SALEM WITCHCRAFT TRIALS

Salem witchcraft trials

Salem witchcraft trials

Introduction

The Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, which created 19 executions, and 150 accusations of witchcraft, are one of the historical events almost every person has perceived of. They began when three young women, Betty Parris, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam began to have hysterical aligns, after being found out engaging in forbidden fortune-telling (not promenading nude in the woods) to discover what sorts of men they would marry. Betty's father, the Reverend Samuel Parris, called in more senior authorities to determine if the girls' affliction was caused by witchcraft (Cooke, 2009).

Although Betty was sent away equitably shortly, and did not take part in the trials, the other young women were connected by other young and mature women in staging public demonstrations of their affliction when in the occurrence of suspect "witches." The events in Salem have been used as a topic in many scholarly works, encompassing the play by Arthur Miller.

Discussion and Analysis

Interestingly, throughout the colonial time span in Africa, soon after World conflict II, there were a number of witch finding movements in Africa, which resembled the Salem episode in some ways, and had a alike rank "in between" the sort of witch search discovered in Europe and the usual African pattern. Typically, in these movements, "witch finders" would come in from out-of-doors a town and assertion to be adept to rid the village of witchcraft. At this time span there was large dislocation, with persons moving round because of government employment, appropriation of farmland, and other origins. Some persons were improving their financial status as a result of these alterations, and some were doing much poorer than before.

Whereas in the past everyone in a locality had followed the identical religion, persons were now revealed to Christianity and the localized beliefs of people who had moved to their district, or whose districts they had moved to. In the towns of centered and south Africa, numerous local beliefs and Christian sects could be discovered, as well as Islam. Belief in witchcraft tended to join people over devout differences. Typically, the titles conveyed to witch finders were those of the identical sort of localized foes we have become familiar with in reading about the Azande. As the rush increased, persons started to be suspect who had not aroused any particular jealousies, probably because they possessed a peculiar bag or hooter, which might be said ...