The Fear Of Fear In The Salem Witch Trials

During the 1600’s in the United States there was much economic and religious dissention within the Puritan society: a group of English reformed protestants who pursued the Purification of the Church of England. Among these issues, is the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials that prosecuted women to be found worshippers of the devil. The Puritans found the necessity to exercise this crusade in order to stay by their moral codes of conformity which included witchcraft to be the greatest crime, punishable by death. However, the true reasons of the trials was not to simply follow their religious constitutions. It is mainly in part from corruption of religion and how some had used the trials as a form of personal gain, the influences of the attitudes from the strict Puritan lifestyle, the need for unification between the Salem factions, and the society’s fear of evil.

The Salem witch trials were a result of mass hysteria. It was caused by false accusations. On May 1693, fourteen women, five men, and two dogs were executed for supposed supernatural crimes. The Salem trials have a unique place in our collective history today. (" Saxon, V,Procedure Used in...").

Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials. Marc Aronson. (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, November 1, 2003. 272.)

From the time of the 1690’s the entirety of Salem, Massachusetts were Puritans. “The Puritan lifestyle was restrained and rigid: People were expected to work hard and repress their emotions or opinions. Individual differences were frowned upon.” (Salem Witch Trials, The World Behind the Hysteria). These people believed that doing anything sinful would result in punishment from God. Just as much as they believed in God, they also believed in the Devil. Keeping up with the Puritan code, it led to the first women being accused of witchcraft. They were viewed as pariahs, and seen differently. Had the Puritan government let the afflicted defend themselves, not be so dependent on religion, not investigating the facts or scrutinize the trials the killing of many could have been prevented. The hangings from the trials would ultimately be the last in America.

The Salem Witch Trials was a very dark period in our history that occurred in the colony of Salem, Massachusetts. These trials began in February 1692 and ended in May of 1693. There were over two hundred individuals who were accused of practicing witchcraft. Of those two hundred accused, nearly twenty innocent souls were lost. This was one of the most severe cases of mass hysteria in recorded history. There was a great effort exhorted by the Massachusetts General Court to declare a guilty verdict, that the framers of the United States Constitution went to great lengths to never let this type of tragedy occur again; commonly known as the eighth amendment. Remarkably so, some may argue that there were similarities in Salem and the

During 1692, Puritan society in Massachusetts was filled with pressures: pressures to be a loyal and dedicated Christian and also pressures to remain in a uniform manner so each individual would not be criticized. Tensions in Puritan society escalated during the Salem witch trials, Puritans, mostly middle-aged wealthy women were kept under close observation and if something seemed unusual about an individual they would be persecuted by the town and told they are a witch, often this lead to their banishment from the colony or ultimately their death. The ideology of predestination created extreme conflicts throughout the Puritan society. People were constantly in fear if they committed a sin, they would go to hell. This fear sparked a distress that witchcraft was among the colonies and Satan was leading it by controlling the ones accused of witchcraft. Puritan society was dominated by fear that caused victimization throughout the colonies.

History shows the remarkable things that society has done over the years, it also shows where society failed and mistakes were made. This is the case of the Salem Witch Trials. The people of Salem experienced an event that would change them and the course of this country forever. The mass hysteria and rampant paranoia that swept New England in 1692, is what turned neighbor against neighbor. The Salem villagers would accuse one another of casting spells, consorting with the devil, and being witches, all of which was a punishable crime in the 17th century. ("Search")

Robert Calef was a merchant in Massachusetts during the witch hunts of 1692. The primary source that is being analyzed isn’t about him but is from many stories that he collected and put them together in a manuscript. This manuscript that contains true accounts about the trial and it included the attempted escape of Mrs. Cary of Charlestown Massachusetts told from her husband Nathaniel Cary’s viewpoint. I believe that Nathaniel Cary wanted this account to be written in order to highlight and expose how the puritans handled the witch trials and specifically the trial against his wife and to inform people of what was truly happening in New England at the time. In this primary source analysis, I will be discussing what this document tells us

