According to the list of "Persons Hanged for Witchcraft During 1692" and the list of "Persons Accused of Witchcraft Who Died in Jail," provided by Frances Hill in The Salem Witch Trials Reader, twenty-five individuals lost their lives as a result of the Witch Trials held in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 (xv). Today, the Salem witchcraft outbreak of the late 1700s is emblematic of repression, intolerance and persecution. Then, the Witch Trials were a symbol of Puritan moral superiority, devotion to religious beliefs, and exactitude for any who dared transgress against Puritan values.
While many viewed the Salem witch trials as the outcome of superstition, ignorance and religious zealotry; Puritan religious leaders viewed witchcraft as the manifestation of Satan's minion. In many ways, the Salem witch trials are significant historically because they represented a clash between rigid Puritan values of "community, simplicity, and piety" against the newly evolving Yankee world of brash "individualism, urbanity, and freedom of conscience" (Hill xvii). This analysis will explore the witchcraft and the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts that erupted in 1692. A conclusion will address why and in what manner the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 are still firmly embedded in the collective consciousness and culture of Americans.
The particular beliefs of Puritans led to a belief in the existence of Satan, minions of the devils, witches, spells and other phenomena associated with the realm of "evil." There were basically three foundational beliefs of Puritanism that helped a belief in witches emerge and also a belief that the Puritans were acting in God's will to eliminate them. The first of these beliefs was on the nature of the earthly and spiritual realm. According to Hovey and Jackson, the Puritans believed that the "spiritual and earthly realms overlapped," leading to a belief in witchcraft and other evils or...