Salem Witch Trials

Salem Witch Trials

Salem, Massachusetts is a town infamous for its witchcraft trials and mass executions in

1692. Within that year alone, the conservative Puritan authorities of Salem arrested 175

people, and hung twenty two of them. Yet, what could go so terribly wrong so that an

entire town of upright citizens would decline to such a state of hysteria so that they

would accuse their own neighbors of wizardry? Conzen's America's History points out

that even educated and esteemed men such as Samuel Sewall tended toward superstition,

associating the natural with the supernatural; and even though they were Christians, they

still did not entirely dismiss the pagan deities popular in their day. The rigid Puritan

ministers attacked these beliefs because they were different from their own (Conzen, 60).

It even states within the Bible, "You shall not let a sorceress live," (Exodus 22:17).

Naturally, a minister could use the Bible to convince the crowds that anything

supernatural was evil and must be demolished.

It seems that any event out of the norm was considered the work of the devil and

his human accomplices. T.E. Wilder points out in "A Problem of Authority" that when a

child became ill or a cow stopped producing milk a neighbor would be accused of

witch-craft. So why would neighbors blame neighbors? Wilder states that, "fear and

suspicion govern behavior, and no one wants to risk drawing the hostile attentions of

those adept with dark powers." Basically, it was mass hysteria, and even revenge.

Family feuds rooted back some ten or twenty years would be dragged into the courtroom

and interpreted to be some curse (Wilder, 1).

What made black magic all the more believable and fearsome was the actual

confessions of "witches" who admitted to being witches and having "evil designs upon

their neighbors," (Palmer, 311). Of course one cannot help but to want to believe them,

but the fact is that they can hardly be credible under the circumstances. Confessions

obtained under torture hardly counts as true evidence. A victim would say anything to

escape a painful death (312). The voluntary confessions came from "half-demented old

women," or people who would today be labeled as, "hysterical or psychotic," (312).

In conclusion, the Salem witch trials were not righteous in any sense. People

were swayed by fear of God and the devil and essentially lost all foresight in the process.

Innocent people were killed due to the cruel accusations of jealous or hateful neighbors