Witch Hunts

Witchcraft was an accepted way of life in New England, and by the mid-seventeenth century, many colonies already had laws forbidding its practice. A 1648 statute relating to witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony reads: ôIf any man or woman be a witch, that is hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death. Exodus 22:18 Leviticus 20:27 Deuteronomy 18:10-11.ö The Biblical texts referenced all originate from the Old Testament and admonish the faithful against tolerating the presence of witches within the community. Two of the passages are explicit in the appropriate method of punishment. For example, Exodus read: ôThou shalt not suffer a witch to live.ö

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was a fairly isolated Puritan community. Puritans emphasized Bible reading, prayer and preaching, and they believed in grace, devotion, prayer, and self-examination to achieve religious virtue. They attributed almost all actions to the mystical powers of God or Satan:

ôAlthough belief in witchcraft and the DevilÆs evil power was not, in the seventeent

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tan children were taught to fear the devil very early in life, but they were also taught to tremble before God: ôThe moral and the physical (sin and sickness) were interrelated.ö Almost as soon as they could speak, toddlers began to learn that no matter how virtuous a person might be, he or she could never be sure of reaching heaven. According to Puritan teaching, every soul was predestined by God from the beginning of time. This last teaching, together with the belief that God punishes every sin with sickness, sorrow, pain, or worse appears to have caused terrible anxiety in Puritan children. Cotton Mather, a clergyman, also was instrumental in laying the spiritual foundations for the Salem witch trials. In 1689, Mather published a book called Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions. The book was chiefly concerned with a recent case of witchcraft in Boston, involving a domestic servant, Mrs. Glover, of a family named Goodwin. The Goodwin children were frightened into hysteria and accused Mrs. Glover of being a witch. Mather and other clergy were called in, and Mather, believing he had been an actual witness of witchcraft wrote a detailed account of the circumstances, including the trial and executio
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Approximate Word count = 2151
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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