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Salem Witch Trials In The 1600's

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The Salem Witch Trial Inquiries The perception of the people that lived in the 1600’s were that differences between isolated people and the common community were seen as witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of peculiar accusations in a colony in Massachusetts mainly between February 1692 and May 1693. These Salem Witch Trials were also mainly about the Puritans that lived in a rural city of Massachusetts. In the 1600’s those in small towns were extremely close to one another so it would affect the entire town population. Given the hierarchies in the social class, one could believe they mainly pointed out those that were inferior to the higher class and blamed majority of the misbehaviors during this time on them. In the 1600’s …show more content…

The Puritans were a very strict culture that put a lot of emphasis in the idea of evil and how terrible it was to be involved in evil acts. So with that said, it can be understandable to a certain point that these people liked to jump the gun when it came to these wrong doings. However, many historians have looked back and studied this time period of the trials and came up with a theory that the people may have been sick because their wheat was subject to the ergot, which is a fungus found on rye. This is a significant discovery in terms of finding a reason as to why the Puritans acted the way that they did, considering that ergot has a side effect of psychosis in other words gives the brain a hard time in determining what is real and what is fake. Ergot also makes a person more anxious, so when you couple anxiety and hallucinations, then one could easily comprehend why the Puritans went on this terror for a little over a …show more content…

The Puritans often would then move on to the victim’s families in the order of accusations. Many of those that were indicted of witchcraft would look to escape the city or confess to the crime to avoid execution or imprisonment. There are many beliefs to why the Puritans acted in such a drastic way in response to all of the allegations. Since there is no way to find out what exactly drove the Puritans to this point, all historians can do is look back and follow the series of events that led up to the multiple cases of witchcraft, without doing it in a teleological fashion, and with there being an abundant amount of diaries, documents, stories, and court cases, it is easier to do

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History 8 A Chase Voigt Mr.Faith March 21/23 Salem Witch Hysteria In the summer of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts many were put to execution for participation in witchcraft.[background] The leader of these actions were the Puritans. The puritans were a group of people who were unhappy living in England because of the churches.

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Richard Godbeer introduced “the salem witch hunt” in which he addresses various tragic dialogues occurring in Salem during the early modern period. During the course of Puritans, many followed strictly through the concept of catholic religious beliefs leading to apprehension in contact of compulsive behaviour influencing supernatural assumptions. Commonly the society detected this manifestation as witchcraft, overbearing that most poor, widowed and oddly conducted women were generally associated with demonic figures. During the trails mentioned in the authors book, we can sense a shift of emotion overbearing the figure being held in front of the jury and also to the people witnessing this horrific perturbation since most of women at the time,

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This caused the Puritans to believe in evil forces like the devil who could potentially try to lead them into temptation or other sinful things because their faith in God was so strong. In 1692, the Puritans worst nightmare had begun. The Salem Witch Trials had started and an estimated number of 200 people were accused of practicing dark magic and some had been punished by death. These trials consisted of bringing convicted witches into court and sentencing them to be hanged or in prison for many years if proven guilty. To the Puritans, the devil was as real as God, and the devil would choose the weakest people to torment, and those people were mostly women and children.

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This Puritan society was deeply rooted in male dominance and as a result many innocent women lost their lives to these false charges of witchcraft simply because they were undesired or challengingly wealthy. This highly religious community used religion to justify a horrific display of

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The infamous Salem witch trials of colonial Massachusetts took place between of 1692 and 1693. They involved the execution of fourteen women and five men within the the brief time period (Salem Witch Museum). New England at the time had been established by a homogenous Puritan population which emigrated from England (Taylor 165, 169). Abiding by a strict set of beliefs, the Puritans did not accept people of other backgrounds, therefore it might follow that the Salem Witch Trials of New England were a result of the strict Puritan society, which was actually primarily untrue. The Salem Witch Trials were not enacted as a result of Puritanism, but rather as a result of circumstance.

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In the 1600's an event in American history called the Salem Witch Trials occurred. The Salem Witch Trials are now viewed as a dark period during our history. Many innocent people were accused of doing the Devil’s work through witchcraft. Salem was populated with lots of people who followed the Puritan religion. The Puritan religion had strong Christian beliefs and they took anything having to do with the Devil very seriously.

