The Salem Witch Trials in 1692 - Essay Example

Jerry Ciacho May 10, The Salem Witch Trials in 1692 The Salem Witch Trials was a series of investigations and trials of people suspected of witchcraft in Massachusetts during colonial America, lasting from February 1692 until May 1693. From June to September of 1692, nineteen were condemned of witchcraft and were heaved to Gallows Hill, a desolate hill nearby Salem Village, for hanging. Furthermore, another elderly man of over eighty years was hard-pressed to death beneath heavyweight rocks for declining to submit to a prosecution on witchcraft accusations. Hundreds of others likewise dealt with false and evidently unjust accusations of witchcraft. Dozens agonized in confinement for months deprived of trials until the hysteria that brushed through Puritan Massachusetts abated. What was the real reason for such a farce of justice? Why did this travesty take place in Salem, Massachusetts? Certainly, nothing about this tragic occurrence in history was unavoidable. Only an calamitous and doomed amalgamation of a continuing boundary war, economic circumstances, congregational rivalry, adolescent boredom, and personal resentments can be held responsible for the amplifying charges, hearings, and killings that transpired in the crestfallen and disconsolate spring and summer of 1692. In 1688, John Putnam, among leading elders of Salem Village, requested Samuel Parris, previously a somewhat successful farmer and merchant in Barbados, to speak in the Salem village church. He relocated to Salem Village with his family when the people selected the Reverend Samuel Parris as their village minister. The majority of them were then regretful that they had done so due to his strict constraints and harsh demands. Consequently, the attitude of Salem’s reverend made the villagers vow to throw him out. Thus, there was much pressure around the Parris family. For that time though, Salem was their new home and during that period, it was undergoing great change: an elite minority was developing, well-known people were becoming more and more unwilling to undertake positions as village leaders, and the Porters and the Putnams were competing for power of the village and its church. The people of Salem and the adjacent Puritan regions at this time were undergoing intense and severe amounts of stress and pressure. This tremendous amount of stress and pressure was from the fact that the method which their communal stability and orderliness was sustained throughout the townships. The Puritans believed that social stability, firmness, and tranquility were very imperative in trying to attain their utmost goal, to make “earth more like heaven.” In an attempt to accomplish this goal, that many desired so seriously, they deemed that one of the only ways to accomplish this ambition was to uphold a very unbending and tough social make-up, with stern rules and punishments. The citizens in Puritan regions were under immense stress trying to preserve, to them, the perfect community, and not be put to death by committing any errors or mistakes. This pressure of trying to perfect at all times was causing great mental tension and strain. Because of this, hysteria was the most likely and probable cause for the wrongful accusations made against the many who were tried, accused and/or executed. Furthermore, accusations of witchcraft could have been made for many different other fallacious reasons than what was believed to be real witchcraft. Reasons varied from political, emotional to social reasons. Old disputes and hostilities such as arguments within the congregation and clashes about property ownership between the indicters and the indicted might have impelled accusations of witchcraft. Justices and officials were also responsive to accusations of witchcraft because they might have perceived it as a method to shift the blame or guilt for their own war failures. In the tiny Salem Village, as in the settlement in general, the laws and rules of the Church dictated life, which was a Calvinist one in the extreme sense of the word. Dancing, music, festivals, and celebration of holidays like Christmas and New Year’s, were totally prohibited, as they were believed to have had origins in Paganism. The only type of music that was ever allowed at all was the unaccompanied choral hymns because the popular songs of the period that exalted human love and nature, and were thus against God. Toys, particularly dolls were also banned, and were deemed to be a silly worthless waste of time. The only form of education for the children of the village was in religious creed and the Bible. All the villagers were required to go to the meetinghouse for sermons that lasted for three hours every Wednesdays and Sundays. Village daily life was centered on the meetinghouse. This languid, enervated and listless lifestyle might just have instigated feigned accusations and imaginative claims and indictments. Also, at the time, there were no televisions or CDs, only a lot of time spent on Bible studying and reading. The Parris household was also known to be harsh and stringent so accusations of witchcraft