Salem Witch Trials Dbq

What Caused the Salem Witch Trials Hysteria of 1692?

In Exodus 22:18, it proclaims, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” In 1692 Salem, Massachusetts, the Puritans believed every word that the Bible said, causing the death of twenty people because they were accused of witchcraft. What caused the panic and alarm that lead to the death of twenty people in Salem? There were three causes: conflict between young girls and older women, lying teenagers, economic and political power divided between two sides of town.
One possible cause could be the conflict between young girls and older women, which involved age, gender, and marital status. According to Document B, the following statistics existed: twenty-nine of the thirty-four accusers were female, twenty-three of the twenty-nine were under twenty years old, and twenty-eight of the thirty-four women accusers were unmarried. Also, Document B states that over eighty percent of the females accused were over forty, and seventy-five percent of the women accused were either married or widowed. This evidence helps explain the jealousy and boredom the young girls experienced during this period of time,
Another possible cause for the Salem witch trials was that the girls were great liars and

Document E shows us that thirty-two out of thirty-four accusers lived on the west side of town. This would mean that almost all of the accused lived on the east side of town. According to the note on Document E, the people living on the east side of town tended to be more affluent and had more political power. In the contrast, the accusers that lived on the west side had very little to no wealth, and they had no political power. This evidence helps explain the hysteria because it shows that loss of wealth and power can cause resentment. Resentment can easily lead to accusation, and can cause one’s children to make false