Salem Witch Hysteria Research Paper

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Causes of the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria The witchcraft hysteria started when Martha Goodwin followed by her siblings began to have what was considered to be strange behavior. A woman named Annie Glover was arrested and later hung for bewitching the girls. A couple years later in 1692 three more girls were caught acting strangely. The parents of these girls began to worry and when the doctor could not pinpoint an explanation, it was said that the girls’ strange behaviors were due to witchcraft. The Puritan faith being so religious so the satanic and voodoo nature of witchcraft was a logical reason for the odd behaviors. Annie was an Irish-Catholic server, she was a more fitting for the witchcraft because not only was she not a Puritan, but a woman without a man to look over her. Some would say that the hysteria was due to the Puritans of the Salem Town and Salem Village having conflicts with each other but conflicts with the Indians around them. Even …show more content…

Only fifty-five women out of around two hundred accused confessed to such cruel accusations. Amongst the first of the accused were a slave woman named Tituba, a homeless woman named Sarah Good and Sarah Osbourne an ill old woman who married not a land owner but a slave nonetheless. Tituba was an obvious witch with not only being an Indian slave but acts in the art of voodoo. Sarah Good was constantly caught mumbling things to herself this was enough proof. Sarah Osbourne refused to accept to the claims against her but at the trial she had admitted to having a dream about an Indian coming into her house grabbing her by the hair and dragging her away, this was enough for her to be proved a witch. These women noncompliant to the standards of the Puritan’s perfect civilization were sent to death by

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