The Salem Witch Trials

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The Salem Witch Trials
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The Salem Witch Trials

• The Village of Andover had the most accusations
  of witchcraft

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The Salem Witch Trials

• The Village of Andover had the most accusations
  of witchcraft
• Due to five separate crises, people in New
  England were ALL on edge

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The Salem Witch Trials

• The Village of Andover had the most accusations
  of witchcraft
• Due to five separate crises, people in New
  England were ALL on edge
• Over 200 people had been accused19 people were
  hung, 4 died in prison, and 1 was pressed to
  death

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The Salem Witch Trials

• The Village of Andover had the most accusations
  of witchcraft
• Due to five separate crises, people in New
  England were ALL on edge
• Over 200 people had been accused19 people were
  hung, 4 died in prison, and 1 was pressed to
  death
• Why did this happen?

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CRISIS 1 King Philips War

• The Indian wars took an enormous psychological
  toll on New England as one man of fighting age in
  every 16 died in the battles

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CRISIS 2 The Dominion

• When the Puritans charter was revoked, Andros
  became leader of the New England Dominion

Edmund Andros
James II

• Andros was just as autocratic as his king, James
  II, and would often reverse policies without
  warning

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CRISIS 3 Rampant Disease
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CRISIS 4 The Quakers

• These people were basically anti-Puritans
• Where Puritans believed you could never know
  whether you were saved or not, Quakers believed
  you could
• Quakers believed in an inner light, i.e. that
  people could be filled with Gods love and power
• Quakers were not moody

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CRISIS 5 The Witch Trials
INVASIVE tending to spread, involves entering
the living body
ALIEN belonging to another, foreign
MALEVOLENT arising from ill will, spite, or
hatred
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The Tension Rises

• Each of these five crises was interpreted as an
  invasion of the devil
• Many of the accused were outsiders, on the
  fringe of Puritan society
• There was a huge backlog of accusations that
  people hadnt brought forward

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Winter of 1691-1692
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Call In The Doctor
- William Griggs with a patient
- Elizabeth Parris Abigail Williams
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Blame the Slave
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Samuel Parris Changes Strategy

• Rather than just accept the girls were
  possessed, Parris pressured Elizabeth and Abigail
  to name names
• The first names that they offered up were
  Tituba, Sarah Goode, and Sarah Osborne

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The Traveling Road Show
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Spectral Testimony

• The same beliefs settlers denied to the Native
  Americans they now expected the courts to accept
  as evidence

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Backlogged Courts

• The courts could simply not handle all the
  accusations being leveled by the girlsthe jails
  filled up rapidly

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The Trials End

• Post hoc ergo propter hoc
• Latin for it came after it, therefore it was
  caused by it
• The governor finally realized he could not let
  the trials go on with such flimsy evidence
• The courts did not admit they were wrong until
  very recently