The Salem Witch Trials was an important historical conflict. It pitted Puritans against those they feared and otherwise disagreed with, oftentimes based on false accusations. They began in 1692 and lasted until 1693. Over the course of one year, 141 people were imprisoned,
19 executed, and 2 killed. The Trials shook the foundations of families and Salem Village itself.
There are many modern day cases of “witch hunts” that can trace their origins to the Salem
Witch Trials. Thus, while the Salem Witch Trials ended with financial compensation, amnesty, and apologies to the survivors, preventing further conflict there, it will not prevent all conflict when certain elements of society disagree with or fear others.
A contributing factor to the start
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That meant that Puritan New England had to let Quakers and Anglicans 1 and other people they did not like worship freely. Prior to this act only people of specific denominations got to vote in elections in most of the colonies, so the Toleration Act was a political and religious issue. Essentially, there were a lot of Puritans in Massachusetts being forced to accept the political rights of people they had previously rejected and the crown exerted more influence over the colony.
In 1692, a witch was defined as anyone who performed “witchcraft.” Witchcraft ranged from causing sickness and seizures to outright control over someone else and any other behavior or act that was not liked or scared people. Many, if not all, accusations were completely false.
The most popular reason why someone was accused or convicted was because they were not
1
“Toleration Act” 2016
well liked or jealousy came into play. One person was even accused of witchcraft by another because they were sarcastic. Clearly, ignorance influenced accusations. 2
As stated earlier, Salem Village was largely led by the Puritans. Salem Village was a very religious place. Puritan children could not run, shout, or enjoy themselves, according to the
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He was told that the justices were very fair minded.17
Judges also thought that the Salem Witch Trials were improving Salem
Village by flushing out the unclean and the unholy. Corey and his wife attended the pre-trial examinations, but his wife started to see how unfair the trials were. She tried to keep Corey home by “hiding his riding saddle so he could not attend. ” Rumors began circulating that Corey’s 18 wife was a witch. Giles Corey even testified against her, saying that their ox spontaneously 19 contracted an illness and she knelt in front of the fireplace late at night and did not say a word for hours. These two statements prove how absurd and ridiculous most of the “evidence” was at the 20 time. Corey was then also accused of witchcraft. He refused to enter a plea of guilty or not 21 guilty. To get the truth out of him, large rock plates were laid on his chest to press the story out of him. (According to Samuel Sewall’s diary entry on the 19th of September.) He died after three days of torture. This shows that no one was safe from accusations of witchcraft, not even the most prominent judges.
Another prominent man in these times was a minister named Cotton Mather. He was
Salem Village, Massachusetts was the home of a Puritan community with a strict moral code through 1691. No one could have ever anticipated the unexplainable events that were to ambush the community’s stability. The crisis that took place in Salem in 1962 still remains a mystery, but the accusations made by the young girls could be a result of ergot poisoning or the need for social power; this leads the people of Salem to succumb to the genuine fear of witchcraft.
In the textbook, religion is portrayed as the main cause of Salem’s witch hysteria. In America Possessed, however, the main reason is told to be a result of social conflicts and a power struggle between the main groups of Salem. Although the textbook addresses different causes, as does Salem Possessed, there is never a mention of the two most influential groups of Salem having an impact on the witch trials. Perhaps this is due to a time limitation of the book, as including that much detail would require the textbook and course to be much
Most of the accusations were made against innocent people for reasons of economic conditions, teenage boredom, and personal jealousies. Of course there was also the fact that people weren’t aware of the certain mental illnesses caused by their environment. For example the one of the first people to be accused of witchcraft was a young girl named Betty Paris who one day became very ill with convulsive erogtism. Ergot is a fungus that invades growing kernels of rye, so it is very likely that she got sick from simply eating bread. Since people were scientifically unable to explain her sudden seizures and hallucinations she was accused of witchcraft.
They also were forced into admission of guilt by torture, fear, or the hope for lighter punishment. “Most witches work by night, are capable of covering long distances very rapidly, temporarily assume an animal form and have the ability to fly.... ... middle of paper ... ...
During the time of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692, more than twenty people died in innocent death. All of those innocent people were accused of one thing, witchcraft. During 1692, in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, many terrible events happened. A group of Puritans lived in Salem during this time. They had come from England, where they were prosecuted because of their religious beliefs.
First, the Puritan values and expectations were strict, and those who had defied their teachings would have been at a much higher chance of being accused as a witch. Second, economic struggles within Salem Town and Village had further divided the two, by crop failure and livestock death. Ultimately causing economic damages. Third, personal opinions and disputes had contributed to the trials and accusations. The law system was unfair during the trials, so when or if someone was accused the court would side with the accuser, unless of course, they were a witch themselves. In conclusion, the people who died and who were accused of witchcraft were not really witches, Salem and it’s inhabitants were under the influence of mass hysteria, personal beliefs and grudges that eventually became the chaos of the Salem witch hunts of
At that time, Salem was a small town or village; it was a farming community that was only 550 of population. Their goal was that they want to be a model society on the hills. Not all of them were puritans because there were people that want a better life and want to live in a society out of England; their life in England were difficult. There were two groups in the village: those who were separatists and others that were puritans (those who believe in predetermination and follow the rules). Samuel Parris was a reverend that was the minister of the group of the separatist. He helped divide these two groups. The reverend Parris and his wife had 2 children living with them, who were Betty and Abigail. These two girls were the motive that the trials started. These girls screamed, rolled their eyes back into their heads, shook, twist...
