I think \u201cWitchcraft in the Anglo-American Colonies\u201d hit the nail on the head when it stated that the meaning of the witch trials in Salem and much of New England gets lost now do to pop culture characters like the Wicked Witch of the West or Sabrina the Teenage Witch.\u00a0 But what the article goes on to argue is that the witch trials were an important illustration of society and its faults.\u00a0 Living in such close quarters, there were more property disputes and neighborhood fighting, and it was easy to win the fight if you accused your nemesis of being a witch.\u00a0 Also without a clear understanding of the sciences, weather and illness at inopportune times did not have a better explanation that the workings of a witch.\u00a0 Because if the Puritans were God\u2019s people, then only the devil would be the one harming them.<\/p>\n

It also illustrates gender roles in New England Society.\u00a0 It goes all the way back to Eve eating the forbidden fruit, during that time society thought women were more prone to making deals with the devil.\u00a0 And these women would admit to it more often than you would think.\u00a0 The punishment for admitting it was rarely death, because they still thought you were strong enough to kick the devil out, where denying it could be a sign the devil has taken over.\u00a0 Women would also admit it because they honestly thought they were a witch, confusing there everyday sin with the devil\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Walter Woodward\u2019s article makes the point of how this problem wasn\u2019t isolated to Salem, but a New England Problem.\u00a0 Witchcraft was deeply entrenched in the culture, and the ministers and magistrates in power were believers.\u00a0 For instance, Governor John Winthrop led his own witch trials in Connecticut.\u00a0 There were also the natives who practiced witchcraft, and had a strong belief in spells and curses.\u00a0 However the natives did not have a gender bias when it came to witchcraft, which I thought was an interesting societal difference that I did not really expect.<\/p>\n

As Kurt points out in his post, this kind of crazy fundamentalism made people disillusioned with sects like Puritanism and led to more religious toleration and the \u201cGreat Awakening Movement.\u201d\u00a0 I also agree with Thomas, that the use of things like witchcraft were ways to keep the current power structure in line, and keep the ministers and magistrates at the top of the hierarchy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think \u201cWitchcraft in the Anglo-American Colonies\u201d hit the nail on the head when it stated that the meaning of the witch trials in Salem and much of New England gets lost now do to pop culture characters like the Wicked Witch of the West or Sabrina the Teenage Witch.\u00a0 But what the article goes … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Witchcraft in New England”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[165,216,250,272],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-new-england","tag-salem","tag-the-great-awakening","tag-witchcraft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-spring2014\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}