Witches And The Salem Witch Trials

What was the Salem Witch Trials? During 1692 and 1693, colonial Massachusetts accused more than 200 people and executed twenty women for practicing witchcraft. Witchcraft at the time was known as the Devil’s magic. Several centuries ago, many religions had a strong belief in the Devil. Among these religions was Christianity. The religions believed that the Devil would give the witches the power to harm others. The witches, in return, would offer the Devil their loyalty. Between the 1300s and the end of the 1600s, more than ten thousand women were executed due to be involved with witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials occurred when Reverend Samuel Parris’s daughter and niece started to behave strangely. Samuel Parris was Salem’s first ordained minister

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

Flaming sermons, bewitched girls, accusations being thrown here and there, and executions terrified colonists during the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials are well known, but they are not the first in America and are very small compared to other witch hunts. In 1648 Margaret Jones was hanged for witchcraft in Massachusetts (Brooks). In Europe 110,000 people were questioned during the 1300s to the 1700s, and 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed (New World Encyclopedia).

The Salem Witch Trials were caused by mass hysteria in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. Christians have always had a great fear of the devil as evidenced by the witch trials of Europe in the fourteenth century. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, where Salem was located, was predominately settled by Puritans, a branch of the Christian faith. Puritan ideals and laws ran the Colony. The citizens of Salem believed that the devil would approach witches and offer them power in exchange for their loyalty, allegiance, and evil acts. These religious fears were one of the strongest flames in the fire that was the Salem Witch Trials.

The Salem Witch Trials took place in colonial Massachusetts within modern day town Danvers and continued from sixteen ninety-two to sixteen ninety-three. The “Witchcraft Craze” rippled throughout Europe and included the events at Salem Village. This craze lasted from the thirteen hundreds to the sixteen hundreds and was caused by many religious reasons. More than two hundred people were accused of witchcraft, the “devil’s magic,” and twenty were executed in Salem Town. Overall tens of thousands of accused witches and warlocks were executed. The colony admitted the trials were a mistake and were a combination of paranoia and injustice.

In Europe from the late fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries many people, both men and women, were persecuted as witches. The reasons for the persecution of individuals as witches included gender discrimination, religious fanaticism, an explanation for the otherwise unexplainable events that took place, and even as a way for secular officials to gain more wealth. Misogyny being a cause to the witch trials may have resulted from the new roles of women in society conflicting with the traditional views of women as sinful, and also accounts for why the majority of individuals persecuted were women. A religious spark was ignited during the Protestant Reformation as people became more religiously devoted and wanted to eliminate threats to their faith, such as witches. Many strange occurrences such as disease or even non-harmful events that were simply unexplainable led people to believe witches as the causes. Some people may have not even believed another person to be a witch but may have just wanted wealth and that person’s possessions and declared them a witch for that reason. All these factors contributed to the period now known as the witch craze, which resulted in the torture and death of many people.

It is universally understood that the majority of humans are skeptical, if not reluctant to understand or accept that which unknown or different from what they previously considered being true, right, or normal. Such was the case in 1692 when over a hundred people from the Salem Town, Salem Village, and surrounding areas of Massachusetts were accused of witchcraft, leading to numerous arrests and even executions. The events that transpired in the small New England colony have intrigued, seduced, and baffled historians since their occurrence hundreds of years ago. The majority of these historians have conducted extensive amounts of research with the goal of determining the origins and factors that prompted these witch trials. While many attribute the 1692 accusations and trials to past beliefs in the supernatural that have remained since the fourteenth century, historians Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum conclude that the Salem witch accusations and trial were the result of tensions regarding wealth, residential location, and morality along with spirituality. However, their approach in their research differs from that of other historians. In their publication, Salem Possessed, Boyer and Nissenbaum support their argument that the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials occurred due to geographic, economic, and moral tensions using maps, journal entries, and tax records.

