Essay on Why Are the Salem Witch Trials Important

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Abstract

At the beginning of 1692, two girls from Salem suffered from strange diseases. The doctors believed it was caused by witches and asked them to identify the people responsible for using witchcraft in the village. From that point on, in less than a year, more than 200 people in Salem were accused of using witchcraft, imprisoned, and awaiting trial. By the end of 1692, when this kind of collective irrationality came to an end, 20 local people had been executed. Imagining this scenario in the 21st century is naturally difficult. Trying to understand why the so-called ‘witches’ were hanged so cruelly has been a difficult task even for many historians. Why did so many people in 17th-century New England believe in supernatural witchcraft? Why were so many people, mostly women, accused of being witches and hanged to death? Why did the Salem Witch Trial become such an important event in history? And how did religion and gender oppression make the road easier for this tragedy to happen? This paper will attempt to solve these questions, first by narrating and analyzing the events and finally by making an individual deep analysis of the role of both religion and women’s oppression in the Salem Witch Trials event.

Introduction and statement of the problem

“The Devil has been raised amongst us, and his rage is vehement and terrible, and when he shall be silenced the Lord only knows.” the pastor of Salem Village Samuel Parris wrote this in his church book at a time when he had both to face and be part of what we now know as the most horrible witch-hunt ever. And, although the Salem trial was not exactly the starting point of all witch-hunts in history, it is the most remarkable of them all.

The hysteria of the Salem trial took place during the spring of 1692, in a small settlement in Essex County, Massachusetts US, when two colonial women and a slave were prosecuted for one of the most fearsome and scandalous crimes during that time: witchcraft.

The daughter and niece of the reverent Samuel Pariss (Betty Pariss and Abigail Williams) began to have fits described as ‘beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect’ by John Hale, the minister of the nearby town of Beverly. The girls started acting in a very unusual way, showing “bewitched” symptoms like utter strange sounds, violent contortions, uncontrollable outbursts of screaming, cursing, and barking, and walk-in fourths like a dog.

It is of great importance to know that while the time, the place, and the background of all the former ‘practitioners’ of witchcraft played a very important part in the action taken during the Salem Trial, it was a society that was ruled by patriarchalism and blinded by religion, the one responsible for the 19 people who were hanged, the 71-year-old person who was stoned to death, the many dozens who died in jail and the almost 200 who were blamed for practicing the ‘ Devil’s Magic ‘ during that same year.

Thesis statement:

Even now in our so-called modern society, we still deal with the same kind of thoughts and actions which existed during the Salem Witch Trail time. We as women continue to be the ones whose voices are not heard, and this is even worse when the other voices that are trying to shut us up belong to men. The Salem Trial wasn’t a one-time event: the settlement of Salem witnessed persecution and massacre due to the ignorance, prejudice, and fear of people. For me, the hysteria that took place in this town on account of the witchcraft accusations, as the result of gender and religious oppression, still follows every single one of us to this very day.

Justification

The Salem witch trials had a strong impact on today’s society and will continue to do so for many generations more. The main point of this research is to emphasize the way it was then concerning women’s rights and religious imposition; how things have changed to this day; how our society has evolved; and to make people aware of this historical event so that people don’t make the same mistake twice. In this paper, we will dig a little into the causes of these events, specifically those related to gender and religion, and expose the impact they have on our generation. Our goal is to bring to light how religious extremism and the low value that women had during that time were the causes that led to this terrible event.

Background:

The settlement of Salem (before called Naumkeag) was founded in 1626 by Roger Conant and a group of Cape Ann immigrants. Salem is derived from the Hebrew word for peace. And although the Salem trials took place in Massachusetts, this was a British colony and therefore it was under British rule and law.

It all began in 1692 when the daughter of a pastor in Salem, Massachusetts, suddenly became ill with a strange disease, and then the same symptoms appeared in the other seven girls who were inseparable from her. From a modern medical perspective, this is a manifestation of the ‘dance disease. The cause of this type of symptom is a fungus called ‘C. sphaeri’ which is a rye parasite.

However, at that time, it was generally believed that the real reason for the children to be blamed was the native American woman in the village, Nuti Tituba, along with another son-in-law, and a lonely old woman who never went to church. The three women were tortured, and the number of ‘sorceresses’ and ‘witches’ increased one by one. More than 20 people died during this case, and more than 200 people were arrested or imprisoned. It wasn’t until almost 300 years later, in 1992, that the Massachusetts State Assembly passed a resolution declaring the reputation of all victims.

It is also important to highlight some of the conditions and factors in which the Salem villages lived that may have led to the witch-hunting events:

It was the 17th century and Salem was suffering the after-effects of the British war with France in the American colonies back in 1689 and lived in constant fear of being attacked by local Native American tribes. It is also essential to mention the fact that this was a Puritan city and therefore they had strong beliefs in the wrath of God and in doing His will. In addition to this, people often distrusted each other and argued a lot about the decisions they made. It wasn’t only a very hostile environment; they also had very poor sanitation and had recently been infected with smallpox (an acute contagious viral disease, with fever and pustules, which usually results in permanent scars).

Limitations of study

For this research paper, the most difficult part was to get all the information together and make it sound congruent because there is a lot of information and all of them focus on different aspects of this historical event. I also think is important to mention that there are not only books and research papers about it but blogs, TV series, videos, and documentaries as well, so I needed to do more than just read to gather the information. It was also very hard the fact that most of the places where I could get the information were blogs or non-official websites and the ones that were very formal and used a very technical vocabulary that was sometimes a little difficult to understand. Finally, because this story has many different interpretations and opinions it made it a bit difficult for me because I had to make sure that the information, I was reading was relevant and reliable.

Methodology

In this investigation, the research method I chose was the qualitative research method. I chose this method because I believe that the best way of doing a research paper on the Salem Witch Trials is by gathering all the books, interviews, documentaries, studies, etc. that already exist and putting them together and trying to find an objective and common truth among all of them. Furthermore, if we take into account that this is a historical event from several years ago and that the focus of this paper is not determined by subjective opinions, it was better for me to choose a method where I could rely on already existing data to solve the problem of this investigation.

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