The Other Witch Hunt Of 1692 By Richard Godbeer

It is often difficult to understand the thought process that other people’s might have had many years ago. A college professor and writer, Richard Godbeer attempts to explain the thought process of the people who were involved in witch trials in the year 1692 in his text “How Could They Believe That?”. He often tells students in college and high school that we can relate to how society was in 1692 and how their views on life, and specifically the supernatural forces, are completely justifiable. In this article he explains the social atmosphere, the environment in which the settlers lived in, as well as how thorough the process of persecution was.

In January 1692, when a group of juvenile girls began to display bizarre behavior, the tight-knit Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t explain the unusual afflictions and came to a conclusion. Witches had invaded Salem. This was the beginning of a period of mass hysteria known as The Salem Witch Trials. Hundreds of people were falsely accused of witchcraft and many paid the ultimate price of death. Nineteen people were hung, one was pressed to death, and as many as thirteen more died in prison. One of the accused Elizabeth Bassett Proctor, a faithful wife and mother, endured her fictitious accusation with honor and integrity.

To learn more about the Salem witchcraft hysteria, Historian Paul Boyer, and Professor Stephen Nissenbaum sought to further understand the accusations of witchcraft. During the late 1600’s life in colonial New England was one led by religion and politics. Salem was broken up into two factions, Salem Village, and Salem Town. Salem Village, which was led by the Putnam family was a rapidly growing

The Salem Witch Hunt by Richard Godbeer is a collection of brief documents over the history of witch trials in 1692 (Publisher Bedford/St Martin’s 2011). The book is organized by dates in order which the events occurred in. He describes the cause of fear and chaos that rose throughout the Puritans and others. Before the documents, Godbeer would give a basic run down on a claim before going into great detail to explain the event in the documents. Some of the events that occurred in The Salem Witch Hunt were strange and outrageous. The Salem Witch Hunt is the most controversial in American history and people like me questioned if it was even real. The start of the witch hunt makes me wonder if any of this actually happened and how the Puritans took everything overboard. However Godbeer does a good job on informing you and explaining every assertion with his documents.

Kappanadze, Margaret. "Baker, Emerson W.: A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience." Library Journal 15 Sept. 2014: 92. General OneFile. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

The Salem witch trials, that occurred in colonial Massachusetts, were a hostile part of American history. People lived in a constant state of paranoia and fear. A great number of people were accused of practicing witchcraft, which was thought to be connected to the devil, and some were even executed. Eventually, the colony realized the faults in the trials. By reading the primary sources ‘A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft Chapter II’ by John Hale and Two Letters by Governor William Phips, we are able to discover a wealth of knowledge about the aforementioned trials. The two sources allow the reader to gain insight into how the trials were flawed by showing the nature of the Salem Witch Trials, the evidence used to find the witches guilty, and the role native americans played in the trials. While also exhibiting how primary sources can be a disadvantage in navigating through historical events.

Puritans believed in the devil and his role as strong as they believed in God and his role. For many centuries, Puritans had the idea that the weakest individuals in society often committed diabolical acts and sins. Furthermore, Satan selected the most vulnerable individuals to do his bidding, among these individuals, women were often held responsible for many sins, including witchcraft. (Godbeer 12). According to Richard Godbeer, in his book, The Salem Witch Hunt, “it was Eve who first gave away to Satan and seduced Adam.” (Godbeer 12). In 1692, witchcraft became a panic among Puritan society. Even though both men and women were accused of witchcraft, women were seventy-six percent more likely to be accused in Salem than men. (Godbeer 12). Puritan society was a male dominate society and men looked down upon women. The reasons to why women in particular were often accused of being witches, was in regards to certain events that associated with accusations. These events were being of relatively low social status and income, being rich or financially independent and being a midwife or nurse.

The following paper will best explain the judicial system used during the Salem Witch Trials, a series of hearings over a witchcraft scare that took place from June through September of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. The writer shall include a brief history of the events, explain the judicial system of the Trials, and give detail to what methods were used to determine fate of a victim. Additionally, the writer will explain how the Trials were based on false views that were not supported.

The lawful framework in early New England changed drastically as an effect of the witch trials. As their religious convictions ran inconsistent with a reason-overwhelmed lawful framework, a contention happened which prompted social shearing in a group accepted to be tormented with suspected profound foes. There are sure conditions that started such turmoil, for example, their tenacious confidence and social qualms that could now be vocalized. This vocal impetus uprooted the common holiness of social request. This is one reason other such examples fizzled from getting to be boundless. Notwithstanding when such examples happened, a generally sensible arrangement of choosing blame or purity was created to decide the destiny of the suspected witches' lives.

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a series of events that changed the lives of many Puritans forever. Myriads of innocent people were scapegoated, convicted and even executed of witchcraft. It is hard to believe that this absurdity really occurred, and many tried to locate the reasons that led to the evolution of this crisis. While some turned to economic patterns to explain the hysteria, the people’s belief in the Bible and eagerness to conform to slander contributed most to the progression of the Witch Trials.

The Massachusetts Bay settlers had blamed and sentenced individuals for witchcraft some time recently, initiated in 1648 with convicting Margaret Jones, yet no one in the province had ever admitted to being a witch before or forebodingly expressed that there were different witches out there (Woolf, 2004). Confession of this Indian slave strengthened the greater part of the fundamental feelings of trepidation of the colonists and therefore urged them to carry the hunt and punish the

The Salem Witch Trials took place in colonial Massachusetts within modern day town Danvers and continued from sixteen ninety-two to sixteen ninety-three. The “Witchcraft Craze” rippled throughout Europe and included the events at Salem Village. This craze lasted from the thirteen hundreds to the sixteen hundreds and was caused by many religious reasons. More than two hundred people were accused of witchcraft, the “devil’s magic,” and twenty were executed in Salem Town. Overall tens of thousands of accused witches and warlocks were executed. The colony admitted the trials were a mistake and were a combination of paranoia and injustice.

"You 're a liar! I 'm no more a witch than you are a wizard! If you take my life away, God will give you blood to drink!" (Sarah Good). To this day, there is still so much speculation on what was the actual cause of the hysteria that was the Salem Witch Trials. Were any of the women accused, like Sarah Good, actually practicing witchcraft? Or were the accusations placed on these women placed out of spite or jealousy? What caused these young women to have these strange symptoms in the first place? There are many theories to the cause of the chaos that occurred in Salem. The goal of this paper is to identify the different factors that played into the start of the trials and to discuss what went on in the trials themselves. This paper will explore these theories and come to a conclusion on what caused Salem to go into such a frenzy as it did in this time.

The Salem Witch Trials are an infamous part of American History that people have been fascinated with for centuries. Every year thousands of people flock to Salem to visit the memorials and see where the paranoia began. Many scholars have their theories as to why the Witch Trials took place. This essay analyzes two author’s interpretations of the Salem Witch Trials, one that more accurately describes the reason for the events and a second interpretation that falls short.

The central issue at stake for people during the Salem witch trials were a series of hearing and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft. It all started in Salem Village, in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. A man by the name of Richard Godbeer, the author of “The Salem Witch Hunt” and several other books is a professor at the University of Miami. Godbeer’s research and teaching interests center on colonial and revolutionary America. Also, his fields of interest are in gender, sex, witchcraft and religious culture.