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Essay On The Salem Witch Trials Dbq

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The Puritans founded the colony of Massachusetts in 1630 due to religious freedom, they wanted to purify the Church of England and soon enough Massachusetts became one of the most religious colonies, the colony even came up with the blue laws; which restricted intimate behavior in public. Puritans did not only believe in God, but they also believed that there was a darker force in this world living amongst them known as the Devil. They believed that he could possess anybody and cause numerous types of disasters, so thus the period of hysteria began. In a span of few months many were accused and hanged because of the false accusations. What actually caused the Salem witch trials of 1692? The three main components that caused the hysteria were: religion, envy, and excitement.
The background history mentions that the Puritans were fundamentalists, meaning that they believed the Bible no matter what,“ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” ( Doc. A). If the Bible told the Puritans that the witches were foul creatures, the Puritans believed the Bible and did everything in their power to destroy the witches. Cotton Mather was an influential minister in the New England colonies. He preached, “These evil spirits are all around...but the houses of Christians, where our God has had his constant …show more content…
One were accused of being a witch if one had a convulsive attack, the people labeled this as bewitchment, but these fits that the young girls were having were not fake, but happened because of anxiety, ( Doc. H). People during this time period could have also been affected by ergot - a parasite - which was found in grains. This parasite had many symptoms that could have easily been labeled as being a witch such as: hallucinations and sensations in the skin/ fingers ( Doc.

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...The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day. Religion was a very strong influence in the lives of Puritans as they followed a very strict moral code and based their entire lives on their faith. Most Puritans were taught from the Bible that "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Doc. A), which explains why the witch scare was taken so seriously and why the accused were punished so harshly. They believed and feared that "evil spirits were all around" (Doc. C) as noted in Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions by Cotton Mather, who at that time was a reputable expert in the "invisible world." It seems strange to 21st-century dwellers that people believed that witches could be identified by marks of the devil, as portrayed in an 1853 painting by T.H. Matteson (Doc. D). Today, it is frightening to imagine that people accused others of “bewitching your first husband...

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...commit? During,1692 in Salem, Massachusetts there was a very bizarre hysteria going around. What caused the Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1692? There were three causes of the Salem Witch Trial hysteria. These were gender, age and marital status, town division wealth and power, and the lying girls. To begin with, there were three causes of the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria which were gender, age, and marital status. One piece of evidence that supports this cause, is the document B. Twenty-three accusers were single, as opposed to the six married women. Furthermore, another piece of supporting evidence, is the majority of the accusers were mainly single women from the ages of sixteen through twenty. This evidence helps to explain the hysteria and the hangings. According to the Document B, the majority of the girls were single and at the age between sixteen and twenty years old. In addition, the girls had to follow a very strict lifestyle, which maybe they wanted to get out of their situation and find a man to marry.Thus, because of the girl's odd behavior, one way we could assume why these girls would do this is because of the strict Puritan lifestyle.This...

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...Salem Witch Trail essay You are a witch.Would you do anything for jealousy attention or revenge? The Salem Witch trial was a time where many people of the village were being accused of witchcraft it was a very hectic period of time. The cause of the effect of salem witch trials of 1692 was revenge, attention, and jealousy. We all know about revenge and perhaps we all have done it in some point in our life. Salem witch crafts hanging were common and it is related to revenge because once a person was pressed to death most of his or her family would be executed. Document A there were many people who were related and executed like Mary Parker and Alice Parker. So this goes to show how revenged occurred because it did not matter if you were not a witch.This document shows that some people were related and that caused them to accuse their family members,and in document A it also that many whom were lady,which could...

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