Trials was a duration of time in 1692 where many people were accused of practicing witchcraft in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. The people of Salem accused the outcasts of their town of performing witchcraft partially on the notion that these people acted differently than the average person in the town; therefore, many of the people accused of engaging in witchcraft were women who were considered to be rebellious or too independent for that time era. Some of the young girls in the town experienced episodes where they would convulse on the ground, hide behind and under furniture, and contort in pain. Correspondingly, those episodes were blamed on the “witches” of the town by the people of the town and by the young girls who experienced those episodes.
The author’s main argument According to the author of the article, the trials were, “Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies”. The topic of this article shows how the witches of Salem, Massachusetts were unfairly tried by the judges and jurors, who did not truly understand what was happening in their town. It also explains that the judges of the trials were linked to
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However, the author does mention an article that was written by Linnda Caporael, which was about how the rye that the people ate could have been infected by a fungus called ergot. This fungus caused a disease called “convulsive ergotism”, and most of the symptoms were the same that the girls had during their episodes. An issue with this hypothesis is, why were only young girls affected by these symptoms of convulsive ergotism? Or, why did the girls blame the same women? There is no certainty of that hypothesis