Salem witch trials
It was a series of hearings and trials of persons accused of practicing witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in twenty executions, most of them women. Although they were commonly known as the Salem Witch Trials, the initial hearings took place in 1692 in several towns in the province of Massachusetts Bay: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover, and Town. Salem
In the seventeenth century, during the colonization of North America, many people believed that Satan was present and active on earth. This belief appeared in Europe during the fifteenth century and spread with the late colonization of North America. With the passage of time, the idea of white magic turned into black magic and became associated with demons and evil spirits. From 1560 to 1670, witchcraft, persecution, and superstition became commonplace known to be associated with demons.
The men and women of Salem Village believed that all of their town's misfortunes could be attributed to the work of Satan. When certain events occurred such as infant deaths, crop failures, and social dissension between castes, unnatural (supernatural) power was to blame. Also, because of the unusually wide range of accusations of witchcraft in the colony, scholars have explored various aspects of the historical context of this episode to identify its particular contributing factors.
Local rumors of witchcraft
Before 1692 there were rumors of witchcraft in the villages around Salem Village and other towns. Cotton Mather, minister of the North Boston Church (not to be confused with another North Anglican of his fame, Paul Revere), was a prolific pamphleteer and a fervent believer in witchcraft. In Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions (1689), Mather described his "predictive observations" and how "the enormity of witchcraft" It affected the children of Boston MP John Goodwin.
Mather explained how the devil seduced Godwin's eldest daughter into stealing the linen from the washerwoman Goody Golfer.
Goody Glove was an old and distasteful woman who was called a witch by her husband, which may be why she was accused of bewitching the Goodwin children. After the accident, four out of Goodwin's six children began to have strange seizures or as it was called by the people "the sickness of astonishment."
Symptoms attributed to illness quickly became associated with witchcraft. These symptoms include back and neck pain, tongues dragging from the throats, and random loud shouts. Other symptoms include not being able to control their bodies and becoming agile, or flapping their hands like birds, or trying to hurt others as well as themselves. These symptoms ignited the Madness of 1692.