Samuel Parris : The Greatest Impact Of The Salem Witch Trials

Samuel Parris was the new reverend of the Salem church and he knew that Abigail and the three girls weren’t possessed by demons. He was a horrible man who sabotaged people’s trials so that they would die because he didn’t want to lose his job. In the end Samuel Parris was driven out by Sarah's husband who took over the town. The people of Salem were afraid. They didn’t want to cause harm, but they did want to stay away from witches. About 100 people were accused of being witches but were never killed,

Puritans settled in the Massachusetts town of Salem in 1630, with their leader John Winthrop. Winthrop claimed that Salem would be “As a City Upon a Hill,” meaning that the Puritans coming to the New World would set a religious and civilized example among other colonies. However, this wasn’t the case. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of accusations and persecutions due to what was thought to be witchcraft among Salem townspeople. King Philip’s War played a role in the trials. It caused regional mass hysteria which lead to the accusing of witches in Salem. Samuel Parris was the local preacher of Salem and in 1691 he started preaching about the devil and focused more on hell instead of more positive things which also played a role in the crafting of the witch trials. Rich versus poor feuds, the desire to feel around and inspect women, and easily being able to have someone punished by accusing them of being a witch, fueled and motivated the Witch Trials of Salem in 1692.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of accusations, trials, and executions based on the supposed outbreak of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. The trials began during the spring of 1692, and the last of them ended in 1693. It all started when two young girls, Abigail and Betty Parris, began experiencing violent convulsions and outbursts, which were thought to be brought about by witchcraft. Whether they were faking these symptoms, were afflicted with an actual sickness, or were experiencing them because of some sort of psychological reason is widely debated, though it is known that the sisters accused their maid, Tituba, of forcing them to participate in witchcraft with her. Some who theorize about the causes of the trials dismiss the Parris girls involvement in the beginning and instead attribute the outbreak of accusations to judgement upon the members of society who break social or religious rules, or who struck the upright members of society as ‘strange’ and ‘suspicious’, such as the homeless, the poor, and old or widowed women. The cause of the hysteria that went on in Salem after this is what is speculated by so many. There are probably hundreds of theories out there, but a few in particular are more widely known, accepted, and supported than others.

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

By examining the end to witchcraft, a reader can further see the importance of socioeconomic status during the trials. The afflicted girls discovered their role in putting an end to the allegations by accusing the highest members of Puritan society. Here a reader realizes it was not just mostly women who were accused, but mostly women of low socioeconomic status. Once women began denouncing the most prestigious members, others began speaking out and fighting in favor of the accused. For example, colonial economic and political leaders started objecting the accusations once “the bewitched had charged the wives of critics Moody, Hale, and Dane, as well as several members of Boston’s ruling elite.” On the off-chance that people never blamed the elite members of society who knows how long the Salem Witch Trials would have kept going.

The religion of the townspeople supported the witchcraft accusations that were spreading. Back then, the people of Salem read the Bible extremely literally. In the book, it says, ‘“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Doc 1) This is how the executions began and how more and more people became convinced that witchcraft existed. After these three women were jailed, this set off a large stream of accusations that continued for the next few months. In the Bible it says that mostly women were bewitched, and since the people took the Bible very seriously, a large portion of the accused were female. Around 24-30 males were accused while 88-110 females were. (Doc 5) Also, since the Bible said that witches must die, 20 people were executed. Some were hanged, some died in jail. (Doc 2) The support of their religion caused paranoia to break out, introducing the last cause of hysteria.

This was one of the reasons that there was so much hysteria that went along with the Salem Witch Trials.

This happened after both the first accusations of witchery as well as the attack on twin towers. All citizens in Salem believed that the girls were telling the truth about the accused, and so, everyone began to turn against one another. People were afraid to do anything wrong or rude to anyone (especially the girls), because if so, there would be a great chance of accused for witchery. Similarly after the 9/11 attack, security in airports and other transportation were on high. Like the town of Salem, US citizens were extremely afraid of another attack. The town of Salem and the United States after 9/11 are similar because all citizens were greatly affected, but more importantly, they lived in fear after the

There were mass hanging every month, if you saw that not only would you tell other but you would also be scared because your friend could be a witch, you might be a witch, and everyone could be a witch. If you see the hanging your aware that there are witches and will be on the look for strange behavior. In “document” a girl is being accused for witch craft and she was scared and watching the affected girls would probably scare anyone! Religion is what cause d the Puritans to believe in Devil and witches.

The puritans settled the Salem, Massachusetts in 1626. The puritans moved to the village because of their religion and beliefs and needed a safe place to live. They believed in personal faith and worship (Kekla 15), they believed in every person’s faith was predetermined by God before they were born. In 1692 a hysteria started in Salem, the Salem witch trails event caused many executions in one year. Many people were accused to be witches based on spectral evidence, the puritans believed that witches was evil and the devil was inside them.

In the year (1692) witch trials held the Salem area hostage people were terrified. People of

In the late 1600's Salem, Massachusetts, the Salem Witch Trials was conceivably thought of as terrifying or even unjustified. Left and right, convictions on witchcraft were put on other villagers in Salem. Abigail and the girls, Tituba, Proctor, etc.. could be blamed for the events and deaths in Salem, but Reverend Parris seems to have the bigger faults. Parris’s childish and avaricious characteristics caused the deaths of many innocent

As a struggling minister with a generally low-public opinion by the residents of Salem, the trials filled Parris’ meetinghouse with distressed congregants looking for guidance and support to deal with the events overwhelming their community. Without the existence of the trials and the fear they induced, the conclusion can be drawn that Parris’ worries of possible ousting as town minister may have come true. (In fact, a few years after the end of the trials, when the villagers’ finally felt confident that their troubles with witchcraft were finished, Parris’ concerns proved legitimate when the town voted to oust him as their minister.)

In effect of the Salem witch trials, the thought process of the society changed to, "First they came for the Communists, - but I was not a communist so I did not speak out.Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, - but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, - but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." (Martin Niemoller ), meaning no one stood up for the accused. With Salem being in a small village in Massachusetts, a place populated with mostly Puritans, any sign, word, or even thought of the devil was considered wrongful. One evening, multiple girls from the town were found dancing, some naked in the woods, with evidence of worshipping the devil. When people found out about this the girls were accused of practicing witchcraft. With the rumor of witches in Salem, it spread like wildfire through the strict Puritan

The Salem Witch Trials brought havoc among the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts starting in 1692. These trials consisted of many hearings against groups of women who were said to possess the power of a witch. Many of the people within the town continued to have strong loyalties to their new Puritan religion and their old king back home. The church of England had moved away from the Catholic religion with the help of King Henry VIII and the Puritans were a new group of people who accepted the split from Catholicism, but still believed that the church of England had a lot of aspects that remained with the Catholic religion. Despite this, loyalty to the king remained strong because the Puritans were not looking to break off from the Church of England instead they wanted to reform the religion and make it their own. These loyalties stretched to such an extent that any sin committed was also considered an act of treason and thus punished. The Salem community was constantly searching for evil within their town to prove their righteousness to God and rid their religion of these witches leading to high rates of fear and paranoia in their daily lives. The strict Puritan religion soon became the root cause of the monstrous imagination that started to form within the community of Salem. Many people still feared the presence of Catholic ideas within their communities and in response were willing to go to any extent to irradiate these