In the May of 1692, Increase Mather returned to New England with Sir William Phipps. By the time of their arrival, the witch trials were already taking place, having started a few months prior in February. As the witch hunt in Salem escalated, the prison cells started to fill up with individuals accused of witchcraft. The confusing political situation following the ascension on William and Mary and the new charter allowed for a court Oyer and Terminer to be put in place on the 27th of May 1692. The lieutenant governor, William Stoughton, became the chief magistrate for this newly appointed court. With Thomas Newton acting as the crown’s attorney, the court went into order. The first individual executed by the court was Bridget Bishop on the …show more content…
Spectral evidence mainly relies upon dreams and visons as sources of proof. The letter, however, did very little to prevent the increasing number of executions. Mather had difficulties recruiting help from the governor of the colony, Sir William Phipps, since he was occupied in Maine battling native Americans. As the of 1992 summer went by, the witch trials would only escalate in their lethality. After the execution of five women on the 19th of July, Mather gave a sermon at Simon Willard's Third Church in Boston, where he further condemned the witch hunt. Increase Mather only attended the trial of George Burroughs, Jr. where he agreed with the verdict. It was not the case that Mathers opposed the prosecuting of individuals for the crime of witchcraft, rather, he opposed the use of spectral evidence in the trials. In September of 1992, Increase Mather published a work known as "Cases of conscience concerning evil spirits". Within the books, he famously proclaims "It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be
Additionally, both courts made use of the following method described in the Malleus maleficarum: “while he is being tortured, he must be questioned on the articles of accusation, and this frequently and persistently, beginning with the lighter charges-for he will more readily confess the lighter than the heavier. And, while this is being done, the notary must write down everything in his record of the trial - how the prisoner is tortured, on what points he is questioned and how he answers.” There was no presumption of innocence in the Salem trials; one was assumed to be guilty and in need of confession, rather than the plaintiffs being forced to prove the supposed acts of witchcraft performed against them. In conclusion, it is surprising that more defendants were not convicted of witchcraft, given the significant lack of due process rights for the accused and the (obviously) Puritan nature of those overseeing the Salem courts, in which hearsay and heresy went hand in
The recent origin of this book is constricting because it has not been widely accredited by historians who study seventeenth century witch trials. Furthermore, Boynton is not an expert in this topic: her field of study in school was medicine and science, not history. In her introduction, Boynton stated her biased viewpoint that the Connecticut witch trials were much more deadly than those of Salem. This bias may have caused her to exaggerate some of the details of the witch trials and thus inaccurately portray the content she analyzes.
Phipps ordered any suspected witches freed from prison in May 1693. Families of the accused witches began petitioning the colony for restitution over the next several
The court met next on June 29th and had heard the cases of five accused women. All five pleaded innocent. They took them in for questioning and when they returned they had changed their verdict to guilty. The women were hanged on July 19. By this time the witchcraft hysteria had spread not only to Salem Town but to Andover.
As the new court was created for the Salem witch trials five judges were assigned, coincidentally three of the appointed judges were really good friends with Cotton Mather. Furthermore, Mather’s own accounts became textual fact for determining the evidence of witches. This heavily influenced the court’s scheme. Mather implied to the judges to seek statements from those that were accused, accepting claims such as a witness testimony that the accused persons spirit or spectral shape appeared to him/her witness in a dream at the time the accused persons physical body was at another location as a legal
Preceding the Salem witch trails, the court fell under attack. Those who made confessions began to recant them. Though they played a direct role in the executions of innocent people, they insisted that they only made accusations out of force. In Document 77, Margaret Jacobs describes the ordeal of how she was told to either confess or be hanged. In another record, “Declaration of Mary Osgood, Mary Tyler, Deliverance Dane, Abigail Barker, Sarah Wilson, and Hannah Tyler,” the girls contend, “There was no other way to save our lives, as the case was then circumstanced, but by our confessing ourselves to be such and such persons as the afflicted represented us to be; they out of tenderness and pity persuaded us to confess what we did confess”
The Mather’s played a role in the trials as well, Cotton Mather was the minister of Boston’s Old North Church. Cotton was a true believer in witchcraft and accused many people. Increase Mather was his father, who was the Boston Minister and mostly believed in witchcraft until his wife got accused of it, then he knew it was all
The man that acquired the help of Reverend Hale during the witch trials has been killed for being seen as unuseful. It is believed that there has been clamored intimations that persuade the court to
In Salem, Massachusetts, Puritans were strong believers in the Bible. The Bible states, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” The Puritans beliefs led to them accusing 20 innocent people of being a witch, this resulted in their deaths in 1692. Even though the Puritans couldn’t see it at the time, their accusations were really based off jealousy, lies, and Salem being divided into two parts. One cause of the Salem witch trial hysteria was jealousy.
The Salem Witch Trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693, it affected the entire town of Salem, but personally affected approximately 150 accused witches (women) and warlocks (men), about 30 of which were executed. When one was convicted of witchcraft it was believed that they had supernatural powers that were given by the devil (in return for being loyal to him), to harm innocent people. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout Massachusetts, a special court was assembled to hear the cases. The first person, Bridget Bishop, was accused in and executed (by hanging) in June 1692. The local justice system was overwhelmed, in some cases, the judge sentenced them to drowning, in this method, they would throw the alleged witch into a deep pond or lake and if they drowned they were pure and not a witch, if they floated, they were a witch and would be burned at the stake.
The Salem Witch Trial examines the accusations of witch craft during the late 1600’s in Salem Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials began when a group of girls accused their first three victims of malicious practice of witchcraft. The suggested practice first occurred in the home of the Reverend, Samuel Parris. He had a Caribbean slave, Tituba, who was said to have bewitched the girls. The girls and Tituba were said to have practiced a black magic dance in the middle of the woods.
This made people of the village question the accuracy of the accusations and it was harder to prove them guilty. Finally, in 1693, Governor Phipps dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer and all the trials were then moved into a higher court. This new court did not allow “spectral evidence” and, because most of the older cases were solely based on this, all the remaining “witches” were ruled innocent. This led to people of Salem soon realizing that they were wrong and that innocent people suffered. Many theories are surround what happened in Salem, although many are far-fetched some may somewhat explain what happened in Salem (The three
Salem, Massachusetts, USA and occurred between February 1692 and May 1693. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned and even more accused; but not pursued by the authorities. 29 were convicted of witchcraft but only 19 were hanged. The best known trials were in the Court of Oyer and Terminer.
The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.
The Witches were able to project themselves as innocent beings before attack an unsuspecting victim. Of course, the only sources Mather’s had to back up his arguments were his spiritual faith, the Bible, and court