Salem_Witch_Trials

Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials What caused the Salem witch trials' This is a question that has been asked for the last three hundred years. There is no easy answer to that question. There were numerous factors and events that lead to the trials. “A recent small pox outbreak, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter by Charles II and the constant fear of Indian attacks helped in creating anxiety among the Puritans and a fear that God was punishing them. This fear of punishment established a fertile atmosphere in which a case of witchcraft could easily be interpreted by the Puritans as the cause of Gods wrath” (Victims) Other factors were politics, religion, family feuds, economics, and the imagination and fears of the people. These factors brought about a climate of repression, religious intolerance, social hierarchy combined with fanaticism and oppression of women. The Puritan leaders used the trials as a way to control the community and prevent change in the strict social hierarchy. According to Woloch “historian Carol F. Karlson points out most New Englanders accused of witchcraft were middle aged or older women, who lacking brothers or sons stood to inherit. Such women impeded “the orderly transition women, trials, salem, witchcraft, puritan, people, land, community, social, woloch, farmers, witches, witch, town, merchants, control, being, two, trial, thus, over, new, men, bishop, wanted, puritans, others, hysteria, fear, caused, between, became, accused, young, quaker