In Search of History: The Salem Witch Trials Guided Notes

People were accused of casting spells and talking to the devil

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live

Made attitudes towards witchcraft more violent

were a convenient and powerful tool to get rid of imagined or real enemies and authorities did very little to stop these hunts; encouraged people to turn their neightbors in and be afraid of eachother

this was still needed once someone was accused of being a witch

a witch would float while an innocent person would sink

was used to get a confession

came to the new world to create a new perfect society based on the Bible- a theocracy with no separation between Church and State (considered Act of Treason)

Central to the Puritans' beliefs- Satan was very real to them

Salem was particularly vulnerable to a witch hunt because ti was considered a "wilderness settlement"

clues in tehir lives about whether they were predestined for heaven or hell (anxiety at the core of the Puritan religion

were considered more likely to be women since they were suppost to be submissive

Events belived to have started in the kitchen of

Tituba (slave brought from Curribean, Barbados)

told stories about home in Barbados; demonstrated voodoo tricks

When the word of God was spoken they covered their ears and screamed; transe experienses; felt like throwing themselves into the fire; felt prickles/ stabbes like knifes; threw fits- no physical explination, diagnoses= witchcraft

Sarah Good (Town Begger), Sarah Osborne (Married an indentured survent), Tituba

person spirt attacks you

Tituba; said she signed the devils book in blood

arrested ; reflected a pronounced split in Salem; sticking up for her (higher status) accused (farmers/lower class)

more than 100

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