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Why Did The Salem Witch Trials Happen

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The reason that the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony could condone the acts of genocide that occurred during the Salem Witch Trials is because, while they had set themselves up to be a utopian society, it had not yet happened. Various reasons could have led to their settlement towards not becoming a utopia. The main reason for this is the very origin or the greek word “utopia,” which originally meant “impossible.” Other factors included simpler human concepts such as greed, hatred, and lust. These emotions were all present in the town of Salem, but they were hidden from notice by the towns folks devoutness to their church. This buildup of emotion could not be acted upon because of the towns folks religion; therefore, they had to act upon them through the system of the church. Although they were influenced by an extremely strict religious structure, with their entire purpose to purify the church of England, and having thus far failed to do …show more content…

One of the the main reasons that people argue for why the Salem Witch Trials happened is because of the religion that they worshipped. This argument has merit, because as the Salem Witch Trials Learning Adventure state 's, “Church was the cornerstone of 17th century life in New England” (Salem Witch Trials - Learning Adventures). During this time, it was illegal to avoid going to church. This was built upon by the fact that there was not the separation of church and state that we have today. Ministers of the church were also judges in the courtroom. This enabled ministers to have much more power in the community than they do nowadays. In addition, the people at this time possessed an extremely strict moral code; and anything that went against this code was considered a sin. Religious Aspects says that “The first women to be accused as witches were those who strayed from the Puritan lifestyle and were considered to be social

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1729 Words | 7 Pages

In the year of 1630, a group of people known as the Puritans arrived to America and settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in Boston. The Puritans were similar to the Pilgrims in which they were Protestants from England who thought that their reforms of their church were “too Catholic” and needed to be changed further. The Puritans being unhappy with their reforms was the primary reason for leaving England and settling in America, while the Pilgrims stayed behind and were determined to change their reforms. When they came to America, they decided to keep some of their strict rules. For example, church was mandatory and if someone missed a day,

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Everything revolves around their strict Christian beliefs. The only reason that the Salem Witch Trials could happen is because people were so superstitious, and believed in the first place that witches existed, and that their purpose was to interfere with Salem´s progress as a Christian society. Too, in seventeenth century Salem, women were at the bottom of society. They worked as servants until they were old enough to be married off and rear children.

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The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,

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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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This was a time of religious revival in the 18th and 19th centuries. In other words, people started to become more religious and started to practice more religious beliefs than they did before. After the Salem Witch Trials, many people were beginning to think that Puritanism was not the right religion to follow and that it was easy to become misguided when trying to follow it. The Puritan ministers, of course, wanted as many people as possible to believe what they did because they were certain that their beliefs were the right ones that God wanted others to follow. They tried their best to get people to realize that the whole religion was not bad; just a few people got the wrong ideas and were mistaken on what the ideas actually meant.

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In Salem, Massachusetts, Puritans were strong believers in the Bible. The Bible states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The Puritans beliefs led to them accusing 20 innocent people of being a witch, this resulted in their deaths in 1692. Even though the Puritans couldn’t see it at the time, their accusations were really based off jealousy, lies, and Salem being divided into two parts. One cause of the Salem witch trial hysteria was jealousy.

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The Salem Witch Trials accusing others of a feared crime showed definite evidence that mass hysteria was to blame. Salem was a religious settlement, following Puritan beliefs (Miller, 6). A large fear for everyone in Salem was the touch of the Devil (Miller, Arthur). According to Puritan beliefs, if a man or woman was touched by the Devil he would convince them to do witchcraft. Once word was mentioned the Devil had possibly touched Salem, the fear spread.

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These characters are able to use these extreme standards of the theocracy to their advantage by accusing others to exercise their greed, creating mass hysteria in the form of the witch trials, thus showing no regard for human life. The intense pressure from the ideals of holiness, love, and forgiveness in Salem made its people vulnerable to hypocrisy. With a theocracy ruling Salem, church and government were inseparable. An accusation made about the government was taken as a condemnation against God, too.

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In Salem, they had a theocracy, which means that their government was also their religion. Religious rules were the law. Because of this, witchcraft was punishable by law, because it was forbidden in their religion. Ministers became enforcers of the law. The bible was referred to for punishments and law settings.

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Salem Witch Trials: Documentary Archive and Transcription Project, https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n15.html King, Ernest W., and Franklin G. Mixon. “Religiosity and the Political Economy of the Salem Witch Trials.” The Social Science Journal, vol. 47, no. 3, 2010, pp. 678–88, JSTOR, DOI:

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The 1692 events in Salem were not caused by a single person. Rather, the horrific miscarriage of injustice that was unfair persecutions under the guise of witchcraft could be blamed on natural phenomena. When young girls of the Massachusetts town developed strange symptoms, such as vivid hallucinations and strange bodily sensations, the local town doctor could not explain why they had suddenly taken ill. Confused, he diagnosed them with the one thing that made sense to the suspicious religious town: Witchcraft. Now, modern science concludes that a simple fungus was responsible for the girl’s symptoms.

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Nearly anyone from the New England has heard of the famous Salem Witch Trials. A year of persecution, leading to the accusation of nearly 200 citizens of all ages. No one was safe; men, women, children, even pets stood trial and 20 were hung for the supposed crime of witchcraft (Blumberg). 1692 was a year of witch hunting. Most today blame the trials on hysteria, or perhaps a bad case of paranoia.

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Religious ideas played a central role in the way people understood and reacted to the world around them in colonial America. The colonies were founded by various religious groups seeking freedom to practice their faith without persecution. Religion influenced many aspects of colonial people's daily life, from politics and social order to economic practices and daily life. Religious ideas were not only important but often the cause of antagonism and violence in colonial America. One example of religious antagonism in colonial America can be seen in the Salem witch trials of 1692 (American YAWP, 3.5).

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Curiously, the rhetoric and actions of the Puritan people seems to be parallel with whichever presence they believed to be active in their community. During the creation of the community, the rhetoric of John Wintrhop’s speech practically made the whole being-peaceful a religious act, as long as they were at peace the presence of God was assured (Winthrop, 1630). This is reiterated nearly 27 years later when, Richard Mather, father of Increase Mather, father of Cotton Mather, told his community in 1657, “Husbands and wives must live in peace so that their prayers for their children would not be hindered,” once again reaffirming this peace as an religious requirement for the spiritual standing of their family and community (Hall, 1988, p.22). However, when it came to the Salem Witch Trials, the people of Salem believed that their community was being invaded by Satan and their rhetoric and actions mimicked the cold, tormenting, and cruel characteristics of his presence (Boyer, 1972). Cotton Mather told John Cotton that God has been working miracles by executing five witches, the tone almost turns sadistic and overzealous because he is happy that these people were killed, but it did not at the time due to Puritans belief that the execution of convicted witches was the correct way to purify their community and rid themselves of the afflictions that their community supposedly suffered under

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1008 Words | 5 Pages

Many practicing Christians, at the time, believed that the Devil could persuade people to use the powers that he gave them to harm others. The Salem Witch Trials occurred because of resource struggles, many women were accused and tortured, and in the end the Governor realized that it was a big mistake. (“Salem Witch Trials”, 1). In 1689, English rulers William and Mary started a war with France in the American colonies which sent many refugees into the Essex County and Salem Village.

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