Witchcraft In Seventeenth-Century England

Firstly, Why was witchcraft illegal, why witchcraft stopped being viewed as a crime? The witchcraft in 1735 made a complete switch in attitudes. Penalties for the practice of witchcraft was usually believed by many famous and important people to be an impossible crime, that was replaced by penalties for the lie of witchcraft. The witchcraft of 1735 stayed in force in Britain into the 20th century, because of the illegal ways of telling witchcraft of 1951. (Wikipedia)

In Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, there is a catastrophe in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690’s. There were accusations after accusations after accusations about witchcraft. Also, people weren’t satisfied with just accusing one person. In the end, 25 lives were lost.

All through history millions of individuals have been shunned, arrested, brutally tortured, prosecuted, and persecuted as witches. One would think that post colonization of the United States these unjust acts to human kind would have ended, but that was not so. In 1692 the Salem Witch Trials took place, an event that was a major catastrophe in United States history. It began when a group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts declared that they were possessed by the devil and made accusations that several older women were practicing witchcraft and fraternizing with the Devil.

Eventually, as stated in Document A, Bridget Bishop was the first witch to be hanged in the Salem Witch Trials on June 10, 1692. However, Parris happens to be the father of an “afflicted” girl that was enticed by a witch named Tituba. The one thing can be inferred from this document though is that Parris’s experience with witches most likely altered his opinion to be negative towards these people. Despite his bias, Document C supports the conclusion of family ties being the cause of the Salem Witch Trials. Parris most likely obscures these women’s personage in order to protect his daughter from witches.

Salem Witch Trials According to Blumberg, the Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft- the Devil’s magic- and 20 were executed. Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become synonymous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to beguile the popular imagination more than 300 years later.

Through the context of the injustice and paranoia entrancing Americans during the 1950’s, Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, sheds a new light on how the witch hunts of Salem are

In Defense of Rebecca Nurse     Your Majesties, Judge Corwin and Judge Hathorne, our defendant Rebecca Nurse, a highly respected member of the Salem community, has been wrongly accused of practicing witchcraft. We believe that these profound accusations against, the honest and trustworthy, Rebecca Nurse were fabricated by those who are trying to cause harm to the Nurse family. This accusation of practicing witchcraft is serious and is not to be taken lightly.   A warrant for the arrest of Rebecca Nurse was issued on March 24, 1692 (Salem Witch Trials Notable Persons). This warrant was issued due to the Putnams accusation that our defendant practices witchcraft.

Today, it is frightening to imagine that people accused others of “bewitching your first husband

American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman who Defied the Puritans is a biography of Anne Hutchinson written by Eve LaPlante who is a direct descendant of Hutchinson. The book follows her life and gives some insight into the lives of people she was surrounded by. As the book progresses, the reader can better understand who Hutchinson was. It begins with Hutchinson being summoned at her trial at the courthouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts for heresy and sedition.

Since the beginning of time people have gone through trials in court to either be proven innocent or guilty. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller a massive number of people were being convicted in Salem, Massachusetts because of the witch trials. The law of the land states that everyone is above suspicion until they are demonstrated to be guilty by legitimate evidence; in the play the Crucible if a person was accused of an unlawful act they were summons for being a witch and working for the devil without proper confirmation. Citizens in Salem were imposed to establish their innocent or be put to death, which caused conflicting issues in the village.

The trials also had a major political aspect, as there was an attempt to incriminate Earl of Bothwell in the proceedings. In 1597, James published Daemonologie, his rebuttal of Reginald Scot’s skeptical work, The Discoveries of Witchcraft, which questioned the very existence of witches. Daemonologie was a pessimistic book, presenting the idea of a vast conspiracy of satanic witches threatening to undermine the

What if I told you the Salem Witch Trials wasn’t a mystery but a hoax. Let me break this down. The Salem witch trials took place in Salem Massachusetts 1692. During that time period there was a high number of people being accused of BRUJERIA (witchcraft). Now people didn’t have an explanation of this so now in the present day many theories have come up as to why the witch trials took place.

The idea of witches stemmed from religious folks believing that the Devil could give certain people, known as witches, the power to harm others in return for their loyalty (Smithsonian). Due to the popularity of religion and supernatural beliefs, many people believed that the source of evil was the Devil. This idea appeared in Europe as early as the 14th century and it was quite popular in New England colonies. Villagers often blamed unfortunate things upon the Devil and other spectral sources of evil due to their lack of knowledge.

How would you react if you were accused of being involved in witchcraft? In today’s time no one is phased at the thought of being called a witch, but back in the seventeenth century that was a growing concern among the people. Within the seventeenth century individuals of the Puritan religion began to move to Colonial America with the ideas of religious freedom. However, the concept of religious freedom did not go very far. Once they were settled in Colonial America, the Puritans began to prosecute anyone else who did not follow the Puritan religion.

In 1684, Penn was forced to oversee a case of witchcraft involving two Swedish immigrants, Margaret Mattson and Yeshro Hendrickson; they were both accused of bewitching their Quaker neighbors and for casting an enchantment that prevented the local cows from giving any milk. In all likelihood, the women were holdovers from what had been the colony of New Sweden which was consumed by New Netherlands in 1655 and then transferred to English control in 1667. The colony of New Sweden featured a religious mixture which was at odds with Penn’s Society of Friends. While New Sweden was composed primarily of Lutherans, the colony also possessed a large number of woodsmen from Finland.