How Did The Salem Witch Craft Trials Of 1692

Finally, a strong belief in the occult could have also been another cause for the Salem Witch Trials. The New Englanders believed in the devil and omens. They thought the devil wanted to take over their world, but all attempts had failed. They believed the accused were possessed by the

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts a violent panic broke out. The Salem witch trial hysteria largely caused by religious beliefs, suspicious acts, and ergot poisoning. One main cause of the witch hysteria was religious beliefs. Puritans of the Church were strong holders of every small thing in the Bible.

In 1692, in the Essex County of Massachusetts, particularly in the community of Salem Village, a series of witchcraft afflictions, accusations, trials and executions began to take place. Afflicted with spells of black magic and sorcery, men, women and children were all rapidly involved in the activities of the witchcraft outbreak. As Salem's witchcraft outbreak began to spread throughout the community like a virus, more and more men, women and children were being arrested, tried, hung and executed. The very first incident of the Salem witch outbreak began when a group of young girls in the Salem Village met in their usual small, informal gatherings where they discussed their future.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692: Misunderstood Reasons for Behavior How can people tell what actually happened during the Salem Witch Trials? How and why did these trials begin in the first place? The Salem Witch Trials began in Salem Massachusetts in 1692, soon after Samuel Parris and his family moved to the town. Parris brought with him two slaves but one, Tibuta, was in charge of looking after the girls Betty Parris, age 9, and her cousin Abigail Williams, age 11. Tibuta told the girls and their friends about voodoo and magic and even made them “witch cakes.”

The Puritans were unhappy with the church in England, They stated that the church wasn’t pure and wasn’t the pure way of a church. So they had decided to leave England. The Puritans had decided to settle in New England. They had a strong belief in the Bible, and the pure way of the church. The majority of times the accuser would find that they despised, was jealous of them, or just saw them as unholy.

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.

Paragraph 1- (Intro) The Salem Witch trials of 1692 were a dark and (prevalent) time for the people of Salem, Massachusetts. During this time, nearly 200-300 people were convicted of witchcraft, and over 60 were officially hanged by the government. This must all be looked at from the colonists’ point of view- they had come from a land where religion was the most important aspect of their everyday life, keeping beliefs close to heart. They took this aspect to the New World, the area inhabited with mysterious other people’s foreign to them, where fears of the devil replaced common fears of everyday life. The floodgates of scapegoating did not truly start, although, until Tituba, a young slave, confessed of witchcraft herself.

In Puritan communities their lives were dedicated to their religion. They emphasized strict loyalty to biblical ideas and rejection of secular ones. In “ The Enlarged Salem Covenant of 1636” the

The Massachusetts Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were unfortunate, unforgettable tragedies that resulted in the slaughtering of innocents, tests and punishments against accused witches, and ultimately regret that tore a community apart. Puritans were wary of witchcraft so by the end of May 1692 prisons were full of people who were believed to have sold their soul to the devil (Wilson 103). However, the accused citizens had much to say about that outrageous claim. Sarah Good, a woman executed in July of 1692 due to the Salem Witch Trials yelled this as she was being convicted; “You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and if you take away my life God will give you my blood to drink” (Brandt 34).

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692, a dark period in American history, resulted in the death of "two-hundred Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony" and the persecution of many more (Loock 528). This witchcraft crisis was sparked by religious intolerance and these wrongful actions were justified by the fact that they were purging the town of anything that went against their belief system. Frederick Douglass, a self-educated slave, could point out that people tend to fall back on religious belief in order to justify their cruel actions. The Salem Witch Trials prove that Douglass's assertion that men use religion to justify cruelty was not a new theory brought about by slavery. There becomes a point where people's morals become distorted and they

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.

Imagine being a wealthy 45-year-old woman in 1692 being accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch trials were caused by jealousy, fear, and lying. People believed that the devil was real and that one of his tricks was to enter a normal person 's body and turn that person into a witch. This caused many deaths and became a serious problem in 1692. First of all, jealousy was one of the causes of the Salem witch trials.

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.

They are people who are supposed to believe in God, to do good things, not to anger God, and not to sin. However if they do sin, even the smallest bit, they wind up in hell as a punishment by the hand of God, just like Edwards said in Sinner in the hand of an Angry Gd. Yet what happens? The people of the Salem community are all together at a communion by the devil, to follow his ways, to sin, and to accept that everyone sins. To prove a point that people aren’t who they really are based on outside appearance.

Puritans sought to “purify” Christianity, Catholic and Protestant alike. They believed that humanity existed for the grander glory of God, and their life mission lay with doing God’s work for the reward of eternal happiness and peace in Heaven (The Salem Witch Hysteria and “Witchcraft” in 17th-Century New England). In Massachusetts during the seventeenth century, people often feared that the Devil was constantly trying to find ways to infiltrate and destroy Christians and their communities. As a devout and strongly religious community living in near isolation in the mysterious New World, the community of Salem had a heightened sense of fear of the Devil (The Salem Witch Hysteria and “Witchcraft” in 17th-Century New England). A few characteristics the colonists looked out for to determine a witch ranged from if the person talks or mutters to themself, which was seen as the person trying to cast a spell to if a women has pets or is well associated with the animal, she is probably using it for witchcraft (Characteristics of Witches).