Salem Witch Trials Research Paper

The Salem Witch Trials were not due to actual witchcraft, but occurred due to socioeconomic tensions, ergot poisoning, and religious persecution. The infamous trials sparked from the hysteria after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, had claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As it spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court began to hear the cases of the accused, beginning the Salem Witch Trials. Belief in the supernatural and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans the power to harm others in return for their loyalty had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century. They believed that the devil was giving people the ability of witchcraft

Tensions started to develop among the residents and divided Salem into two halves. There was the thriving port in Salem Town that brought in the majority of the wealth and they also had prosperous merchants. The other half, Salem Village was poorer than Salem Town and their residents were treated much differently. In an article, Boyer and Nissembaum mention Salem Village, “...it became increasingly clear to us that except for a brief moment, the inhabitants of Salem Village were ‘ordinary’ people, too, living out their lives in an obscure seventeenth-century farming village. Had it not been for 1692, they would most probably have been overlooked by ‘serious’ historians. But, as we have come to see, it is precisely because they were so unexceptional that their lives (and, for that matter, the trauma which overwhelmed them in 1692) are invested with real historical significance.” There was even more division in Salem Village, those who lived closer to Salem Town and were able to earn a living being blacksmiths, merchants, and innkeepers wanted to remain a part of Salem Town, but the farmers who lived on the outskirts of the village wanted to separate from Salem Town. The wealthy merchants of Salem Town and Village soon became the leaders of the government and took control of town politics, while preventing the farmers from having an active political role. With the

In addition, they were not allowed to follow their own religious beliefs without punishment in the new colonies. In the 16th century the Puritans settled in the New England area with a plan to regain their principles of the Christian church. They brought all of their ideas, beliefs, values and customs along with them. The Puritans also brought a strong sense of mission. They wanted to build a community based on God and his will to create a perfect society based on religion. Religion is one of the biggest contributors that led to the trials, because of their strong superstitions surrounding