Salem Witch Trials: John Hawthorne, John Hale And Cotton Mather

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Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials were a terrible event that happened in the history of the United States of America was when innocent individuals where accused and sentenced to death for the crime of witch craft. More than 20 people were executed by hanging and one man was pressed to death by stones being stacked on his chest. In England they would burn people at the stake or throw them in a body of water with stones tied on their feet and if they swam to the top, they were a witch is they drowned, they were innocent. According to (Jess Bloomberg) the puritans were a group of people who grew away from the Church of England and worked towards religious moral and societal reform. John Calvin writings gave a rise to Protestantism and …show more content…

John Hawthorne was a well-known judge, Governor Williams Phips chose Hawthorne to be one of the judges in the witch trials because he always sided with the accusers no matter what the accused said to him or showed him in the court room he would always ask them to plead guilty and tell him other people who were supposedly witches even though they were innocent. John Hale was a minister who was brought in to save the town from witch craft. Cotton Mather was also a judge who was appointed to the Salem witch trials by Governor William Phips. According to jess Bloomberg after Governor Phips wife was accused of witchcraft he prohibited the arrest of anyone who is accused of witchcraft and he pardoned half of the accused and disbanded the court of oyer and terminer. He replaced it with the superior court of judicature and they only condemned 3 out of 56 but by the time he pardoned all of the accused 19 people where hung and one was pressed to death by …show more content…

The lessons learned from the Salem Witch Trials according to (Salem Trial Homepage) are children can be influenced by anything. We should have been skeptical of those who are accused and the accusers because you never know what the past is between the two people are cause one could want the other ones land so he accused the other of being a witch so he would be killed or one was having an affair with the other ones wife you just never