Declining Fortunes, Wicked Women, and the Devil Himself
Oh, the joys of Puritan power. Personally, the Salem witch trial histories, have always held a particular interest. The world was changing right under the Puritan’s feet, and it was beginning to become apparent, that the laws under which Puritan government ruled, were not effectively curtailing all rebellion. There was increasing resentments between neighbors, fears from constant attack, and the surrounding wilderness, and an undercurrent of change, all concurrently happening around the time of the Salem witch trials.
The trials of the accused, mostly women, and the subsequent death of the nineteen poor souls found guilty, were a gross miscarriage of justice. Women were most often accused as they were considered more susceptible to Satan’s wiles, and inherently wicked in the first place. It would also be easier to target a woman in Puritan society, because the men held all the power. The accused were tortured in an attempt to force further accusations of witchcraft, and probably were specifically targeted by who he/she was, who he/she would most likely accuse(and therefore remove from the position of threat, power, and so on), or for the level of threat towards change he/she caused in the community.
The original accusers were a group of teenaged girls. Perhaps the girls were coached, or perhaps the girls thought it up all on their own. We will never know, but the fact that history states that the girls would fly into fits of convulsions, screams, and terror filled cries, when one of the accused, walked past, or was about to be set free, does speak to their testimonies being contrived, at least, and not hallucinatory, as the popular fungal rye theory would suggest.
The fact that “spectral evidence” was even allowed in the first place is laughable. That kind of implausible, improvable evidence being allowed, furthers the belief that the witch trials were cover for removing strong willed women, rivals, and were a tool to control the rest of the citizens of Salem. The examples in our text are ludicrous, and were obvious fallacies used to further provoke fear, and the desired result of burying the accused with “proof” of guilt.
The accused must have felt so very alone, and helpless. It probably became a crippling fear, the mere thought of becoming the accused. What a helpless state to be in! Anyone could say that a person “appeared” to him/her in a dream, or in the night as a ghostly visage, and that would be enough to have one arrested, tortured, tried, publicly humiliated, and hated, and finally, put to death.
Tonics for illness, dolls, an affinity for color, being outspoken, being beautiful, being too old to bear children, and having more than a neighbor would have all been reasons, and or evidence for the court. All a woman had to do was visit a neighbor, who then had a child become ill hours later, and an accusation, of