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One source mentions that, “[t]he Puritans believed that the Bible was God's true law, and that it provided a plan for living. The established church of the day described access to God as monastic and possible only within the confines of "church authority" and this turns out to be the reason why Puritans wanted to strip away traditional trappings and formalities of Christianity. Why if everyone was living in this way were these girls acting in this way? According to the people of Salem, the girls’ strange behaviors derived from the hand of the devil. Governor William Phips believed he witnessed witchcraft and wrote in a letter of what he had seen in Salem, but in this same letter he also said that he later believed the people being accused of the sin were

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Witches were said to be a form of Satan, and God has his constant worship to undergo annoyance of the evil spirits. In Exodus 22:18 it states how the Puritans have strong point to prosecute witches from what it says in the Bible. Another cause of the prosecution of people for witchcraft is suspicious acts from the adolescent girls. Abigail and Betty wanted to know their fortunes for the future from Tituba.

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Yelitza Andrade Pyles English 11 Honors 12 October 2015 Witch-hunts Justification In Salem, Massachusetts 1692 the Salem witch trials began when a group of girls lied and said that they were possessed by the devil and the accusations of several innocent people being involved with witchcraft took place. Trials later took place after the accusations for the hearings of each person and to hear their story. Many people who had hearings lied to the court and said that they were possessed to not get executed and to save their lives but many did not want to lie because it was wrong and an injustice. The event led to 19 executions of all innocent people and 100 other innocent women, men, and children were put in prison because of the false accusations.

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Puritans are known for being extremely religious they practice strictness, simplicity and severity in how they live and conduct themselves; they are strong supporters of modesty, propriety, and decorum but strongly oppose any forms of pleasure (6). The community of Salem considered anyone who practiced witchcraft a felon, it was a crime in the 17th century and they saw it as going against the government (1). Puritans believed the devil could provide you with supernatural powers to harm others in return for loyalty (4). After several incidents that occurred in the town people believed that the devil was roaming the streets of Salem, numerous outbreaks of small pox and fights with the Native Americans led the townspeople to believe so (9). Witches

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The most infamous trials were held in Court of Oyers and Terminer. They were a series of hearing and persecutions for the act of witchcraft. Evidence were from gossip, stories and unsupported assertions that if a person who scoffed at the accusation or denied they were a witch became targets themself. (Linder 3)A serperating of accusers and accusing were often over land disputes. Puritans coming over to the Americans had minimum land and with increasing family size this often fueled disputes between neighbors where there economy was based off agriculture(Scott 1).

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Those who showed too much interest in Satan or followed him, would be considered as witches. “Witchcraft was one the worst crimes someone could commit, and the automatic punishment for this was death” (1692 Salem). When the witchcraft accusations started, the communities’ quick response was to look to the Bible for help (Salem Witch Trials). Thus, the Puritans religious belief caused the Salem Witch

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1606 Words | 7 Pages

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of events that occurred within the 1690's. The numerous allegations lead to hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. Additionally, the accusations lead to community wide hysteria and blood thirst for the death of nearly all the accused witches.

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The Puritans ran from persecution but then used the witch hunt to persecute innocent people based on the word of the women and men who had ulterior motives. The women used this opportunity to punish people they long had problems or resentment for. These women- Abigail, Tituba, and Mary- were aware of the power they felt when they were being heard by people in their community who were deemed Godly, upstanding citizens. So, they loved the sense of power they felt. Although the townspeople of Salem used religion as the reason for the witch hunt, the witch hunt created chaos because people started using it a revenge mechanism.

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In the Summer months of 1692, twenty-four innocent alleged witches and wizards had been hung, pressed to death, or died in jail in Salem, Massachusetts. However, what caused the mass hysteria known as the Salem Witch Trials? Puritans based their life strictly on religion and the Bible in which they had no free time, education, and felt pressured just to be alive; the citizens were fearful of their future, causing their religion to overpower scientific and mathematical reasoning. In June 1692, two young Salem girls, Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, accused slave woman Tituba and two other white women of practicing witchcraft after Betty and Abigail began to exhibit strange behavior. Tituba confessed to practicing witchcraft and exclaimed that

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