Salem Witch Trials
By Tovias H.
Jesse N.
Josh G.
Alexis R.
Causes of Salem witch trials
• Strong Puritan Beliefs
• Satan recruiting people/witches
• Troubles (within congregation members,
family members, etc.)
• Convulsion ergotism (a yeast that causes
hallucinations)
• Old feuds (between the accuser and the
accused)
Satan acting in the world
• Frontier war with the Indians-the Indians constantly raided
puritan villages, and were a cause of fear
• Congregational strife in the villages-with all the stress of
sickness, disaster’s, and wars, people begun to get restless
• Disease/ Small pox-believed that if you got them, than you
have sinned
• Natural catastrophe- terrible winds, bad waters for boats,
etc. caused sicknesses and other “evil” things
• Bad fortune-people were very religious/ superstitious, and
anything unexplained was evil
• All blamed on the devil-anything that could not be
explained, was blamed on the devil
Satan recruits witches and wizards
• Puritans believe Satan recruits witches and
wizards to work for him-thought that witches
should be burned at the stakes or hung to
cleanse the people of their evil abnormalties
• Prior witch cases in New England (Europe)where women and son were accused of being
witches and were thrown off the London
Bridge)
Time of troubles
• Made Satan believable-through all the hardships that
the puritans faced during the stages of colonization,
and being religious, someone had to be blamed
• Disease-smallpox was an epidemic, thought to be a
sign of the devil
• Natural disaster-supposed to be a sign of your faith,
to see if you can be strong and praise God during our
struggles
• Bad fortune-another sign that the devil was upon the
puritans
Convulsion Ergotism
• It is theorized that ergot grew on the rye that
the sale mites ate daily.
• Ergot Is a fungus that asexually reproduces
itself and attaches itself to plants.
• If ingested, it has devastating neurological
effects.
• Believed that if you gave the ergots to a dog,
and he showed the same symptoms as you,
than you were a witch
Old feuds
• Old Feuds between accusers and accused
started charges of witchcraft
• Disputes with congregation-people that didn’t
like each other often made false evidence that
their enemies were witches
• Property disputes- the puritans goal was to
win back property for the church from the
corrupt society
Video
• http://youtu.be/VldLA280hZ4
Works Cited
• Matthwes,Glenna..Witches,persecution of.
Oxford University
Press,2000.elibrary.Web.15.Dec.2011.
• Norton, Beth, Mary.. Witchcraft in the AngloAmerican Colonies. Magazine of History, (4),
(2003):5.elibrary. Web.15. Dec.2011
• Reis,Elizabeth.”Confess or deny? What’s a
“witch” to do?.” magazine of history
4(2003):11.elibrary.Web.15 Dec.2011