Salem Witchcraft Trials Of 1692

Under stress, people can easily forget parts of the Lord’s Prayer or the Commandments, yet this is used as a test to determine whether or not someone is a witch. These often unsound methods of justice, which are standard in Puritan society, leads to the accusation and hanging of many people that are actually innocent.

By reading the two primary sources we are given a clear account of the Salem Witch Trials. John Hale describes the officials involved in the trial and those being prosecuted. Hale states, “I observed in the prosecution of these affairs, that there was in the Justices, Judges and others concerned, a conscientious endeavor to do the thing that was right.” he then later states “But what chiefly carried on this matter to such an height, was the increasing of confessors til they amounted to near about fifty.” While Governor phips goes into more detail in reference to the actual court proceedings, “When the Court came to sit at Salem in the County of Essex they convicted more than twenty persons of being guilty of witchcraft, some of the convicted were such as confessed their Guilt, the Court as I understand began their proceedings with the accusations of the afflicted and then went upon other humane evidences to strengthen that.” Only together the sources are able to give the reader the information needed, showing a disadvantage to using primary sources to evaluate history. These accounts illustrate comprehensively the picture of a court concerned with doing the right thing for their people and trying the accused in the way they see fit. They explain the use of accusations to testify against the convicted and

Three centuries ago, the Puritan religion was the base of the Salem village and many townspeople strongly believed in the existence of witches and witchcraft. According to the common Puritan belief, witches were in alliance with the devil and were granted power to harm. People were blamed for illness, failed crops, to bad weather, and many other things that were evident centuries ago. Due to the belief in witchcraft villagers were, perhaps, inclined to the most improbable explanations. The Puritans held strict views, ways of living, perspectives fears, and fantasies. Many Puritan ministers used the the fear of witchcraft to scare the believers into following the church. Historians believe these strict Puritan ways of life may have brought upon the witchcraft hysteria in Salem. At the time, witches and witchcraft were a serious and viewed as a real threat; almost as real as

Witchcraft is the use of magical powers. Witchcraft is often regarded as “black” magic. The article called “The Salem Witch Trials: 1692-1693” states that “[s]ince the early fifteenth century, so-called witch panics had periodically swept across Europe, causing witch hunts, accusations, trials and executions” (“Salem” 1). Although some children and males were accused, the greater part of the arraigned individuals were female (“Salem” 1). A debatable amount of around forty thousand individuals were implicated and executed as witches between fourteen hundred and seventeen hundred and fifty (“Salem” 1). Although the causes of the witchcraft hysteria are debatable, there are three widespread and favored explanations for the hysteria within

The seventeenth century was a time of great religious excitement both in Europe and America. It had been widely believed even before the Puritans left England that witchcraft was a well-practiced profession in Europe. The times for settlers in the New America proved to be quite different and so ever changing. With many new rules, laws, regulations and curfew a true government was being born. Throughout this vast change, religious beliefs became so strong to be studied and participated in. Religions that divided from Christianity and Catholic beliefs, such as Puritans, who had a clear vision of what their churches were going to be like. Witchcraft had been a crime a long time before the trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and prior

When considering possible explanations for the Salem witch trials, it is important to consider and reference other historical accounts of witchcraft. Although Salem presents its own unique case, and therefore is a result of things specific singularly to Salem, there may yet be a link to other cases of witchcraft. Cases may differ in religion, denomination, or other spiritual beliefs, and social setting. Additionally, a study of horticulture in the Salem area shows that hallucinogenic mushrooms may have contributed to the visions of witches. However, I have discovered in my studies that in most cases, there seems to be growing discontentment in each community before and during accusations of witchcraft. This is the clearest link between all cases. In my opinion, witchcraft is a result of suppressed feelings caused by human suffering. This is displayed as accusers in a community using witchcraft as an excuse to release tension, or rid themselves of enemies.

