Witches And The Salem Witch Trials

Thousands of years ago, many Christians believed that the Devil was able to give people power to harm others in order to gain their loyalty. This led society in Europe to go crazy all the way from the beginning of the 1300’s to the end of the 1600’s. The Salem Witch Trials is the most popular event of the “witchcraft craze” that took place. It was an event that led the residents of Salem in to a state of paranoia. Between the months of March and October in 1692, one hundred and fifty people were arrested on the accusations of witchcraft, leading to the death of twenty-four people. The trials destroyed hundreds of lives leading to the loss of property and lack of labor need in order to run farms and households. Relationships between neighbors, parents and children, and husbands and wives were all destroyed by the accusations of witchcraft. This tragedy all began by two young girls who began displaying “possessed” symptoms which eventually shook the Puritan society to its core and has a lasting effect on society to this day.

Historians called this period the dark time when men and women hunted for witches known as the Salem Witch trials. European descents brought them the belief in witches and the devil. These beliefs that they believed in so much were from the teaching of the catholic church. During the seventeenth century, people were executed for being believed they were witches and followers of Satan. Most of these executions were performed in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Mainly all of the accused victims were women, many historians believe that the charges of witchcraft were a way to control the women who threatened to take the power away from the men. During the Salem Witch trials how did the outbreak of the trials start and did religious beliefs of the European descents affect the relations of the Salem witch trials?

“Belief in the supernatural–and specifically in the devil’s practice of giving certain humans (witches) the power to harm others in return for their loyalty–had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem).” (http://www.history.com/topics/salem-witch-trials)

In 1692, in Massachusetts Bay Colony town of Salem Village there were many contributing factors to the execution of fourteen women, five men, and two dogs. The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. It began as a few girls being accused of witchcraft, then slowly and more progressively it was many people that were being accused. The first few started it out of boredom, then it gout out of hand. The process of identifying witches began with suspicions or rumours.

Throughout the town of Salem in 1695, Puritans thrived off of the word of God and his great-doings. In this paper readers will begin to understand the exact events that had led up to the accusations against the townspeople of Salem for witchcraft. Puritans possessed strong feelings of vengeance around the time the accusations began. They would accuse anyone even slightly suspicious of anything other than loving God and being pure which was correct to live as such back then. Many innocent people hung back then for being accused of witchcraft. What really started the suspicion in the first place though? Who decided that witchcraft was the correct form of language for such an act?

The witch trials began after a group of girls started to act different and no one knew why they were acting like that, later on they assumed it was the devils work. “Salem Village, Massachusetts was sown in January 1692 when a group of young girls began to display bizarre behavior…community was at a loss to explain the…states that afflicted the youngsters” (History.com Staff). In contrast, a lot of people were scared that the devil was now among them. Since they were scared and didn’t know who was innocent or not, they accused people out of nowhere. The first news about witches started with a group of girls that were curious and decided to go against their beliefs.

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.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearing and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in the colony of Massachusetts. This whole theory of witchcraft came when a few girls started acting strange and were taken before the judge because they were accused of witchcraft. When they were brought before the judge one of the girls admitted to witchcraft hoping that it would get her out of trouble. Instead she was hung as well as all the others girls because of this. Over time, 24 individual people, mostly women, were hung for practicing witchcraft. All women were hung except one man named Giles Corey. He was pressed to death. The town of Salem was worried that these people who were accused of witchcraft would spread and more people would

Have you ever heard of or about the Salem witch trials? Or anything like the witch hunts? Well I have and say that Betty & Abigail were acting because if you have seen or read articles about the Salem witch Trials you could notice as I did that Betty & Abigail and the other girls were just joking. And that they were only doing the supposed bewitched or possessed acting to blame someone whom was tracking down their steps. And other times they would act up only when when they saw the accused witch. And I am going prove that the girls weren’t possessed and that they were faking it. Because they blamed family, they mimic the supposed witches. And they would blame people to cover up their steps.

The Salem Witch Trials were a time of chaos and panic. It began in 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. Three girls named Elizabeth (Betty) Parris, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam began acting strange. They uttered odd words and sounds, threw things and had trance-like states. People were terrified and they didn’t know what to do. The fact that the girls had been playing a fortune telling game before the strange behavior didn’t help the cause. After Reverend Parris (Elizabeth’s father) performed a special blessing and the strange occurrences still didn’t stop, the town declared the girls to be possessed by Satan and the girls blamed three women for possessing them. 2 of the women pleaded innocent but surprisingly the Parris family slave, who Elizabeth Parris accused of possessing her admitted to being a witch. She said “the devil came to me and bid me serve him”. She described many strange colored animals who tried to convince her to sign the devil’s book. The slave claimed she signed it and so did many others and they would come and kill the Puritans and Catholics of Salem. All three women were accused of practicing witchcraft (the work of the devil), and the trials began. About 150 people were accused and put on trial and 20 people were executed. During this time people were afraid of witches because they thought Satan was present and trying to take away children’s innocence so they tried and tortured witched and declared random people “witches”.

Even though the Salem witch trials were made to seem formal, they were actually subjective and not based on fact. Since there were multiple people being accused of witchcraft, the trials were short and quick to sentence. The witch trials lasted less than a year. The first arrests were made on March 1, 1692, and the final hanging day was September 22, 1692. The Court of Oyer and Terminer was dissolved in October of 1692.

The Salem Witch Trials happened in Salem, Massahutes in the year 1692, but the puritan’s origin belief of witchcraft dates back to ancient times. This time was during the early civilization of Mesopotamia. Witchcraft was defined as the act of invoking spiritual powers to accomplish a supernatural task- such as being able to predict the future or placing a curse upon a neighbor. The people who dedicated themselves as Christ followers to and participate in his teachings and be a disciple were regarded as Christians. Imposingly, those who associated themselves with dark forces of nature by calling upon satanic powers to bring harm to others were known as witches. Spiritual ware fare was introduced by early Christian missionaries to western European culture. These Christian missionaries started running into other practices of religion that stood

Human nature tends to fear the unknown, therefore the persecution of suspected evil individuals was common before the age of reason. Multiple cases of religious persecution occurred in Europe, often involving men and women accused of worshipping the devil. The Puritan belief system linked directly to ideas of the devil infiltrating the daily lives of people through evil magic and possession. When the Puritans immigrated in masses to the Americas, they brought their belief systems over. Following the Puritan Revolution in England, the Puritans experienced a decline in the success of their idealistic establishments in the New World. Within this unstable time period, between 1692-1693, there occurred a Witch Trial event in Salem Village, Massachusetts that surpasses all others, for it was the first time such an event occurred in America. Historians continue to debate all the causes of such a horrendous event of paranoia that brought the demise of several innocent women. The Salem Witch Trials were brought about in part due to the limited influence of women within Puritan society, the fundamental ideology regarding women within the Puritan religion, as well as increased political tensions arising within the New England colonies.

Beginning in 14th century Europe, hysteria from the devil’s practice of witchcraft emerged. This frenzy was caused by the belief that witches were given the power to harm others from satan in return for their loyalty. As the belief in the supernatural increased in Europe, tens of thousands of accused witches were executed. As the hysteria in Europe began dwindling down, however, the witch craze sprang up again in the New England colonies. In a time where the after-effects of the French and Indian war mixed with a smallpox epidemic, the Salem Witch Hunts provided the necessary scapegoat for the tensions that were fueled among the suspicions and resentment between neighbors.