During the Salem witch trials in 1692 many people were accused of performing witchcraft. This essay will discuss the definition of a witch, who was classified as a witch, who were accused, what these said witches did to the people of salem, and the reasons as to why the accused were accused.
Definition of a Witch According to the smithsonianmag.com (2007) and History.com (2011) a witch is a human who through the Devil has the ability to harm people. The witches would harm people to prove their loyalty toward the Devil. Most often a witch is an outsider to the inner community who, compared to the Puritan community was the weakest. Again, however according to merrium-webster.com a witch is currently classifed as a women whom is thought to
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They withdrew themselves from the church to remain pure. Most of those who moved to Salem were a “larger, better-financed group”. According to vcu.edu (n.d.) Puritans segregated themselves from Europe to show England “with its religion that they regarded as corrupted, just what a religious community could be” A couple of generations later after coming to New England, the puritans became “weak” and stopped with holding exactly what was expected of them. They began to “be rather cruel, involved in killing and persecuting the native Indians and people of other religions”. At the same time as this “The holy people of Salem found themselves doing what were some pretty unholy things, all in the name of …show more content…
At the time of the Salem witch trials she was married to Edward Bishop, however, before she was married to Edward she was married twice before. She proved herself to be someone who was weak in nature to the Puritan belief and was accused because of it.
Church member Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse whose husband had high status in the community, and according to The Huffington Post (2013) those who were accused of being a witch in Salem were mainly an English Puritan, married with little to no children, had a bad reputation, had a history of crimes, female, middle aged, and were accused by another witch.
The accusations of witchcraft came from those who were afraid of outsiders, and because they had resentment towards those they accused. Most often the accused had higher titles in the community. Tituba was Parris’s house slave, she was accused because she was from another country and spoke another language. Tituba confessed to the witchcraft because she believed that the Devil would take her back to Barbados. According to school.discovereducation.com (n.d.) those who were accused were seen as outcasts to the community. Those who they seen were different and an outcast to their community were: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah
The Salem Witch Trials In March 1692, Rebecca Nurse, an elderly woman and respected member of Salem Village, was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft. She was accused based solely on the testimony of four young girls who claimed that the apparition of Rebecca Nurse had severely harmed them. Many witnesses testified in favor of her, but ultimately the "afflicted girls" prevailed. Nurse was executed on July 19, 1692.
There were several tensions throughout colonial America. In the beginning the colonies struggled financially. Many came to the New World with the promise of land and opportunity and it was difficult to get started. Many farmers lacked the proper tools to tend their land and many died from a lack of good medicine. The work was hard and labor intensive for crops like rice and sugar and this required indentured servants and later slavery.
The Salem witch trials can be considered as a series of hearings and prosecution of people accused of being witches or involved with any type of witchcraft. They are based on the belief in the conflict between God and Satan. Like the Red Scare, the idea of witchcraft was also a fear the people had. Everyone had a suspicion of who was a witch? Did witches exist?
Christianity was prevalent in the 1600’s and anyone who didn’t believe in God was seen as a heretic and put to death. In 1641 the colonists established a legal code and put witchcraft as the second one, the punishment for that, of course, was death. The Devil was highly feared and if there was word of somebody using witchcraft a big deal would be made out of it; as The Salem Witch Trials have proven. Women were mainly the ones who happened to be executed because they were also feared, if any woman had the same amount of power as a man she must’ve made a deal with the Devil. All of this made 1692 was an intricate time for the people of Salem Village, Massachusetts.
She would also cast spells in the forest which caused people to believe that she was practicing witchcraft. She was the first person to ever be accused and convicted of dealing with the supernatural and because of that, the whole town was not on her side. She told everyone that “the devil came to [her] and bid [her] serve him” (crucible, Miller) which basically meant that she was controlled by the devil and she had no say in any of it. People of Salem went as far as to say that they saw her dancing with the devil and they could tell that she was doing it on purpose. She was also told that her spell casting in the forest was witchcraft and that was added to the list of reasons for her to be shunned.
As said in Document D: “They… soon became intoxicated… by the terrible success of their [acting]...” Their act caused the deaths of many of the people of Salem, just for
According to Christine Heyrman, the name Salem means peace. The Salem Witch Trials were disreputable for many reasons, which makes the Hebrew meaning of Salem sort of ironic because the trials were everything but peaceful. The trials occurred in a village in colonial Massachusetts during 1692-1693 (Blumberg). During this period, around 200 people were accused of witchcraft. One thing starting this period of time was the devil’s magic.
Not because she was a witch but because she couldn’t pay her bills, therefore she was an easy target. People came forward against her declaring that they had seen her image doing things. Recalling events like seeing her beside their beds, and others accusing her of bad luck. “A villager named Samuel Grey told the court that Bishop visited his bed at night and tormented him” (Douglas).
Salem was known for its dark events and history, the Salem Witch Trials was a great hysteria that happened during the spring of 1692 in Salem Massachusetts . This all happened because a group of young girls were said to be possessed by the devil in Salem Village. After this happened, several other women were accused of witchcraft. The first witch to be convicted was Bridget Bishop who, after many times, defended herself saying she had nothing to do with any of the events. But was hung on June 10th, 1692.
Not only religion was a big part in Salem during this time it also caused a bunch of problems and caused an uproar of problems when the community had to deal with which craft. I think when these things started happening people in the community really thought about what they believed in and maybe changed for the better or for the worse, and these circumstances brought big change in the
This casued many friendships in the community to be destroyed. It divided the people of Salem against each other. In What Were the Salem Witch Trials? It says “They pointed fingers at one another and cried “Witch!”
REVIEW OF LITRATURE A.) SUMMARY SOURCE A Although the whole book had information on the Salem witch trials. The introduction, chapter 1 and 2 and the conclusion had information regarding the research needed • Introduction: states what the Salem witch trials where and who they accused.
The Puritans ran from persecution but then used the witch hunt to persecute innocent people based on the word of the women and men who had ulterior motives. The women used this opportunity to punish people they long had problems or resentment for. These women- Abigail, Tituba, and Mary- were aware of the power they felt when they were being heard by people in their community who were deemed Godly, upstanding citizens. So, they loved the sense of power they felt. Although the townspeople of Salem used religion as the reason for the witch hunt, the witch hunt created chaos because people started using it a revenge mechanism.
One cause of the witch trial hysteria was the story of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, the two were cousins, they decided to visit a fortune teller. This occurred on February 29, 1692, shortly after receiving their fortunes Parris’s father, who was a priest, began to notice that his daughter was acting strange, he eventually found out about the session with the teller and was
Many practicing Christians, at the time, believed that the Devil could persuade people to use the powers that he gave them to harm others. The Salem Witch Trials occurred because of resource struggles, many women were accused and tortured, and in the end the Governor realized that it was a big mistake. (“Salem Witch Trials”, 1). In 1689, English rulers William and Mary started a war with France in the American colonies which sent many refugees into the Essex County and Salem Village.