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It is not unusual for witches to be top of mind on Halloween, and, for most of us, our Halloween-inspired thoughts of witches conjure images of the cartoonish figures from children’s stories and movies: haggard old women with a pointy black hats, wart-covered faces, and broomsticks in hand.

Not so for students in one particular class taught by Elizabeth DeWolfe, professor of history. Members of her What Really Happened? Women, Witches, and Witch Hunts class were, indeed, thinking about witches on Oct. 31 — but in an entirely different and far more serious context. Gathered in the Saint Francis Room on the afternoon of Oct. 31, the class’s 14 students, grouped into five teams, presented a modified Oxford-style debate to the �Ӱ���Ƶ community to put forth possible historical explanations for the tragic events that occurred in the early 1690s in Salem Massachusetts — events involving the investigations and persecutions of people suspected of being “witches” and resulting in the imprisonment of more than 150 people and the execution of 20.

 “Salem 1692: A Debate,” opened with a brief historical overview by DeWolfe before students began presentations on five different, well-researched theories as to the cause of the Salem witch hunts and subsequent court trials.

Madison Kruger, Samantha Luecke, and Kayla Midolo, members of Team Psychology, argued that Salem’s witch hysteria was the result of the accusers’ psychological disorders and that their actions stemmed from defense mechanisms — namely displacement, projection, and repression — all of which, the team claimed, led to accusations of others that were legitimized through the irrational and dysfunctional reasoning of “group think.”

Team Economics, composed of Brianna Ordway, Maddy Jemiolo, and Brian Will, asserted that the events in Salem were born out of economic conditions. They explained that the period immediately preceding the witch hunts was one of economic turmoil. Crops in the area had failed, and the resulting financial stress, they contended, led to arguments between families, primarily between the relatively poor farming families in Salem Village and the wealthier families in Salem Town. Inter-family strife stemming from financial hardships led to accusations of witchcraft, they maintained.

Emily Newborough, Tommye Wall, and Kaylee Blake on Team Tituba posited that it was the presence of Tituba, a Caribbean native slave, in the household where three young girls first demonstrated “bewitched” behaviors that enabled the theory of witchcraft to take hold in Salem. They reasoned that because Natives were long associated with witchcraft by the Puritans and that Tituba had issued a (likely