Ever since I was little, October has been my favorite time of the year. The weather starts to change, the leaves begin to fall, and I am finally allowed to watch as many horror movies as possible. Hocus Pocus has been my favorite during the month of October. The reason being that I love how the whole movie is based on the Sanderson Sisters-three witches that were hanged for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. During my last semester, I chose to do a research paper about the Salem Witch Trails to see if they actually happened or if it was just some Hocus Pocus (see what I did there).
I'm not here to say that I know everything and anything about Salem and the Salem Witch Trials, I'm just here to show everyone all the interesting information I found while doing my research! While doing my research I found that the Salem Witch Trials was a mass hysteria that happened during the seventeenth-century due to social, cultural, economic and diseases rather than the actual witchcraft.
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Social Issues
One social issue that I found were the gender issues happening in Salem. Generally, women were the only ones that were accused of witchcraft and if a man was accused of witchcraft it was because he had sexual relationships with a woman who was an outcast in the society. Therefore, being a male having sexual relationships with a woman who was considered an outcast made you (a male) an easy target for the town. Women that were considered to be an outcast—poor, homeless, childless, and brother-less with lots of land—were all targets for being witches which necessarily to me doesn’t make any sense by hey, people living in the 17th century were crazy.
Cultural Issues
Cultural was another issue that I found that could have been the main reasoning for the Salem Witch Trials. Those living in Salem at the time were Puritan—which meant they lived by the word of God and everything and anything that they did revolve around their religious background and God himself. Those that didn’t follow that way of life, was a target to being accused of being a witchcraft. One instance that I found was with the African American or Native American (there are many people in the world that believe she is one or the other) slave who was from a different country who practiced a religious background that was completely different than the Puritans religious background.
Economic Issues
Minister Parris was a former businessman who often preached about the importance of economics and commerce. Minister Parris was having some issues with his fellow worshipers attending his worship ceremonies as well as paying his salary. Some believe that one reasoning behind the Salem Witch Trials was because of Minster Parris and his economic problems he was having. Parris would continuously preach about how Judas betrayed Jesus and how those betraying him would also be betraying Jesus like Judas did. After awhile, people started getting sick of all the bullcrap and started to revolt and leave the covenant. So it makes sense to me that Minister Parris could’ve forced his daughter and his niece to act like they have been cursed and could point out witches in the town of Salem just to get people back into his worship services as well as pay his salary.
Disease
One disease that could have been the reasoning behind the Salem Witch Trials was ergotism. “Ergot grows on a large variety of cereal grains—especially rye—in a slightly curved, fusiform shape with sclerotia replacing individual grains on the host plant”. Ergot symptoms include, “… crawling sensations in the skin, tingling in the fingers, vertigo, tinnitus aurium, headaches, disturbances in sensation, hallucination, painful muscular contraction leading to epileptiform convulsions, vomiting, and diarrhea. These symptoms are all similar to the symptoms that those bewitched persons, “behaviors of a bewitched person frequently included sensations of pricking, pinching, or burning of the skin.
Like I said in the beginning, I am in no way an expert in Salem or the Salem Witch Trials. I just wanted to share with everyone all the research I found while researching information about the Salem Witch Trials during my English class this semester. If you really would like to know more about the research I did or if you are willing to read an 10-12 page research paper, contact me at my school email (trbritto@utica.edu) and I will be more than happy to send you a copy also if the topic really interests you like it does for me, definitely do some researching on your own!
Hope you all enjoyed my short and sweet verision of my research paper on the Salem Witch Trials and hopefully it didn't crush your dreams on there actually being signs of witchcraft in Salem during the 17th century!!
