Revolutionary War Cultural Factors

Mary Beth Norton (2002) explains that new accusations of witchcraft would spread beyond Salem’s outcasts and onto more respected members of society. Typically witchcraft was viewed as a working- class crime, but soon two upstanding Salem church members, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, were accused. Rebecca Nurse was one of six women tried during the Court of Oyer and Terminer’s second sitting, from June 28th to July 2nd. Her trial proved to be particularly shocking. Nurse was convicted despite a petition of support from thirty-nine friends and neighbors, and active family efforts to discredit her accusers.

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of court trials in Salem, Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693 alleging the practice of witchcraft and murder by a number of women and men. With Massachusetts descent from a Puritan England, these accusations were serious, and they developed into mass panic. Among those accused was Bridget Byshop who was the first to be executed after she was found guilty. The document, “The Examination of Bridget Byshop at Salem Village 19. April.1692 by John Hauthorn & Jonath: Corwin Esq’rs” was handwritten by Samuel Parris, and recorded the lawyers examination against Bridget Byshop.

There are several incidences in history when someone was accused of witchcraft. Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with witchcraft but if someone said it, everyone believed them. Some many people’s lives were taken because of something they didn’t do not had a part in. From June – September 1692, 19 men and women have been convicted of witchcraft. They were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village for hanging.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a dark time in American history. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft and 20 were killed during the hysteria. Ever since those dark days ended, the trials have become synonymous with mass hysteria. The witchcraft hysteria in Salem is when a group of young girls, who later came to be known as the “afflicted girls,” fell ill after playing a fortune-tellingdancing in the woods game and began behaving strangely. During this time period, people feared that the Devil was constantly trying to find ways to infiltrate and destroy Christians and their communities.

The Salem Gazette has the news about the so called “Salem Witch Trials”. These trials began in January of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts when Betty Parris, Tituba, Abigail Williams, and several other girls were found dancing in the forest, around a fire, in the middle of the night. This suspicious activity led to the hospitalization of young Betty Parris, and the rise of hysteria in our small, farm town. After questioning, none of the girls confessed until they were threatened to be punished.

The Salem Witch Trials I. From June to September of the 1692 in the small farming village of Salem, Massachusetts, nineteen people were hanged on Gallows Hill for the crime of witchcraft. But as many as thirty-seven (sources conflict as to the exact number) may have died when one factors in the men and women who were hanged, those who died in prison, and the one man (Giles Corey) who was pressed to death. I am writing about this incident because I believe it to be significant to history for two major reasons. Firstly, this incident did not occur in the time or place where one would have expected it.

The Causes of the Salem Witch Trials Much of modern America’s fear and infamous interest in witches has been derived most likely from the profound Salem Witch Trials. “The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft,” stated History.com authors. However, many historians still deliberate how such events occurred in the first place. Based on several presented documents, some conclusions suggest that there was a prominent cause to the beginning of the Salem Witch Trials. All in all, the cause of the Salem Witch Trials was the attempt of Salem citizens to either defend or create family

A group of young girls began to behave strangely, complaining of physical maladies, visions, and trembling, and babbling uncontrollably. They blamed their behavior on three village women who, the girls believed, practiced witchcraft upon them. (“Salem Witch Trials” Gale). Women who were accused of witch crafted were imprisoned, then hanged, drowned and stoned (Karlsen). Throughout 1692, 156 women were accused of witchcraft, and 20 of them were sentenced to death (Karlsen).

Nearly anyone from the New England has heard of the famous Salem Witch Trials. A year of persecution, leading to the accusation of nearly 200 citizens of all ages. No one was safe; men, women, children, even pets stood trial and 20 were hung for the supposed crime of witchcraft (Blumberg). 1692 was a year of witch hunting. Most today blame the trials on hysteria, or perhaps a bad case of paranoia.

The Salem Witch Trials was an event caused by much more than a town full of “witches”. The small town in New England in 1962 faced one of the United States’ most disastrous mass genocides. A group of ten young girls accused roughly 200 people of making deals with the devil. Many of the accused were hanged at Proctor’s Ledge by Gallows Hill, while a few died in the jails waiting for their death sentence. The accusations were based almost entirely on spectral evidence, or evidence from the supernatural.

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.

Since we learn our first history lessons, we are instilled with the belief of the lionized legacies of our founding fathers. We are taught that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and their fellow-founding fathers were heroic men fighting for a noble cause. We are supposed to ignore the fact that these men were little more than rebels filled to the brim with paranoia that used immoral tactics in war, and refused to pay their debts for the protection they had from Britain. People tend to give the colonies the heroic stance of the war, when in reality the cause of the war was a complex one with both sides displaying less than moral principles. The sides of the war were a money-hungry empire that was starving financially and

“But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary.” (pg.115). During this time people of the town were easily persuaded to persecute their fellow neighbors, due to their religion and it’s principles. Thirty years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials there was a witch scare in Hartford,Connecticut, resulting in raised tensions about witches, making the hangings of 20 people more of a safety precaution rather than a righteous and fair trial.

Bridget Bishop, a resident of Salem, was the first person to be tried as a witch. Surprisingly, Bishop was accused of witch craft by the highest number of witneses. After Bishop, more than two hundred people were tried of practicing witchcraft and twenty were executed. Many of these accusations arose from jealous, lower class members of society, especially towards women who had come into a great deal of land or wealth. Three young children by the names of Elizabeth, Abigail, and Ann were the first three people to be “harmed” by the witches.

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.