Superstitions behind the salem witch trials

In Salem Village, there is no shortage of bitter long-standing disputes to be settled…In Salem Village, one name appears as plaintiff in many of the lawsuits: Putnam…a large clan that came close to dominating Salem Village politics for many years.

This really could just be a situation where one family is trying to grab control of a community and beat down their opponents in any way they can and are using religion as a tool to attain that power. Of course, soon this had to all come to an end. It was during the September Executions that a resistance began to build: people did not want to plead guilty to witchcraft or say that other members of their community were witches just to save themselves.

Many also begin to question the court processions as the ones who plead guilty often seem to be coerced to do so and oftentimes their stories did not make sense, yet the Judges would brush that off. Even more, accused witches that had named others as witches began to come forward and remove their statements.

Additionally, when Spectral Evidence was finally outlawed in court, the Salem Witch Trials came to a complete halt.

This truly was a time of mass hysteria that is still cloaked in mystery as to why exactly these women and the occasional man were being accused of witchcraft. In the end, after 20 deaths 19 by hanging and one by being pressed to death with stones; even more died while awaiting trial in jail , the Salem Witch Trials began to slow to a stop as many began to question the proceedings, others began to recant their accusations, and Spectral Evidence was thrown out of court trials.

It truly was an unusual time in American history with a strong connection to the women of the community as many of the afflicted were women and the majority of the accused witches were as well, all such events put into a legal light in an attempt to better understand what was causing the terrible things in their community.

Speare, Elizabeth George. Skip to content How superstitions, lack of scientific knowledge, grudges, fear, and the rule of law led to one of the most well-known events of Colonial America. The Geographic Channel. Share this: Twitter Facebook.

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Visit our Facebook page ». Click the button below to apply. Once the idea took hold in the colony, things seemed to quickly got out of hand. Conversion disorder is a mental condition in which the sufferer experiences neurological symptoms which may occur due to a psychological conflict.

Conversion disorder is also collectively known as mass hysteria. Medical sociologist Dr. Robert Bartholomew states, in an article on Boston. Professor Emerson W. Baker also suggests conversion disorder as a possibility in his book A Story of Witchcraft:. Baker goes on to explain that many of the afflicted girls, such as Abigail Hobbs, Mercy Lewis, Susannah Sheldon and Sarah Churchwell, were all war refugees who had previously lived in Maine and had been personally affected by the war to the point were some of them may have been experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome.

In , in an article in the scientific journal Science, Linda R. Ergot is a fungus Claviceps purpurea that infects rye and other cereal grains and contains a byproduct known as ergotamine, which is related to LSD. Ergot tends to grow in warm, damp weather and those conditions were present in the growing season. Not everyone agrees with this theory though. Many experts question the very existence of Artic hysteria, which results in such behavior as people stripping off their clothes and running naked across the wild tundra.

The accounts mention no such streaking in Salem, and while the supposed symptoms of witchcraft began in January, more people showed symptoms in the spring and summer…Encephalitis, the result of an infection transmitted by mosquito bite, does not really seem plausible, given that the first symptoms of bewitchment appeared during winter.

None of these suggested diseases fit because a close reading of the testimony suggests that the symptoms were intermittent. The afflicted had stretches when they acted perfectly normal, intersperse with acute fits. Historical records indicate that witch hunts occur more frequently during cold periods.

In her paper, Oster explains that as the climate varied from year to year during this cold period, the higher numbers of witchcraft accusations occurred during the coldest temperatures. Strikingly cold winters and dry summers were common in these decades. The result was not just personal discomfort but increasing crop failures. Starting in the s, many towns that had once produced an agricultural surplus no longer did so. Mixed farming began to give way to pastures and orchards.

Once Massachusetts had exported foodstuffs; by the s it was an importer of corn, wheat, and other cereal crops. Several scholars have noted the high correlation between eras of extreme weather in the Little Ice Age and outbreaks of witchcraft in Europe; Salem continues this pattern. Salem was very divided due to disagreements between the villagers about local politics, religion and economics.

One of the many issues that divided the villagers was who should be the Salem Village minister. Salem Village had gone through three ministers in sixteen years, due to disputes over who was deemed qualified enough to have the position, and at the time of the trials they were arguing about the current minister Samuel Parris. Rivalries between different families in Salem had also begun to sprout up in the town as did land disputes and other disagreements which was all coupled with the fact that many colonists were also uneasy because the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its charter revoked and then replaced in with a new charter that gave the crown much more control over the colony.

In their book Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum attribute the witch trials to this political, economic, and religious discord in Salem Village:. Boyer and Nissenbaum go on to provide examples, such as the fact that Daniel Andrew and Philip English were accused shortly after they defeated one of the Putnams in an election for Salem Town selectmen.

They also point out that Rebecca Nurse was accused shortly after her husband, Francis, became a member of a village committee that took office in October of that was vehemently against Salem Village minister Samuel Parris, whom the Putnams were supporters of. Charles Upham suggested this as a major cause and Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum have provided a brilliant analysis of the Salem community to support that argument.

Indian warfare and the uncertainties related to the arrival of a new charter and new Governor in the two years before the witchhunt also added to the level of social stress. But other towns in frontier Massachusetts that experienced the same socio-economic-political difficulties did not spark a similar witchscare.

Several communities suffering from less stress did suffer from contact with Salem as the witchscare virus spread. This contagion too was a unique aspect of the episode. Baker suggests though that fraud may have been a bigger problem in the witch trials than we realize:.

Not surprisingly, there is no agreement on the answer.