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HIST 2300 February 10th, 2017` (Puritan migration, 1630'-40'…

- - - - "folk practices" are not "magic" - no matter how ministers complained
      - The Devil was really in Massachusetts..
      - Jealous young women who wanted husbands - so accused older women
        
        The girls at the center of the crisis were 10 and 11..
        
        There was no shortage of men in Massachusetts ( demographics again)
  - - - Puritans believed witches in covenant with the devil were active in the colony causing a number of problems
      - Accusations made not only by girls but adult women and men
      - The dangers of NOT finding suspected witches...
    - - Adults were in charge from beginning to end. Not children. Adults.
        
        Specifically: ministers who named the problem, issued warrants, ran the trials and executions. this was a formal legal process with courts and convictions.
      - Puritans, and many Protestants at the time believed in the physical presence of the Devil on earth - rather than the Devil as "tempter"
    - - Massachusetts Bay Colony was a theocracy- so, "treason against God" is treason against the government
        
        Witchcraft was a capital crime
        
        Most of Europe has stopped executions/hunts by 1692
      - Witchcraft --> "maleficium"
        
        Contracting with Satan
        
        A personal crime - strangers don't torment you
        
        Need empirical evidence: confession or witnessed evidence required
        
        To fail to act risked the entire community"s safety
      - Salem was a result of a failure of ministerial leadership
        
        They did not follow their own laws and procedures
    - - Public opinion due to problems with the trials
        
        People of good reputation and standing accused
        
        Strangers (The governor's wife!) accused
        
        The use of "spectral evidence"
        
        Crown suspends the trials
        
        Many stayed in prison or died there because of "costs occured"
      - Consequences for Massachusetts Bay Colony:
        
        Crown revoked charter to the Puritans
        
        Created one new colony under a Royal governor with Plymouth colony (still called MBC)
      - "It's not the crime, it's the cover up"
        
        Cotton Mather writes the official government justification for the trials.
        
        Late 19th century he becomes the villian in histories and literature
        
        But.. if the ministers in Salem had followed his advice at the beginning: no witch hunt...
- - - - "disobedience to parents?" "adultery" "witchcraft" Death penalty crime