Human beings always have been curious creatures. We are a species that is always searching for answers to unexplainable events. Take aliens for example. To us, aliens may or may not exist (depending on your individual belief of course). Yet we still take such an interest in them that we continuously search for answers and proof of alien. Now that we have modern day technology, we can attain “proof” of alien life-form somewhere deep in outer space. But given the date 1692 in New England, if we were to even come in contact with aliens it would have been considered some supernatural phenomena, and even cause quite a bit of hysteria. That is what happened to the puritans in Salem village during the Salem Witch Trials, in Massachusetts, in the year 1962. The puritans of Salem village were extremely paranoid, and they believed that if something can’t be explained then it had the devils influence. So when a group of Salem girls spoke up about the devil and witches, the villagers of Salem went into a panicked frenzy. Truth of the matter is that there were no witches in Salem nor was the devil at war against Salem; the Salem Witch Trials were only a result of endless lies, conspiracies, and side effects of an illness.

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he writes, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 77). This partially fictionalized tale of the Salem Witch Trials points to one of the causes of the trials, vengeance, but the over dramatized tale 's early stages were quiet. The Salem Witch Episode had humble beginnings in the town of Salem Village, Massachusetts, but evolved into one of the most widely known witch trials in American History. The gallows in Salem claimed the lives of nineteen men and woman during the spring and summer of 1692 due to the accusations of witchcraft with over a hundred people who were accused. After all the terror and the uproar of the trials occurred, everything came to a screeching halt (Linder 1). Due to the unique circumstances of this particular set of witch trials, from the rampant accusations to the discontinuation of the trials mass hysteria does not seem to be fault as with other witch trials, but a variety of factors. The Salem witch trials were not just a simple case of mass hysteria, but a combination of factors ranging from poisons to superstitions to scapegoats, resulting in the outbreak of the Salem Witch episode.

Throughout history, there have been many cases of discriminatory accusations of people, including the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were a string of trials, hearings and prosecutions of many people accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts between the dates of February 1692 and May 1693. The trials ended up leading to the execution of twenty people, men and women, but mainly women. The Salem Witch Trials that took place about three hundred years ago affected the lives of everyday civilians during that time in ways such as politically, religiously, economically, fearfully, mentally, and sometimes in other various other ways.

In 1692-1693, the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria occurred, resulting in 20 deaths out of the 200 accused of practicing the Devil’s magic, a practice that women were commonly accused of. Salem, Massachusetts, was a colony that consisted of Puritans, both Separatists and non Separatists alike. From the start, the Puritans believed that the Bible was true in all aspects: every word, every idea, every thought--was true. The Puritans also had minimal understanding of science, which led them to believe that phenomenon was an act of the Devil. Thus, when three young girls admitted to seeing demons and started behaving strangely, the Puritans grew progressively hysterical because they became more convinced that witches existed within Salem as they had little scientific knowledge. In a nutshell, the cause of the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria were Puritan fundamentalism, misogyny, and hysteria.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 was first brought about as a game by young adolescent girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts. The young girls had falsely claimed they were possessed by devilish beings which were innocent men and women of Salem Village causing an uproar of witchcraft in their village. I believe the great hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials was solely out of boredom, meaning it was a break from the norm and caused excitement quite easily. Those who were accused went to “trial” but given the behavior of the young girls who had claimed to be possessed made it impossible to walk free. Those who went to trial were hanged at the hanging tree for the practice of witchcraft whether there was proof or not.

The events that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 have had historians scrutinizing over the causes for years. There have been several theories about how the situation became so out of control. The haunting story is well known in America, taught to our youth and has been the focus of numerous forms of media. We are familiar with the story but unfamiliar with the origin of its beginnings. The role of religion and the presence of mob psychology were the primary catalyst behind the Salem witch trials.

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister 's daughter began to scream and convulse, while other girls manifested the same symptoms. Their doctor suggested one cause, witchcraft. That grim diagnosis launched a Puritan inquisition that took 24 lives, filled prisons with innocent people, and frayed the soul of a Massachusetts community called Salem. It ended less than a year later, but not before the hanging of 20 men and women, including an elderly man who was crushed to death. The hysteria spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in Salem. Aside from suffrage, the Salem witch trials represent the only moment when women played a central role in American history. There are many theories as to what caused the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials and the bewitchment of several young girls including the lack of freedom and want of attention from young girls, the role of religion and Satan in Salem, lack of verifiable evidence, economic and social divisions within the community, and the possibility of ergotism.