In today's present time if a person were to tell you that witches existed you wouldn't believe them because the only places witches are talked about is in a story. Although in 1692 people actually believed that witches were present in Salem therefore this created the Salem witch trials. This was a horrifying time in history 20 people were sentenced to death because someone accused them of being a witch. When the people finally realized they had made a terrible mistake it was to late but now the question remains, “What caused the Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1692?”. After looking at the data and reading the document three theories stood out to me jealousy, egotism, and hysteria.
When analyzing the data from document 5 I realized that most of the women accused of being witches were mostly older married women. The people that accused the older women were younger single women. With this information you can say that jealousy might have been a cause for the accusations. Jealousy among the women over the status of being married or single would show that the younger women had very little respect for the older women and did not care about what the consequences of there actions would bring. In this case jealousy might have been the reason for the 20 innocent people sentenced to death.
A different theory that was brought up in document 10 was egotism. This theory suggests that the people were being poisoned over a long period of time due to eating contaminated rye bread. The effects from eating the bread may have caused the accused witches to become ill. There actions would stand out from normal people that were not exposed to the rye bread. These actions might have caused the people to become scared and may have made the people accuse those that were sick of being witches. Although it is just a theory it can not be proven that those people were poisoned from rye bread.
One of the last possibilities for the witch trials was hysteria which was presented in document 8 . Hysteria is a state of shock and it can effect a person when they are overwhelmed by fear. After a person was accused and found out that they were going to die the fear of death could have set in and this would only have convinced the people that they were doing the right thing. Also a person could have been scared with the thought that they could be the next person to be accused, and this would more then likely scare them into hysteria and then they would be accused of being a witch.
The Salem Witch trial was a terrifying time in history and will be talked about for years to come. This moment in time could have been avoided if the people of that time were more realistic and had common sense, but obviously very few people in that area possessed any of these two qualities. People will always debate over what the actual reasons for what events led up to the deaths of those 20 people but unless they have some type of evidence the Salem witch trials will remain a mystery.
