What type of people were most likely to be suspected of witchcraft in Salem?
score:7
It's quite simple: people would accuse anyone they didn't like. False accusations of horrible crimes that are very difficult to disprove (heresy is another one, and these days it's sexual abuse of children mainly) has always been a great way to get rid of people.
In the USSR, much later, this took the form of accusing people of being Mensheviks or Trokskyists. The accusation, especially in the days of Stalin's terror, but going on for decades after, was just about enough to guarantee at least a life sentence in the gulag for the accused, and often a death sentence.
The Salem witch trials were little different.
Upvote:3
Most of the executed people at the Salem Witch trials were women. There were only six men (out of 19).
Most of the accused, at least initially, were poor, or social outcasts. Sarah Good was a beggar. Sarah Osborne had remarried an indentured servant. Tituba was a slave from the Caribbean who told strange, "witch" stories to young girls.
Many of the accusers were upper middle class girls. Some of them, at least, appear to have been going through the onset of "menses" or other "pubescent" activities, and perhaps projected their latent, repressed, sexuality, on the unfortunate women mentioned earlier. Essentially, a number of women were charged, not with "witchcraft," per se, but of "corrupting" these young girls. So were at least two men, John Proctor (who seduced Abigail Williams), and George Jacobs Jr. (accused by his daughter in law and granddaughter).
And there were a number of economic quarrels about boundaries of farms, etc., that led to various accusations. The statement, "jealously motivated the poor to accuse the rich" isn't really true. What was true was that once the process got under way, some of the original (upper middle class) accusing girls turned around and made accusations against others that were slightly wealthier, instead of just "poor people."
The executions took place from June to September 1692. Of the six men (five hanged, one "pressed" to death), four were killed in August, and two in September, after the executions of women had begun. (And women were mostly accused earlier.) On a "time-weighted" basis, women suffered more than 13/19 of the opprobrium, after allowing for the fact that they were indicted, and executed earlier "on average."
More post
- 📝 Military sidecar era
- 📝 Why did the father of algebra speak Arabic instead of Persian?
- 📝 What is the origin of Americans sometimes refering to the Second World War "the Good War"?
- 📝 What happens to interned military personnel if war is declared post-internment?
- 📝 How were immigrant doctors and nurses sponsored in 1960/1970s?
- 📝 When did the key advances in vehicle suspension happen?
- 📝 How did Isaac Newton support himself in the period of self-study that he conducted at 23?(after he received his B.A.)
- 📝 Who is the first person in the 17th century to describe themselves as a "white" person and who invented the term "white race"?
- 📝 How did Gothic differ from Baroque architecture?
- 📝 What was the "Favorable result" that the German admiralty was expecting from the naval attack on the Royal Navy in 1918?
- 📝 Why were universities created in the 11th-12th century?
- 📝 How much authority did a traveling lord have in England in the late 16th century?
- 📝 At the beginning of the 20th century, how did Austria-Hungary and Russia's foreign policies conflict in the Balkans?
- 📝 Why is Papadopoulos such a common surname in Greece?
- 📝 Is there a database of ancient/current names of cities?
- 📝 Why don't tanks have radar aimed guns?
- 📝 Why would a 16th century Italian painter choose canvas over wood panel?
- 📝 How many Iraqi civilians were killed directly by US military action?
- 📝 What did education look like in occupied countries during WW2?
- 📝 Who was the first woman to be made a god by Rome's senate?
- 📝 What were the technological differences between Japan and the USA in World War 2?
- 📝 How many Germans were killed in action in the taking of Paris, 1940?
- 📝 What is this 17th century Swiss coin?
- 📝 What was the border regime between Poland and Czechoslovakia like during the 1970s and 1980s?
- 📝 What is an Odalbönder and Heathguard?
- 📝 Why did Dorothy Dixers become prevalent in question time in Australia?
- 📝 Why didn't Japan attack communist China in WW2?
- 📝 How did cannibals in Jamestown obtain bodies for food?
- 📝 About how long ago was the most recent day on which a human did not die
- 📝 Which people resisted Russian expansion most fiercely?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What type of people were most likely to be suspected of witchcraft in Salem?
- 📝 What were the most important causes of the 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials?
- 📝 At what point were the most current and former US Presidents alive?
- 📝 What were Hispanic people called in the US in the 1800s?
- 📝 What were the thoughts of the Celts, Romans and other ancient European people about the standing stones which survive from prehistoric times?
- 📝 What were the rights of various classes of people in the Roman Republic?
- 📝 What were the most common reasons why draft-age men were not conscripted for the Union Army?
- 📝 What demographic of people were the Ford Motor's Company biggest customers during the car boom of the early twentieth Century?
- 📝 What sorts of people were popular celebrities in 17th to 19th century Europe?
- 📝 What were the most common reactions to Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
- 📝 What were the factors that caused debtors' prison to disappear in most parts of the world in the 20th century?
- 📝 What type of ferry boats were used in England in the early 19th century?
- 📝 What type of workers were there who built the pyramids in Egypt?
- 📝 What were the most used drugs in battles and wars?
- 📝 What percentage of people were acquitted in "Stalin's trials"
- 📝 What taxes were assessed on people in Alta California?
- 📝 What were common reasons people attended executions in mid 1930s.?
- 📝 How did knights in full suits of armor eventually die in combat? What were the most common causes of death for soldiers in full-body plate armor?
- 📝 What percentage of British people during the industrial revolution were rich?
- 📝 In what countries were plague doctor masks were most common?
- 📝 What are some items still existing today that were involved in the most killings?
- 📝 What were paper airplanes called before there were real airplanes? (i.e. untethered winged flyers, not kites or balloons)
- 📝 What drugs were used in England during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe?
- 📝 Was murdering a slave illegal in American slavery, and if so, what punishments were given for it?
- 📝 What were Hitler's religious beliefs?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 What were the acceptance criteria in universities of medieval Europe?
- 📝 What is the origin of the stereotype that Polish people lack intelligence?
- 📝 What did people in 13th century England know about Greek mythology?