The Salem witch trials of the 17th century, was an event that took place in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts which spread mass hysteria that centralized around the idea of witchcraft and reflected religious persecution. This tale of events provoked the fears of Puritans whom at the time hated and believed witchcraft to be evil, the practice of committing ill acts on the innocent, the aid of demonic spirits and conveying with Satan. Therefore, the idea of Devil worshipping and witchcraft became a central scapegoat as a reason to exterminate those who were outcasts and did not practice in the Puritan faith accordingly to the rest of the town. For some, it is unclear if whether the Salem witch trials sparked by two separate affairs.

The United States Government has no problem with getting out on technicalities. Thus it is not surprising that we have the same human rights problems now that we did during the Salem Witch Trials. In Guantanamo Bay, people accused of terrorism are held without conviction for as long as 15 years. The United States Government is allowed to do this without charging the accused because it is not United States territory. Although this may not be morally correct, it certainly serves the purpose of getting people to confess, and holding people that are believed to be a threat to this country. There are plenty of similarities in due process shared between Guantanamo Bay and Salem, Massachusetts.

To many people, magic is any event that is unexplainable. According to Christopher Muscato, the belief and practice of magic is known as witchcraft. Around the 17th century, magic was thought to be practiced in every corner of the world. Eventually people began to fear witches and their “witchcraft.” In many places such as Europe and Africa, people began to hunt witches. One of the biggest hunts for witches took place here in America. More specifically, Massachusetts. During the seventeenth century, America was still being colonized. As the colonization was happening, disease, poverty, and famine spread. People began to look for the worse. Because Salem was still new to their developments and had become a town based on religion, small things

To fully understand what took place in Salem we need to know what the Bible, Satan and Puritans are all about. At this time as well, there were other laws being created that would allow Protestants to openly worship. This lead to a large amount of tension among the Puritans that believed this type of religion was the work of the devil. The life of a Puritan was the Bible and the word of it. The Bible clearly states that witch craft, fortune tellers and sorcery are evil. In the Bible Satan is evil, he tricks and deceives humans in an attempt to cause them to do evil. To participate in witch craft was considered to be making a pact with Satan. Puritans believed and lived by the word of the God. The word of God is not to be taken lightly or

The setting is static. It serves as the constant in chaos from the play. The physical settings contributes little to the story other than setting up a place of symbolism, irony, and character development or revealment.In a couple days of which the play spans, dramatic changes to the social structure of Salem occur. As previously stated, The Crucible, elucidated Miller’s take on the Salem witch trials at Massachusetts Bay from 1692 to 1693. This particular period and historical setting are vital to understanding the heart truth. This craft enabled me to relate to text better as I learned of the Salem Witch Trials before reading the play, this helped with the imagery of the play and setting set the basis for all of the other writers

In 1692 the actions of three girls quickly launched Salem onto the path of committing one of the largest witch hunts the New World has ever known. The witch hunt was fueled by a mass hysteria among the townspeople, this hysteria was the result of the strictness of their society and a number of internal and external stressors. The initial wave of panic when rumors of witchcraft arose gave way to compete hysteria when accusations began.

According to thoughtco.com the earliest know “witch hunts” were in B.C.E. The Hebrew Scriptures addressed witchcraft, including Exodus 22:18 and various verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The history of witchcraft in Europe begins with both folk beliefs and with religious and classical texts. The term “witch hunt” is a campaign directed against a person or group holding unpopular views. In Europe about 75% to 80% of those executed were women. It was also true that most of those accused and executed were among the poorest, most marginal in society. In some areas and times, mostly men were accused. Most of the men who were accused or executed were connected with women who were arrested.

Salem was primarily a Puritan society of colonists that relocated from Europe to avoid religious oppression and moved to America. The puritans lived by strong values and religious doctrine, which in time led to the hysteria of the Salem witch trials. They lived in constant suppression and lived by an extreme virtue and laws of the bible. One question that is frequently asked is “what caused the afflicters behavior”? The ergotism theory is one and evidence that a family feud may have been a major cause of the witch trials (Documentary Archive and Transcription