Impact Of The Enlightenment Of Witch Hunt

During 1692 it was a very confusing time for the new Americans, known as The Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was finger pointing and blame about who was a witch and who was not. People were afraid of the unknown and turned to religion and blamed witch craft on everything. This outbreak caused extreme confusion and disorder among an abundance of colonists in a community. The events that occurred describes a shameful time for colonists.

Imagine living in a household in Salem, Massachusetts. It is the year 1692 and you are a young female, around the age of 20. Now while a mass of events involving witch hunts are happening, everyone around you is panicking, accusing your friends, family and finally you of witchcraft, whether it was true or not that you had been practicing such sorcery. You confess anyways, being terrified, what happens to you next? The Salem Witch Trials should have been taken care of in a different way. The Salem Witch Trials a way to suppress people from exposing the truth behind the Government. The Trials were unfair, the Government and the townspeople were corrupt, and they had stress from outer threats surrounding the village.

In Escaping Salem: The Other Witch Hunt of 1692, Richard Godbeer reconstructs a particular witch hunt that is less known than its counterpart, the Salem Witch Trials. This trial, which took place in the Stamford, Connecticut area in the seventeenth century, demonstrated the theologies as well as the natural and supernatural beliefs of early New Englanders. These factors played an important role in how these settlers viewed the world and its peculiar mysteries. The perspectives of key participants, such as Katherine “Kate” Branch, Daniel and Abigail Wescot, Elizabeth Clawson, Mercy Disborough, Sarah Bates, and Jonathan Selleck, displayed the range of reactions and thoughts of early New Englanders regarding the supernatural world. With

According to Blumberg, the Salem of witch trails it was a really bad part of the United State. There were people who didn’t understanding why they were getting accused. This happed during the 1692 and 1693 in Massachusetts this was really happing during this time. The main parts that started and fueled the trials were politics, religion, family, feuds, economics, and the imaginations and fears of people (Sutter). The seeds of the hysteria is afflicted Salem village, Massachusetts were sown on January 1692 when groups of young lady’s began to display wild behavior. The physicians called to examine the girls could find no cause of the disturbing behavior. If the source of the affliction wasn’t attributable of a physical malady, the

“The weather was icy cold and it was the middle of winter when four figures were found outside of Salem village casting spells” (Nemphill, 1). In Salem Village there were many recorded witch accusations, in fact the Salem Witch Trials, the witch trials of the late 1600’s was one of Salem’s biggest hit of witch trials. The tension between the accused and the accusers was strong making the trials stronger and more intense. The Salem Witch Trials is an exploration in history because Salem Village was put in a position to grasp a chance at the devil, or to choose the right or wrong decision as a village.

Today if one was called a “witch,” most of us would take offense, yell, scream, or simply just ignore it and walk away, but over 300 years ago that was not the case. The 1600’s were full of controversy and uncertainty that led to cruel consequences due to even the simplest claim of witchcraft. By the time 1692 came around not much had changed, in fact, it was much worse. The town of Salem, Massachusetts became the spot of the most infamous witch trials of all: the Salem Witch Trials.

The Salem Witch Trials were the ultimate denouement of 300 years and 50,000 deaths resonating from witch hunting that began in England. Over this time period these witch hunts grew exponentially, ultimately climaxing in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. During this time, the Puritans who lived in Salem were ruled by a theocracy which took its governing laws and rules by beliefs and scriptures from their holy book. The theocratic government paired with the misogyny of the time period was cause for scores of women to be tried for being a witch. Pleading guilty or not, and confessing or not, those accused of witchcraft were tortured to death by various methods.

Massive witch hunts were common in Europe before Salem. Since witchery was frowned upon and considered a sin and when paranoia occurred in the community, the people were determined to execute the accused. In the Puritan’s religion, it was believed that not only one’s own faith determined their destiny to Heaven or Hell, but also the communities. When one was considered to be against God’s faith, it was a top priority to purify the colony. But, there had to be some sort of proof that the accused really was a witch to justify further punishment.

