Review the following passage from a textbook and respond to the questions that follow by choosing the letter of the correct answer.

Question

In a period of extreme stress, an outbreak of witchcraft accusations occurred in Salem Village (now
Danvers), Massachusetts. Like their contemporaries1 elsewhere, seventeenth-century New Englanders believed in the existence of witches, whose evil powers came from the devil. If people could not find other explanations for their troubles, they tended to suspect they were bewitched. Before 1689, 103 New Englanders, most of them middle-aged women, had been charged with practicing witchcraft. Their accusers were usually neighbors who blamed their misfortunes on the suspected witch. Only a few of the accused were convicted, and fewer still were executed. Most of such incidents were isolated; nothing else in New England’s history came close to matching the Salem Village disaster.
The crisis began in early 1692 when a group of girls and young women accused some older
female neighbors of having bewitched them. Before the hysteria was over ten months later, nineteen
people (including several men, most of them related to convicted female witches) were hanged; one was pressed to death with heavy stones, and more than 100 persons were jailed. Historians have proposed various explanations for this puzzling episode, but to be understood it must be seen in the context of political and legal disorder, Indian war, and religious and economic crises. Puritan2 New Englanders must have felt as though their entire world was collapsing. At the very least they could have had no sense of security about their future.
Nowhere was that more true than in Salem Village, a farming town torn between old and new
styles of life because of its position on the edge of the bustling port of Salem. And no residents of the village had more reason to feel insecure than those who made the first accusations. Many of them had been orphaned in the recent Indian attacks on Maine; they were living in Salem Village as domestic servants. Their involvement with witchcraft began as an experiment with fortunetelling as a means of foreseeing their futures, in particular the identities of their eventual husbands. As the most powerless people in a town apparently powerless to direct its fate, they offered their fellow New Englanders an interesting explanation for their seemingly endless chain of troubles: their home was under direct attack from the devil and his legion of witches. Therefore, it is not so much the number of witchcraft prosecutions that seems surprising but rather their sudden end in the fall of 1692.
There were three reasons for the rapid end to the crisis. First, the accusers grew too bold. When
they began to charge some of the colony’s most distinguished and respected residents with associating with the devil, the people in charge began to doubt their honesty. Second, the colony’s ministers, led by Increase Mather,3 formally expressed strong reservations about the worth of the evidence used against most of the accused. Third, a new royal charter4 ended the worst period of political uncertainty, eliminating a major source of stress. King William’s War5 continued, but, although the Puritans were not entirely pleased with the new charter, at least order had formally been restored.

1 contemporaries: people living at the same time
2 Puritan: related to the beliefs of the Puritans, who insisted on strict religious discipline and simplification of
church ceremonies
3 Increase Mather (1639–1723): American clergyman
4 charter: contract
5 King William’s War: 1689–1697 battle between England and France for North American territory

1. Seventeenth-century people blamed witches for
a. the existence of the devil.
b. their misfortunes.
c. women’s premature aging.
d. King William’s War.

2. The people accused of witchcraft in Salem Village were witches.
a. true
b. false

3. Which of the following is NOT true about those who accused others of practicing witchcraft?
a. Many experimented with fortunetelling.
b. Many were orphans.
c. Many were the town’s most powerful people.
d. They offered an explanation for New Englanders’ troubles.

4. Which of the following is a possible reason for the witchcraft hysteria in Salem Village?
a. New Englanders felt like their world was collapsing.
b. The powerful New Englanders wanted to rid their village of troublemakers.
c. Those accused of being witches were plotting to take over the town’s government.
d. The accusers were tired of working as farmers.

5. Which of the following is NOT a reason for the end of the Salem crisis?
a. The accusers began targeting some of the village’s most respected residents.
b. A new royal charter ended the stress of political uncertainty.
c. Ministers began to doubt the evidence offered by the accusers.
d. Most of the male townspeople had to go fight in King William’s War.

Answer 1

1. b
2. b
3. c
4. a
5. d