and black magic could have been merely the stimulation of imaginations by the accused such as Tituba, the slave of the Parris household because for entertainment, the children of the Parris family would amuse themselves by listening to stories told by Tituba, their slave. Because of possible boredom, the children of the Parris household might have spurred feigned accusations of witchcraft. Ultimately, it could have most likely been the possibility that many of the accused suffered from, the still existing, sickness of hysteria. Hysteria, I personally believe, is the most likely, reasonable, and reliable explanation for the accusations made. Hysteria, by definition, is a psychological disorder whose symptoms include conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms, selective amnesia, shallow unstable emotions, and overdramatic or attention-seeking behavior. The hysteria experienced by many at the time was drawn from the theories about the existence of witches, witchcraft and black magic, widely described as a religious cult that goes in contradiction to the beliefs of the Christian Church. Witchery and witchcraft are deemed evil and are seen as worshipping of, making agreements, deals or forms of contact with the Devil. This belief in black magic and witchcraft only instigated fear and terror among the people in Salem that the Devil was around them. Puritanical theories and assumptions had all of Salem genuinely believing that witches travelled using broomsticks across the night sky every single day together with the devil himself. They assumed that these ordinary humans could send their "ghost" out and trouble the townspeople’s children. It is evident in an excerpt of Cotton Mathers Memorable Providences: “Go tell mankind, that there are devils and witches; and that though those night-birds least appear where the daylight of the Gospel comes, yet New-Engl. has had examples of their existence and operation…. the house of Christians, where our God has had his constant worship, have undergone the annoyance of evil spirits. Go tell the world, what prays can do beyond all devils and witches, and what it is that these monsters love to do…” As events continued to transpire, approximately one hundred and eighty-five people were accused of witchcraft. Among those were Abigail Hobbs, Sarah Good, Elizabeth Proctor, Mary Warren, Tituba, Giles and Martha Corey, Sarah Cloyse, Bridget, Edward and Sarah Bishop and Sarah Dustin. Many were accused wrongly and unjustly. The way in which Sarah Good has been depicted in works of literature is also worth citing because it sheds light and illuminates upon how the Salem Witch Trials have been seen and depicted by people today. Good is always portrayed as an elderly witch with white hair and creased skin. She is often said to be around sixty or seventy years old by the same people who wrote that and distinctly stated was expecting a child and had a young daughter. Even records from the villagers of Salem and judges at the time view her as an old annoyance, witch, and sickly. How did such a far misapprehension emerge? Perhaps her life that was filled with a lot of hardships and trials did have such a physical consequence on Sarah Good that she did have an really aged countenance. On the other hand, witches are portrayed in books and literary works then and now as being wicked and evil women. If Good was to epitomize the archetypal witch worthy of killing, then it is not astonishing that all of the typecasts would be correspondingly ascribed. Sarah Good was a sort of an ordinary woman and undoubtedly was considered a disturbance to her neighbors. However, The Salem Witch Trials were conducted very fraudulently, with already a pre-assumtion of guilt, and very little evidence to support their accusations against her. Marginality is not something worth of executing by hanging, and Sarah Good was never even proved to be a witch. She never confessed in being one either. In addition, Rebecca Nurse, also among those who were executed, was the opposite of a witch. She was a highly deemed by the community. People knew her to be a religious devout person of the community who regrettably could not tolerate the overwhelming power of hysteria. There were numerous reasons why Rebecca was charged, but it was predominantly due to the abhorrence shown to her by the Putnams. She was opposed to Samuel Parris being the reverend of the town church of Salem and the Putnam family was his friend. Her husband was also at conflict with the Putnam estate over a certain piece of land. Rebecca indeed radiated a virtuous and a saint-like presence. She was truly a well-respected part of the Salem community. Even though there was no credible proof to verify that she was what they accused her of, she was still executed and hanged as a witch in July of 1692. This happened during a period when the Massachusetts colony was captured with the heightening hysteria of the people over witchcraft and the supposed looming presence of Satan within the entire community. Works Cited Linder, Douglas O. Salem Witchcraft Trials, 1692. Kansas City, MO: UMKC Law School, 1998. Print. Read More