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Effects Of The Salem Witch Trials

1164 Words5 Pages

Jonathan Higbee
Mr. G
English 11
6 December 2022
Causing the Salem Witch Trials Five hundred to a thousand people killed, how does a religion manage to do that? In England from the 15th to the 18th century the witch trials took place. Between June 1692 and May 1993, the Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts. The Puritan culture was the religion present during the Witch Trials. Few religions are tied to such a well-known event as the Witch Trials. So, if the Witch Trials were such a terrible event what ingredients are needed for such a recipe of disaster. The Puritan culture’s fear of God, hyper-fixation of perfection and religion-based government led to the Witch Trials. God was the entire focus of the Puritan religion. If someone …show more content…

After the Puritan Religion was formed and split off from the Church of England, they could not fully escape all the “unholy” practices of the Church of England. This led to many different families leaving England to go to America. “The fact that the Puritans had left England to escape religious persecution did not mean that they believed in religious tolerance. Their society was a theocracy that governed every aspect of their lives” (Baracskay). The idea of a theocracy is extremely dangerous because it creates a system without balance. Not only does the church control personal life and the choices people make, but because the church oversees the government as well it controls laws and what is right and wrong. Brittanica only adds to this by saying “The New England Puritans fashioned the civil commonwealth according to the framework of the church. Only the elect could vote and rule” (Britannica). If only the people controlling the religion could vote and rule, then the religion is able to control everything that the government is doing. This imbalance of power opened the gates for the church to become a judge, jury, and executioner of the Puritan people. In the play The Crucible we see this happening repeatedly. The courts were able to accuse people of being witches in the name of God. Then after being accused in the name of God, they were tried and excused in the name of God. This cycle is what the Salem Witch Trials were until the system finally

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