The Salem Witch trials started in 1692 resulted in 19 executions and 150 accusations of witchcraft. It was one of the first of many hysterical moments that this country would go on to see. It all started in 1692 with a girl who was having “fits and convulsions” to which the only diagnosis was witchcraft. This launched the puritans into a state of hysteria. Prisons were overflowing with innocent people as the colony known as Massachusetts slowly unraveled. (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/salem/) When things like these happen they end up horrid and hurting people who didn’t deserve it. As historians it’s important to try and understand this so as to prevent it from happening again. In trying to understand why such an event happened we need to look at the life and times of the people that it happened too.
To begin with a little background information is needed on these people. First of all this happened in the Puritan village. The Puritans were a very religious group. They had left England to start a new colony free of religious tolerance. Many them also wanted a colony without any sinners, which was a factor in their strong belief in the devil and witchcraft. This however led to a paradox in t
heir lifestyle because when it came to the aforementioned matters they were everything but tolerant. It was against the law to not attend church and individual differences were frowned upon. Everyone was expected to follow a rigid moral code. Within this code all sins should be punished. This included things such as falling asleep in church or even stealing a little bit of food to avoid from starving. From this we can see how the witch trials came to be. There could have been a large number of people not living up to what the great elite expected. Therefore they were seen as sinners, and sinners were linked to the devil and witchcraft. And then since they felt that all sins should be punished they would take it upon themselves to do the punishing. Hence putting people to trials, jails, and eventually hanging them. This is logical in that it was a practice that had been brought over from England and existed there in the sixteen hundreds. So at first glance it wouldn’t be seen as anything bad or unusual. But it is quite possible that as tensions grew within colonies that people were picked out and accused just for being themselves, because as mentioned before individual differences were frowned upon. So as people saw the opportunity they jumped on the bandwagon screaming witch left and right creating mass hysteria. While this is a very logical explanation there are still other options and this one has a little bit of a glitch in it. This lies in the fact that while they thought all sins should be punished they thought that God would do the punishing. They believed that when something bad happened such as the ruining of crops and sick kin, were God’s punishment for sinning. And since it was God’s doing that wouldn’t help or interfere in anyway. So it could be argued that in having the trials they were doing what was meant for God to do. Also within their religion they had a very strong belief in God but their belief in the devil was just a strong. They believed that he picked the weak and unstable mainly (children and women) to do his deeds. When he picked you to do this you were at once considered a witch, which was the biggest sin of all and was punishable by death. Hence once someone was convicted of being a witch they would be hanged. (http://school.discovery.com/schooladventures/salemwitchtrials/life/religion.html)
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