This trial was held in Salem but people all around Salem who were accused of witchcraft were bought to Salem for trial. The Salem Witch Trial was a trial for people being accused of associating with witch craft. Over 100 men and women majority of them being women were in this trial. The trial had a 3 step process first was a confession then a testimony of two eyewitnesses to the act of witchcraft and a rare ‘’spectral evidence’’ where most of these witches didn’t make it too. A spectral evidence is when the accused person’s spirit or spectral appeared in a testimony dream when the accused witch was at another location. During a trial if you could recite the ‘’Lord’s prayer’’ you were not a witch and you could indeed be let go during trial just for reciting the prayer (Louis-Jacques, Lyonette. "Http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/blog/2012/10/29/the-salem-witch-trials-a-legal-bibliography-for-halloween/." The University of Chicago Library News. 29 Oct. 2012). The trial was during the Puritan times so people believe during trial, these witches could harm anyone in the court houses (Purdy, Sean. ‘’Conjuring History: The many interpretations of The Salem Witch Trials.’’ Reviver Academic Journal, vol. 3, no. 1, 2007, pp. 2.). At the end of the trial 19 men and women were hanged at Gallows
The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692 were the largest outbreak of witch hunting in colonial New England up to that time. Although it was the largest outbreak, it was not something that was new. Witch-hunting had been a part of colonial New England since the formation of the colonies. Between the years 1648 to 1663, approximately 15 witches were executed. During the winter of 1692 to February of 1693, approximately 150 citizens were accused of being witches and about 25 of those died, either by hanging or while in custody. There is no one clear-cut answer to explain why this plague of accusations happened but rather several that must be examined and tied together. First, at the same time the trials took place, King William's War was raging in present day Maine between the colonists and the Wabanaki Indians with the help of the French. Within this war, many brutal massacres took place on both sides, leaving orphaned children due to the war that had endured very traumatic experiences. Second, many of the witch accusations were based on spectral evidence, most of which were encounters of the accused appearing before the victim and "hurting" them. There were rampant "visions" among the colonies' citizens, which can only be explained as hallucinations due to psychological or medical conditions by virtue of disease, or poisoning.
... Other people who were convicted had their land confiscated, leaving families broke and homeless. During the witch trials, many people in Salem left their houses unattended and didn’t do their chores. The trials also affected the planting season. All of this led to severe crop failures and epidemics in Salem in the time after the trials ended.
The Salem Witch Trials took place in the summer and into the fall of the year 1692, and during this dark time of American history, over 200 people had been accused of witchcraft and put in jail. Twenty of these accused were executed; nineteen of them were found guilty and were put to death by hanging. One refused to plead guilty, so the villagers tortured him by pressing him with large stones until he died. The Salem Witch Trials was an infamous, scary time period in American history that exhibited the amount of fear people had of the devil and the supernatural; the people of this time period accused, arrested, and executed many innocent people because of this fear, and there are several theories as to why the trials happened (Brooks).
Once the accusations began, many innocent people in the community were taken away. They were then either forced to admit that they were witches, to free themselves from a public hanging, or deny that they were witches, saving their integrity, but subjecting themselves to an unjust public hanging.
According to Giles Corey, any book is strange and the idea of a woman wanting to read books makes it stranger. Whenever Giles Corey mentioned this, it lead to an accusation that his wife is a witch. Giles instantly regrets telling the court this because he knows his wife is innocent of witchcraft. Whoever was accused of witchcraft was hung, meanwhile Giles dies a serious death. Giles Corey died a brave man. Giles Corey tried to get the court to see how ridiculous their accusations were about the people of Salem. In the film, if you give a man's name to the court, the man will be arrested and questioned of witchcraft.Therefore, Giles showed acts of being brave whenever he refuses to give the name of the man who overheard Mr. Putnam claim his daughter had "given him a fair gift of land." Giles Corey states, "I will not give you no name. I mentioned my wife's name once and I'll burn in hell long enough for that. I stand mute." In conclusion, Judge Thomas Danforth arrests Corey Giles for contempt of court, and still Corey Giles will not sacrifice his informant to save
...destroyed, people being quickly judged from the false accusations, and the imprisonment of innocent people. As you can tell throughout time people have had the same instances with lies which wrongly accuse people. For as long as man is on this Earth they will lie about what others do to destroy their reputations. From the instances of John Proctor being accused of using witchcraft, to people in the U.S. during the Cold War being falsley accused of communism people will always blame others for their lies. Nobody was safe during these times, anybody could be accused, for any reason, at any time, even dogs were accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.
The Salem Trials took place between the 10th of June and the 22nd of 1692 and in this time nineteen people. In addition to this one man was pressed to death and over 150 people where sent to jail where four adult and one infant died. Although when compared to other witch-hunts in the Western world, it was ‘a small incident in the history of a great superstition,’ but has never lost its grip on our imagination’ . It’s because of this that over the last three centuries many historians have analysed the remaining records of the trials in order to work out what the causes and events were that led to them.