How Did 1692 Salem Witch Trials

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In 1692, Salem, Massachusetts, the Witch Trials began. In just fifteen months there were twenty-eight convictions of people being witches . But what cause this outbreak and what evidence was used to prove that a person was a witch? Many of the accused were women who were seen doing something they shouldn’t have been doing. Innocent people were killed because someone yelled witch. Many people said they had a dream that someone did something related to witchcraft and that would be used as evidence. The Puritans wanted a sin free community and it was easier to say someone was a witch than to admit there was sin in the town. All of the New World was having witch trials but New England had over ninety-five percent of the accusations of witches…show more content…
Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister, summarized testimony against the witches in his book The Invisible World. Cotton Mather was at the trial of Bridget Bishop and kept a record of what was said about her and the evidence used against her. On June 2, 1962 the trial of Bridget Bishop began at the court of Oyer and Terminer . Bishop was accused of bewitching several people in the community. She pleaded not guilty and they brought in people to testify against her. Those who testified against her claimed that “the shape of the prisoner” would hurt them and cause a lot of pain. Deliverance Hobbs testified against Bishop and was then tormented by her. Hobbs claimed that Bishop tempted her into signing the book again . Hobbs also said that Bishop was at the meeting of witches in the field of Salem Village . John cook testified against Bridget Bishop and used “evidence from several years earlier. Another man, Samuel Gray, testified that “fourteen years ago he say a woman and then she vanished and didn’t know Bishop by her name but when he saw her he knew it was her that was in his home” . Others claimed that she cause their animals to act crazy and that she made their children sick. They also said that when she was around the sick children would get worse…show more content…
He has done research on the trials and has focused on the religious aspect of them. In his article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion Benjamin Ray claim that recent research says that the “village records, sermons, and court testimonies is about the discord in Salem village over its new minister and about Satan’s attack on the minister’s family’ . According to history textbooks the Salem Witch Trials had five elements: government confusion, a person instigating the “witchcraft”, young girls practicing fortune-telling, economic disparity, and it was only stopped after a governor’s wife was accused . The textbooks claim that a slave, Tituba, was the instigator because she was practicing voodoo and scaring young girls . Once the ministers and government saw that the accusations were getting out of hand they realized that the devil was undermining them by causing fear of witchcraft and not actual witchcraft . The people in Salem, Massachusetts were more worried about making sure questionable behavior was caught before something serious could happen, they were afraid that witches were real and the sin would ruin the

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