Lisa Kong E5 pd.2
Ms. Wu TASK II
In the seventeenth century, witchcraft was viewed as someone who made an agreement with the Devil. Based on the passage, there are factors that influenced people to believe in witches. Some of these factors are sexism, factionalism and the changes that took place in the Puritan community, which causes upset in social order. These factors led to accusation of innocent people. As a result of this unfortunate episode, 20 innocent people were killed.
According to the New England’s law, woman who was in her middle aged, whether or not she is a widow or married who owns property were known as a witch. New England law clearly stated that only males could inherit property, but in Salem several women owned property. As a result, the female property owner upset the Puritan social order. For example, a son who were believe to have their inheritance from their father’s property did not get their inheritance because the widow held the property, this conflict will soon create a resentment. The afflicted girls were believed to be possessed, they claim that they sign the Devil’s book and they also claim that they can see the witches clearly. This helps by providing a reason for accusation of witchcraft in Salem. If the girls accused that there are witches, they would satisfy their own needs that would halt their fits. Adults, who observed these girls were being irrational, they assume that it was witchcraft from the beginning. They had been misinterpreted the problem which were responsible for the death of the innocents.
Salem was a divided into two community, which there is a Salem Town; it was a port Town. Then there was a Salem Village that borders the Town; it was a farm town. Village wanted to have its own meeting pastor and house because it was inconvenient to travel to the town in order to worship. When the village finally gain their independence, it led to a feeling of vengeance in 1692. At the time of this period, Samuel Paris became a new minister. He gained support of the villagers who are known as Pro-Paris and enmity of the Paris who are known as Anti-Paris. These Anti-Paris are from the town and they are also the villagers that are living along the road. They had commercial interest with the town. In the first Salem witch trials, half of the western village accused the half of the eastern village for dealing with witchcraft. There were 14 accused witches, 12 of them lived in the eastern part of the village and 30 of the western villagers applied testimony against them. Factionalism led to the outbreak of the witchcraft accusation base on the fact that both the Salem Town and Salem Village depends on each other. Western village is the countryside that became the commercial center of Salem Town while eastern end of the village was more involved in the commercial world. Therefore, western villages have less economic prosperity.
Based on the fact that the Puritan only believes in pure, strict and simple life. A person cannot pursue a private interest because it was against their religion. At that time, there have been many changes that took place at Salem and it was a threat to the Puritan’s community. As it was shown earlier the article, misfortunes causes beer or cheese to spoil then the family cow drying up and finally the caused of the deaths of people. Many common folks could not explain the reason for these misfortunes so they believe that witchcraft were the cause of the changes that occur. As a result, unexplained changes in the community causes stress to the community.
In conclusion, during the 17th century, women who owned property were seen as witches because in the Puritan’s community, it was not common that women have the rights to own property. Factions cause vengeance in the society, which also lead to accusation of their opponents. Another factor is the changes that occur in Salem, which caused the Puritan to be irrational and suspicious of people dealing with witchcraft. They took this moment to get revenge at their enemy. These were the factors led to the death of 20 innocent people. It also became one of the most complex unfortunate episodes in the American History. As a result, today we see that the Puritan community is not as pure as the way they might have seen in the 17th century.