The Salem Witch Trials are an infamous part of American History that people have been fascinated with for centuries. Every year thousands of people flock to Salem to visit the memorials and see where the paranoia began. Many scholars have their theories as to why the Witch Trials took place. This essay analyzes two author’s interpretations of the Salem Witch Trials, one that more accurately describes the reason for the events and a second interpretation that falls short.

By the end of the 17th century one of the most devastating proceedings in American History took place. The Salem witch trials was one of the most catastrophic events worldwide in which people were accused, hanged, or sent to jail. During this time there was also a lot of chaos going on in Salem when some girls started accusing innocent people of being witches and being responsible for all the trouble that was going on the town. Even though not all those individuals were sentenced to death, there were still three causes or theories of why the Salem witch trials might have occurred and caused all these mess. Some of those reasons included that the girls could have been ergot poison, that they were bored because of the type of lifestyle that they had to live in, and because there was a sort of rivalry (jealousy) of land.

The Chronology and Collective Violence in 1692 of the Salem Witchcraft, is familiar to scholars, readers, and students. The mass witch-hunt of 1692 is where some communities experienced a short-term outbreak of accusations that involved less than a handful of citizens. Many of the residents that had been accused were most likely related to each other. Most of the witch victims fit under the common characteristics of the seventeenth-century beliefs about witches, making it very stereotypical. Richard Latner’s main focus of this article is to closely study the spread of allegations made in 1692 to help us get a better understanding on the witch-hunt. It was also to learn about the reasons why it had an outbreak, which quickly came to an end.

The Salem Witch Trials remain as a main area of interest for colonial historians, for the very way that actual lives were taken for only the sake of internalized cultural normalities. In fact if one is to look at the way the trials were conducted, it could be said that they highlight the underlying fears and beliefs that the citizens of Massachusetts believed to be completely true. The irrational nature of the trials is best illustrated through the view of the accused witches, whose accusations follow a distinct pattern of having past conflict with their accusers. Overall there is also a repetition of external fears influencing these accusations which culminates in a complex belief of not only demonic powers at work, but present mortal threats being a part of these accused witches plan to bring destruction of the town. The perspective of the accused witches during the Salem Witch Trials, proves Salem was a town rooted in cultural anxiety and interpersonal conflict which eventually imploded into the uncontrollable.

The Salem Witch Trials took place during a time when families were turned against each other, for fear that they would be held in association with the accused and be outed as” devil worshipers”. Many used this “Witch Hunt” as a reason to settle rivalries. The Salem witch trials in American history was a series of investigations and prosecutions that caused 19 convicted “ witches” to be hung, and many other suspects to be imprisoned in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Although teenage boredom and books played a part in the Salem witch trials, a combination of economics and personal rivalries were real reasons for these trials , so strong accusations developed among the community.

Salem witch trials and witch hunts, that had searched for individuals who have made a deal with the devil, had started when women and young girls began to accuse people of using witchery or their spectrals to hurt them. The accusers were mainly under the influence of Abigail Williams, a 17 year old, vengeful girl. She may had been the main cause of many innocent deaths by swaying or forcing the girls who lived in the village to follow her lead. Though, Abigail and the girls had no physical evidence of any witchery, judges of the court had been convinced through their ¨acts¨ that there were witches in Salem. This was the start of the witch hunt as the judges continued to allow the girls to accuse almost anyone.

In The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, Brian Levack attributes skepticism as a determining factor for the decline of witchcraft prosecutions in Europe. While it may seem as though doubt could hardly have that much of an impact, it is important to note that this skepticism grew from many different centers. It was the rise of doubt within the judicial, religious, and scientific spheres that began to collectively contribute to the decline. Levack’s claim is that skepticism is the common factor found within many contributing factors to the decline of the witchcraft trials and with that, I am inclined to agree.