Salem Witch Trials. The Writer

¶ … Salem Witch Trials. The writer examines the cause and argues that it was hysteria that allowed it to happen.

The events of the Salem Witch Trials were so tragic and shocking that to this day people will use the phrase "with hunt" to describe something that is being driven by a force other than sound reasoning and good sense. It is important to understand the meaning and causes of the Salem With Trials and the hysteria that was at the base of the issue so that society can be sure it never happens again.

THE TRIALS

It was 1692 in Salem Village when the otherwise peaceful residents suddenly succumbed to mass hysteria and as a result of that hysteria 19 men and women were declared witches and hung from gallows nearby.

It was a quick moving hysteria that caused dozens to sit in jail without a trial wondering what would become of them. It caused one-80-year-old man who refused to go to trial over the accusation that he was a witch to be pressed to death under large heavy stones by the townspeople and then almost as quickly as the hysteria began it was over and it never happened again (An Account of Events in Salem (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM).

To understand how and why it happened can help modern society avoid something similar happening with regard to terrorist accusations, or other finger pointing at people based in fear not fact.

Why did this travesty of justice occur? Why did it occur in Salem? Nothing about this tragedy was inevitable. Only an unfortunate combination of an ongoing frontier war, economic conditions, congregational strife, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies can account for the spiraling accusations, trials, and executions that occurred in the spring and summer of 1692(An Account of Events in Salem (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM)."

Samuel Parris was invited to become the preacher in Salem. Until then he had been a planter and a merchant. He moved to Salem with his wife, daughter, niece and Indian slave to accept the position.

In 1692 his daughter became very ill, she ran around screaming in pain, she threw herself under the furniture and she complained about having a fever.

Today it is believed that she may have suffered from asthma, epilepsy, psychosis or some other medical disorder but at that time medical science in its relative infancy and they had no idea what was causing her bizarre behavior.

The doctor in town had just finished reading a book about witchcraft, and when several of the little girl's friends began the same symptoms he diagnosed witchery as the illness.

A neighbor, Mary Sibley, proposed a form of counter magic. She told Tituba to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and feed the cake to a dog (An Account of Events in Salem (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SALEM.HTM)." Tibuta immediately became suspect as being a witch and making the young girls become witches.

Arrest warrants for her and two other village women were soon issued as the illness spread among more young girls. And the Salem Witch Trial hysteria was underway.

CAUSES

The of the trials was based in hysteria. People did not understand what was wrong with the young girls who initially became ill and they became fearful as it spread that if it were not stopped everyone was doomed. This fear spurned a hysteria in which anyone who acted remotely different or non-sociable by society standards was accused of being a witch. At that time society had a fear of the devil and the devil's abilities that could overtaken common sense and did.

The trials and accusations were fueled by fear that the devil was behind the witch activity and he could wreak tragedy on the village if everything he touched was not destroyed.

The members of the village believed that certain symptoms pointed to witchcraft and they soon began seeing those symptoms in everything that happened because of their fear that it would taint them if it was not stopped (Causes for the Outbreak of Witchcraft Hysteria in Salem (http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salemcauses.html).