Why did people accuse others for using witch in Rosalyn Schanzer´s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem? The time period was the 1690s and Salem was full of Puritans. Two girls were having strange fits, and the diagnose was witchcraft. Most of the witch accusations were based on hysteria and grudges. Visions of different things were popular reasons. There are many others, too, and some are really crazy, but the court believed all. It was not hard to identify what a witch could look like in Salem. Witches were seen in the town as ¨A hilly-faced man, a woman with ¨scragged¨ teeth, a woman who had catalepsy(which meant that she went into trances and became rigid as a statue), a crooked-backed woman, and a woman who was broken
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They could have actually bewitched people and given people terrible visions that had to be abolished. On the other hand, how could the authorities have found the witches truthfully? Not a lot of the accusations have pure, unvarnished evidence with them. The witch accusations could only have been based on visions, hysteria, and revenge. The authorities just wanted restitution in Salem. “Doctors couldn’t find any explanation for the victims bizarre contortions”(Schanzer 23). These doctors must have not known about seizures. The visions must have been caused by hysteria, such as “This apparition tortured her horribly over and over again, urging her to sign her name in a mysterious book that he kept in his study”(Schanzer 69). Visions were also called spectral evidence; “This was a testimony by a victim that they were “visited” by some demon, perhaps while sleeping”(DBQ). Revenge was a major thing for the Putnams, who did not like George Burroughs.”Burroughs had, however, offended Captain John Putnam by refusing to preach unless he was paid and was openly planning to leave”(Link). We learn from the witch trials that we should not always trust what people say and that we should not accuse random people for things that you have no evidence
They could have actually bewitched people and given people terrible visions that had to be abolished. On the other hand, how could the authorities have found the witches truthfully? Not a lot of the accusations have pure, unvarnished evidence with them. The witch accusations could only have been based on visions, hysteria, and revenge. The authorities just wanted restitution in Salem. “Doctors couldn’t find any explanation for the victims bizarre contortions”(Schanzer 23). These doctors must have not known about seizures. The visions must have been caused by hysteria, such as “This apparition tortured her horribly over and over again, urging her to sign her name in a mysterious book that he kept in his study”(Schanzer 69). Visions were also called spectral evidence; “This was a testimony by a victim that they were “visited” by some demon, perhaps while sleeping”(DBQ). Revenge was a major thing for the Putnams, who did not like George Burroughs.”Burroughs had, however, offended Captain John Putnam by refusing to preach unless he was paid and was openly planning to leave”(Link). We learn from the witch trials that we should not always trust what people say and that we should not accuse random people for things that you have no evidence