Why Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen - amazonia.fiocruz.br

Question: Why Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen

In the late s the Salem Village community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony now Danvers, Massachusetts was fairly small and undergoing a period of turmoil with little political guidance.

Accusations Spread

After some young girls of the village two of them relatives of Parris started demonstrating strange behaviours and fits, they were urged to identify the person who had bewitched them. Their initial accusations gave way to trials, hysteria, and a frenzy that resulted in further accusations, often between the differing factions. By the end of the Salem witch trials, 19 people had been hanged and 5 others had died in custody. Additionally, a man was pressed beneath heavy stones until he died. After weeks of informal hearings, Sir William Phips, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colonyinterceded to add some formality to the proceedings.

Over the following year many trials were held and many people imprisoned.

As the trials continued, accusations extended beyond Salem Village to surrounding communities. By May everyone in custody under conviction or suspicion of witchcraft had been pardoned by Phips.

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The haphazard fashion in which the Salem witch trials were conducted contributed to changes in U. The Salem trials also went on to become a powerful metaphor for the anticommunist hearings led by U. The events in Salem in were but one chapter in a long story of witch hunts that began in Europe between and and ended in the late 18th century with the last known execution for witchcraft taking place in Switzerland in Some three-fourths of those European witch hunts took place in western Germanythe Low CountriesFrancenorthern Italyand Switzerland.

The number of trials and executions read more according to time and place, but it is generally believed that somepersons in total were tried for witchcraft and between 40, to 60, were executed.

Witches were considered to be followers of Satan who had traded their souls for his assistance. Why Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen

Conclusion

There is little doubt that some individuals did worship the devil and attempt to practice sorcery with harmful intent. The process of identifying witches began with suspicions or rumours. Accusations followed, often escalating to convictions and executions. The Salem witch trials and executions came about as the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all of which unfolded in a vacuum of political authority. There were two Salems in the late 17th century: a bustling commerce-oriented port community on Massachusetts Bay known as Salem Town, which would evolve into modern Salemand, roughly 10 miles 16 km inland from it, a smaller, poorer farming community of some persons known as Salem Village.

Squabbles over property were commonplace, and litigiousness was rampant.

Early Witchcraft Laws

Parris, whose largely theological studies at Harvard College Hwppen Harvard University had been interrupted before he could graduate, was in the process of changing careers from business to can Mcdonalds ministry. He brought to Salem Village his wife, their three children, a niece, and two slaves who were originally from Barbados—John Indian, a man, and Titubaa woman. There is uncertainty regarding the relationship between the slaves Wigch their ethnic origins. Some scholars believe that they were of African heritage, while others think that they may have been of Caribbean Native American heritage. Parris had shrewdly negotiated his contract with the congregation, but relatively early in his tenure he sought greater compensation, including ownership of the parsonage, which did not sit well with many members of the congregation.

In the process Salem divided into pro- and anti-Parris factions. They screamed, made odd sounds, threw things, contorted their bodies, and complained of biting and pinching sensations. The hallucinogen LSD Why Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen a derivative of ergot.]