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The Salem Witch Trials

In 1692 , Salem Village was torn by internal disputes between neighbors who disagreed about the choice of Samuel Parris as their first ordained minister . In January 1692 , the residents of York , Maine , were attacked by Wabanaki Native Americans and many massacred or taken captive at the "Eastward " frontier of Maine , echoing the brutality of King Philip 's War of 1675-76

Small town atmosphere made secrets very difficult to keep and people 's opinions (positive or negative ) about their neighbors were generally accepted as fact . In an age where the philosophy "children should be

br seen and not heard " reigned supreme , children were at the bottom of the social ladder . Toys and games were seen as idle and playing was discouraged , although girls had additional restrictions heaped upon them boys were able to go hunting , fishing , exploring the forest , and often became apprentices to carpenters and smiths , while girls were trained from a tender age to spin yarn , cook , sew , weave , and to generally be servants to their husbands and mothers to their children

In book Mather describes the strange behaviour exhibited by the four children of a Boston mason , John Goodwin , and attributed it to witchcraft practiced upon them by an Irish washerwoman , Mary Glover Mather , a minister of Boston North Church (not to be confused with the Episcopalian Old North Church of Paul Revere fame , was a prolific publisher of pamphlets and a firm believer in witchcraft . Three of the five judges appointed to the Court of Oyer and Terminer were friends of his and members of his congregation . He wrote to one of the judges , John Richards , supporting the prosecutions , but cautioning him of the dangers of relying on spectral evidence and advising the court on how to proceed . Mather was present at the execution of Reverend George Burroughs for witchcraft and intervened after the condemned man had successfully recited the Lord 's Prayer (supposedly a sign of innocence to remind the crowd that the man had been convicted before a jury Mather had access to the official records of the Salem trials , upon which his account of the affair , Wonders of the Invisible World , was based

Traditionally , the affected girls are said to have been "entertained " by Parris ' slave Tituba , during the winter of 1692 , although there is no contemporary evidence to support the story . Tituba 's race is also often cited as Carib-Indian or that she was of African descent , but contemporary sources describe her only as an "Indian " Research by Elaine Breslaw has suggested that she may well have been captured in what is now Venezuela and brought to Barbados , and so may have been an Arawak Indian , but other slightly later s of her , by Gov Hutchinson writing his history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 18th century describe her as a "Spanish Indian " In that day , that typically meant an Indian from the Carolinas /Georgia /Florida . Contrary to the folklore , there is no evidence whatsoever to support the assertion that Tituba told any...

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