Once a person was accused of being a witch, the authorities needed concrete or tangible evidence before they would prosecute or put the accused to death. A guidebook published in 1486, called "Malleus

The Salem witch trials were trials for people who were being accused of worshiping the devil. They believed the witches were out to harm others in supernatural ways. They were believed to be able to turn into animals, cause others to become possessed by looking at them, and were accused of being the cause of illness or miscarriages. However, there are many false theories about the Salem witch trials causing many controversies. One of the bigger controversies was if people were really being possessed by the three women. Often times, if doctors could not find a cause to an illness they will blame it on witchcraft. “Laurie Winn Carlson argues that in the spring of 1691 and winter of 1692, some of the accusers exhibited these symptoms, and that a doctor had been called in to treat the girls. He could not find an underlying physical cause, and therefore concluded that they suffered from possession by witchcraft, a common diagnosis of unseen conditions at the time”. They believed there had to be a cause to everything and if something

The outbreak of witchcraft accusations of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts was a devastating period for those involved in the crisis. Because of the random and frequent witchcraft accusations made throughout the time of the trials, the reoccurring characteristics that were often indicative of an individual’s likelihood of being accused of witchcraft were not always consistent. In John Demos’s book Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England he includes a diagram containing nine points of what he believes to be the definitive characteristics of a “typical” witch during the Salem witchcraft trials. It is important to note that Demos’s portrait of a witch identifies the “typical” witch, not every witch. For

An accusation of witchcraft could be brought forth by an affected individual, but also by a community as a whole, or by a judicial official himself. Once an accusation was made, it was the job of the court officials to investigate the alleged crime, which they did meticulously by interrogating witnesses and the accused, recording and examining statements, and analyzing all available evidence. Eventually, the court would reach a verdict of guilty or innocent, and if the accused was found guilty, a punishment would be determined. In most cases, the chosen punishment was burning at the stake, as it alleviated concerns that the executed witch would use magic to return to life, was seen as a purification method, and was the typical punishment for heretics, with whom witches were closely associated. Convicted witches were generally executed on the stake before the burning began, such as by strangulation, but in almost all cases, the bodies themselves were

the accused behalves were frequently in turn accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch Trials

During early 1692, in Essex, Massachusetts, a group of girls began to practice “conjuration with sieves and keys, and peas, and nails, and horseshoes”. By February, the adults tried to put into words what was happening to their children: “odd postures,” “foolish, ridiculous speeches”. Local physician William Griggs warned Reverend Samuel Parris, father of two of these girls, that he suspected the “Evil Hand” or more specifically, “malefic witchcraft”. As a result of this bizarre occurrence, rumors and assumptions spread rapidly across the area of Salem Village. The legal system was unkempt and clearly unprepared for something so baffling. As a result, the trials were conducted aimlessly and disorderly, without consideration of the persecuted. Throughout countless records, evidence was slim and weak. This was just the beginning of what is known as the Salem Witch Trials. Due to an unorganized legal system, The Salem Witch Trials exposed Puritan society as unprepared, unlawful, and unethical.

This started the hysterical beginning of the Salem Witch trials, which resulted in many women, men, and children being accused of practicing witchcraft. Out of the one hundred fifty people accused in Salem, twenty of them were executed as witches, while others rotted away and died in jail. The people of Salem did not discriminate who they executed or who they sent to jail so the result was a diverse range of citizens being accused.

The late 1500s into the early 1700s were a time when witches became increasingly popular. Women accused of witchcraft were blamed for the slightest happenings that occurred in villages and towns: illness, death, infidelity, etc. Religious wrong-doers frequently blamed the witch and her spells for corrupting their mind with evil and wicked nature. It is commonly known that when a person was found to be a ‘witch’ they were taken to trial where they would have to defend themselves to the accusations brought against them. Many women were asked to recite verses from the bible as it was believed that those who sold their souls to Satan would perish if they uttered the righteous words of the Lord, God. This was a difficult task for anyone to attempt. Not many people were able to recite specific verses off the top of their head. Others who were able to recite the verses were put to other tests, one of the most

Witchcraft was, and still is the practice of magic, especially black magic with the use of spells. Although many people did practice witchcraft (male or female), old, poor, single or widowed ladies were usually accused to be witches in the Middle Ages. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages was a controversial crime that was equally punishable by poisoning. If one was accused of witchcraft, the charges could be dropped by a relative’s defence in a trial by combat, or by twelve people swearing an oath of the accused’s innocence. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages was feared throughout Europe.