Essay about Witchcraft in Salem - 1406 Words

Witchcraft in Salem In the past, the word Salem has always been somewhat synonymous with the infamous witch trials. Thanks to works such as Arthur Miller’s â€Å"The Crucible†, many people find it hard not to envision a community torn apart by chaos, even though Miller’s play was not so much about the witch trials but instead a commentary on the rampant McCarthyism going on at the time he wrote it. Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, however, see a very different picture when the Salem witch trials are mentioned. Rather than overlook the â€Å"ordinary† people living in the towns in which they write about (in the case of Salem Possessed, the town of Salem, Massachusetts), they instead take the instance of the witch trials of 1692 and†¦show more content†¦Scores of accusations of witchcraft followed, and soon the jails became full to the brink of overflowing. At the start of June, 1692, the first trial was held, resulting in a death sentence. B y the second trial, a system had been worked out that allowed five women to be tried in a single day, resulting in five death sentences. By the summer’s end, nearly twenty people had been put to death; by the year’s end, Governor William Phips, in an attempt to end the hysteria and fade the event into obscurity, both pardoned the remaining prisoners and dissolve the court that the trials took place in. Phips was perhaps hoping to distill any public interest in the trials by acting as if it had been just one big misunderstanding; this, of course, was a completely ineffective gesture. That is where the public’s knowledge of the Salem witch trials generally comes to an end. Boyer and Nissenbaum, however, have taken the liberty to tediously search through countless church archives, including tax assessments, community votes, and lists of loyal officials, allowing them to organize a more complete record of the events that occurred up to and during 1692. In 1672, Salem Village was created as an offshoot of Salem Town, simply because the farmers were tired of making the trek to and from the city center and wished to set up their own parish. Both Salem Town and some Salem VillagersShow MoreRelatedThe Motive For The Salem Witchcraft940 Words   |  4 Pages Witchcraft is a subject in American History that has kept historians intrigued for ages. Nevertheless, this volatile topic addresses many questions of how women are perceived during this hectic and forbidding time. A person did not have to be a murderer or a thief to be consumed with fear during this time. Unfortunately, fear could be present simply due to their jealous neighbor, or the fact that they had an abundance of land. The violence against women, and a few men, brought out anxiety for theRead More Salem Witchcraft Essay2617 Words   |  11 PagesSalem Witchcraft Witchcraft accusations and trials in 1692 rocked the colony of Salem Massachusetts. 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More than two hundred people were accused of witchcraft, the â€Å"devil’s magic,† and twenty were executed in Salem TownRead MoreWitchcraft Hysteria Of Salem, Massachusetts891 Words   |  4 Pagesconvictions and 19 executions of witches that took place in Salem, Massachusetts beginning in 1691 (Orr, September 30, 2015). Though the causes of the mania are still hotly debated even today, the primary cause of the witchcraft hysteria that captivated Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690’s was socioeconomic tensions within the community. The town of Salem was actually split up into two distinctly separate settlements. The village of Salem was characterized by farmers who depended heavily, if not exclusively