Cotton Mather: Witch Hunter or Not?

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“History is the story of events, with praise or blame (Brainynotes).” The intelligent, clergyman Cotton Mather stated this quote. Cotton Mather was a very well educated revered man of his time, and he came from a very prominent family. He wrote a collection of works to help create a written documentation of the history of New England. In his work The Wonders of the Invisible World he describes a very difficult time for New England—the Salem Witch Trials; When describing this horrific time he uses a very serious but informative tone which probably led readers to believe that he was a “depraved witch hunter”, and even with this negative reputation today, a person cannot take away the fact that he was a major scholar of his time.

In Cotton Mather The Wonders of the Invisible World, Mather keeps a very serious tone. Mather’s goal of his works is to keep an account of the daily activities of New England. In The Wonders of the Invisible World, he also creates a very informative tone. He gets right to the point in his work by stating “ I shall no longer detain my reader from his...

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