American Witch Dbq

In the seventeenth century, the belief in witchcraft was spread among Europe and the colonies. According to the textbook, America a Narrative History, “Prior to the dramatic episode in Salem, almost 300 New Englanders had been accused of practicing witchcraft, and more than 30 had been hanged.” This outbreak of witches ruined Massachusetts Puritan utopia. This paper will discuss the settlers of Massachusetts prior to this calamity, what happened during, and the outcome.
The original settlers of Massachusetts were the Puritans. Puritans believed the world was good but people were evil. God had direct line through elders of the Puritan community. Since the elders were thought to be closest to God they ran the town and made the decisions. To

They were barking, shouting, twitching and crawling around for no reason at all. They claimed they had been practicing voodoo and fortune telling, taught to them by a slave from the Barbados. This slaves name was Tituba. Tituba worked for Reverend Samuel Parris giving the girls easy access to her. They would use these tricks to keep them entertained. Tituba was the first accused and first to confess to committing witchcraft. This to the Puritans was the devils work. Tituba was fortunate to not be put to death but did sit in jail for months until someone paid for her freedom. She escaped the village and was never heard from again. Tituba was just the start of this. Elizabeth claimed not only Tituba but 2 other lady’s had bewitched her. These lady’s were Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. Sarah Good was labelled as an old hag due to her attitude and personality. Many could easily see a witch from this behavior. Good was the first to testify and claimed that Sarah Osborne was the one committing witchcraft. Sarah Osborne is a prime example that at this time if you angered anyone then you were accused of doing the devils work. According to The University of Chicago Library News, “In a six-month period starting in January 1692 authorities in Salem, Massachusetts, accused over 100 men and women of witchcraft. Nineteen were convicted and hung at Gallows

You could get accused for being a witch if you didn’t attend church, if you were reading, if you were singing, if you spent time alone, if you disobeyed puritan laws, or if you though that witches and witchcraft were fake. The Puritans had ways to test if the accusation was true. One way to test this was forcing a person to lay down with a board on their body and loading the top with rocks until the person admitted to being a witch or was crushed to death. Another way this was tested was by throwing a person, often someone who did not know how to swim, in a lake or river and if they floated to the surface they were a witch if they sank they were not but the person would end up drowning most of the time. People who were accused were more often hung at Gallows Hill then were burned at the stake like movies and TV shows today portray. The end to all of these trials and accusation came about when people were realizing they had killed family and friends that were innocent. They started to wonder if the “spectral evidence” they were using was even valid. It was easy in the beginning to accuse people, like Tituba, of committing such crimes of witchcraft. These people were of a lower class that had little to no power. In the end the panic had grown so big that people were accusing leaders and others who were of high status in the town, and question towards certain accusations arose. In 1693