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What Caused Dbq Salem Witch Trials In 1692

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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 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 truly knows in entirety what caused the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. Clearly, there were a few possible causes of the hysteria; however, envious, young, single women; sexism; and lying little girls stand out as the main causes. To begin, one cause of the Salem Witch Trial hysteria was envious, young, single women. One piece of textual evidence that …show more content…

A historian by the name of Charles Upham, came out with a book called Salem Witchcraft. He talks about how the children, mostly the little girls, and how they were just acting about being possessed or having seen a witch in the village. In the excerpt of his book, he states, “Once or twice they were caught in their own snare,” (Doc D). Charles basically admitted that the girls were lying on some things that they were doing or saying. The man was a historian and studied the Salem Witch Trials for all of his adult life. Having that knowledge of him, we could tell that his information is pretty accurate. One should trust a historian with what they say. They have done the research for us so we did not have to. Finally, Bridget Bishop and her examination. The examiner was asking Bridget if she has ever seen the “afflicted girls” before. Of course she says no. The little girls told the examiner that she bewitched her first husband to death. Making her seem like a horrible, no-good witch (Doc C). The man who recorded this incident was Samuel Parris. Samuel was the minister for Salem Village. He was also the father of the afflicted girls. Now knowing of those two facts, one may think that there was a bias against Bridget because of them. The little girls were lying to their father since they are his kids. They know that if they tell Samuel something on the lines of someone being a witch and

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