Salem Witch Trials Historical Analysis

Have you ever been called a witch or heard it someone else be called it? Now and

In 1692 in a town , in Salem Massachusetts. The puritans left England because the minister wanted all of them to have their religious freedom.they had to leave and go to Salem Massachusetts, because the people from England believe in something else. The people from Salem started their own rules and had their own people that governed. In Salem they believed that everything you did had to be based on the Bible. In Salem the people did not have to right to read anything else besides the Bible or talk to each. Little kids couldn't talk to each other. In a village somewhere in Pennsylvania, city people decided to escape crime and death. They decided to escape the city because their family members where getting killed they did not know who or why

Although many events contributed to the infamous Salem witch trials, irrefutable evidence supports that the Indian War is one event that caused the trials. Their time in Indian captivity affected many of the accusers and the accused psychologically. Another contributing factor of the Salem Witch Trials is the superstitions among the Puritans. With so much time and so very few answers concerning their eternal destinies, the people of Massachusetts Bay Colony conjured up various methods of distraction, and perhaps entertainment, through the practice of folk magic. The Salem Witch Trials are a cause of built up factors that involve the Puritans belief system and the effects of the Indian War.

Theories about the cause of the Salem Witch Trials include ergot poisoning, cold weather, boredom, Salem politics, and Puritans’ strong belief in witchcraft. One of the possible causes of the witch hysteria in Salem is a biological one. Bread was a main source of food in colonial America. Historians have speculated that ergot poisoning could have been

Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, infamously known now for witchcraft. The Salem Witch trials, engulfed by an event so ingrained with popular culture of today, needs to be examined to further understand why an affair of its magnitude happened. Historically, several witch trials where happening during the seventeenth century, but the Salem Witch trials stands out. Salem was submerged into a madness of witchcraft because of several outstanding factors. These factors led the charge of the witchcraft crisis in Salem, connecting the crisis.

Salem Massachusetts is known around the world for the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trail begin in January of 1692, in colonial Massachusetts in a village called Salem. A group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused serval other locals of being witches and doing witchcraft. This went on for a few months. Hysteria spreads throughout the village.

Though the trials stopped, they were declared truly unlawful by the court in 1702, instead of immediately after the diminish of the trials. It wasn’t until 1711, when the court passed a bill, giving rights back to those killed and accused and gave £600 ($809.76) as compensation to the families and heirs. On top of that, it was not until 1957 that Massachusetts formally apologized for the events that took place in 1692.

The number of different interpretations of the Salem Witch Trials illustrates that historiography is ever changing. The historians, Hale, Starkey, Upham, Boyer and Nissenbaum, Caporal, Norton and Mattosian have all been fascinated by the trials in one way or another because they have all attempted to prove or disprove certain elements about the trials. By analysing their augments about the causes of the Salem Witch Crisis, it is evident that this historical event can be examined from a range of different perspectives and interpreted in a range of

The Salem Witch Trials The Salem witch trials was a massive witch-hunt that began in 1692 and continued until 1693. (Anderson) The witch trials started in Massachusetts when a doctor found three ten-year-old little girls whose limbs bent in obscure and almost demonic ways. The doctor, convinced that the three girls were performing witchcraft, took the three girls away and sent them to court.

While Puritan religious beliefs did contribute to the Salem Witch Trials, it was only to a minor extent as, rather than being the true source of the witchcraft fear, they were used by New England authorities to manipulate and control the public. In the 1600s, religion was the cornerstone of Puritan society, a denomination that originated in England and was established in America with the migration of approximately 9,000 colonists between 1630 and 1645. Already superstitious, with a Christian Church that preached of a God who protected his servants, and a Devil who preyed on the weak, society’s fears were intensified

Once again, this opens the town of Salem to what they perceived as infiltration by the Devil, or deviation from Scripture. The Puritans used their faith and their faith alone to reason. They saw that God was the highest power, and that He should be the guiding light in life. However, the Salem Witch Trials could have come from this pious and narrow view of society. The clergy, including Cotton Mather, allowed and, at times, instigated the search and seizure of witches.

Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who do nothing” (Gurteen). The Salem witch trials began in the Spring of 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. A group of young girls, who claimed to be possessed by the devil, began accusing a few women of witchcraft, which caused hysteria among the people in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Approximately 150 people were convicted of practicing witchcraft, 19 were hanged at Gallows Hill, and others died in captivity (“Salem Witch Trials”). These tragic events lead to the convictions of many innocent people in Salem Village and later in Salem Town, Ipswich, Gloucester, and other towns (Brooks). The Salem witch trials are a

Many historians who were writing at this time must have had the belief in both witchcraft and the Devil, which would explain why they believed that this was a logical and acceptable explanation as to why the Witch Trials occurred. This theory is ultimately the result of the personal context of historians, which has affected how this event was constructed and recorded. One historian in particular, Cotton Mather, a Puritan Minister, was also under the impression that the cause of the Witch Trials came down to the existence of the Devil and witchcraft. He, like many others, could not find a reasonable explanation for the behaviour of the afflicted girls and came to the conclusion that, “Some scores of people, first about Salem, the centre and first-born of all towns in the colony, and afterwards in several other places, were arrested with many preternatural vexations upon their bodies, and a variety of cruel torments, which were evidently inflicted from the daemons of the invisible world....”

The Salem Witch Trials were controversial events in history. Many people are to blame for the confusion caused by this horrific event. For puritan colonists, such as the magistrates of the time, if something could not be explained scientifically then it was immediately blamed on the supernatural. While there were many symptoms that could be logically explained there was a number of unexplained circumstances of the afflicted such as babbling in an unidentifiable language and crawling under furniture. A multitude of individuals have varying ideas toward The Salem Witch Trials that are brought to life from a number of myths; some people believed that all the victims were female, some people thought that all the panic and chaos took place in Salem, and it has been said that superstition was the driving force.

Davidson explains that the Salem Witch Trials were a mind boggling deception from Satan’s supernatural force that put fear and panic into the minds of the Puritans. Davidson states, “Demons, familiars, and witches all shaped the world of the seventeenth –century New England. For Salem Villagers, Satan was a living supernatural being who could and did