Colonial World: Salem Witch Trials

Colonial World: Salem Witch Trials

If ever there were witches, men and women in covenant with the Devil, here are multitudes in New

England. - Rev. Samuel Parris (1692)

Historical tradition of witchcraft beliefs

"Act agaynst Conjuracions Inchantments and Witchcraftes“ (1563)

Attributes of witchcraft

• female

• middle aged

• "humble" social status

• married or widowed

• "somewhat less fecund“ (fertile)

• disagreeable or self-assertive personalities

Female property owner upset the Puritan social order, and made these women vulnerable to witchcraft

accusations

Girls under spells of witches

The Court of Oyer and Terminer

Believed to be possessed

Experiencing mental aberration:"mass psychopathology"

Ergotism:caused very vivid hallucinations

Unexplainable events attributed to witchcraft

Adults observing afflicted people assumed witchcraft almost from the beginning