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The Puritans: The Salem Witch Trials Of 1692

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Salem, meaning “peace”, was a Puritan haven in the late 1600’s, with a large concentration of Puritans in that area. In 1692, a historical outbreak appeared, with the accusations of innocent people being witches thrown about. The cause of these witch trials is widely argued on, but the most sensible and correct theory is that the townspeople’s Puritan beliefs had influenced this witch craze. Their strong belief in that Satan was the cause for all evil and all unknown fueled accusations fueled their actions, while the Puritans’ proof for persecution was in the Geneva bible. The Puritans of Salem also saw witches as the devil’s servants and could easily spot a witch for certain symptoms. With their radical ideas and firm social system, the Puritans were their own cause for the Salem Witch Trials. During the late 1600’s, a normal Puritan belief was that Satan controlled the “invisible world”, such as disease, catastrophes, and anything that humans could not explain. This type of mindset can lead to much chaos, such as the witch trials of 1692. …show more content…

This 1600’s era bible was used in everyday life and was taken word for word by the Puritans (uchicago.edu). Some verses from the bible reference the killing of witches and how witches should not be allowed to live in this world such as Exodus 22:18 (“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”) and Leviticus 19:31 (“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire”). Just like media is used to control our mindset on certain things today, the same is with how the Geneva bible gave Puritans the image that witches were taking over the world. This leads to strong belief of having to persecute all of the witches on the Earth in the name of

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