Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Salem Witch Trials
The event of Salem witch trials happened in the year 1692 in the Suffolk and Middlesex counties of Massachusetts. The case was highlighted due to property disagreements, hysteria and jealousy. All because of personal vendettas, a dozen or more people were hanged even though there was no evidence but only stories and assumptions by the town's women and girls. The case was stretched for more than a year after which the Governor Phips William pardoned the other accused witches because the case had become "too boring." The trial was a result of a few girls starting from Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, who were observed to have hysterical fits being and were somehow capable of screaming and contorting their bodies. No medical explanations could be derived for the mysterious illness and neither could the other girls who were getting affected by the same problems could explain their behavior. Hence the women and girls of the county blamed their neighbors, servants and presumed enemies for practicing witchcraft on them. These accusations eventually lead to what we refer as the historical event of the Salem Witch Trials.
Several explanations have been provided in the book as to what were the underlying factors which caused such an apprising the two counties. One would be the explosion of various inconsistencies between the prospering mercantile strata and...
93). The book also accounts for the overpowering number of accusations made by the women and girls of the area based on their suspicion. In general the book argues that the Salem town was far more forward and wealthier than the Salem village. The Puritan religion, which was followed more thoroughly in the Salem village forbade
Any form of entertainment, hence the town was more open to different and new possibilities than the village. For instance, one of the first few who were hanged in suspicion of witchcraft was Bridget Bishop, who owned a cider shop in the village which was not licensed.
In the book we also see that there were personal vendettas in relation to the issues of the ownership of land the inheritance process. The author makes an observation that all those who were accused of witch craft were situated in town of Salem, and all those who accused were more prominently placed in the village side of Salem and hence the meeting house was closer to the village as well. This automatically connects to Rev. Parris in a sense that those who were the accusers connected themselves as the supporters of Rev. Parris and the accused including their relatives formed the group which opposed the…
References
Frances Hill. (2000). "The Salem Witch Trials Reader." Da Capo Press
Salem Witch Trials Why and How Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen? The Salem Witch Trials occurred in the colonial Massachusetts between the years of sixteen ninety-two and sixteen ninety-three. It was during this time that more than two hundred individuals were accused of practicing witchcraft, (that is the devil's magic) and at least twenty people were executed. However, the colony eventually admitted that the trials were held mistakenly and families of
As the Puritan leadership took the stand that their decisions were made directly from the scripture (indeed there was an absolute marriage of Church and State within these communities) any challenge to their processes (such as a newcomer objecting to the financial controls placed upon them) could be then perceived as evidence of a person who is not in alignment with God. Newcomers were more likely to propose challenges
Salem Witch Trials were an atrocity in a period of American history. Several young girls, who had heard tales of the supernatural from a West Indian slave, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused three women of witchcraft. Put in that position, the three women, in turn, named others in false confessions (Merriam-Webster 1416). This caused hysteria much like Joseph McCarthy caused in 1950 in his hunt for
Salem Witchraft Trials Salem witchcraft is probably the most fascinating and most talked about subject in the history of the world. How people were accused of being witches and wizards, the trials that ensued, the baseless charges that were made and the hysteria that had gripped Salem in the 17th century have fascinated historians around the globe and most prominently in the United States and Europe and endless researches have been
While it may explain the violence against the witches, it really does not do a good job of explaining how a society that had moved away from a belief in sorcery changes and begins to believe in sorcery once again. It certainly does not adequately explain how such a transformation can occur within the span of a generation. Even if an underlying belief in the power of sorcery was
Witchcraft in the 16th & 17 Centuries: Response to Literature At first glance, a logical 21st Century explanation for the "witch craze" (also known as a witch-hunt) during the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe was based largely upon human ignorance. That is to say, the belief that a sub-culture of the general population performed witchcraft (and other magic-related phenomena), and ate the flesh of children, helped the unenlightened explain the