Salem Witch Trials Dbq

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The Salem Witch Trials were obviously the result of religion and ignorance of mankind. Although not directly stated, through evidence and documented occurrences we can easily see that religion and the Bible had an enormous impact on the people’s actions and way of thinking. The Salem Witch Trials coincided with the harsh beliefs of The Puritans, New England’s hardcore faithfulness to rulers, and people being very gullible. Cotton Mather was a minister and intellectual in New England, where his words could almost be taken as seriously as how they felt about the Bible (Document 3). Mather truly believed New England was infested with evil spirits, of course from Satan, and were targeting non-Christians (the Indians), but more importantly, Christian …show more content…
The Puritans were fundamentalists which meant they took every word of the Bible explicitly. Although we may see Mather’s beliefs as inaccurate and silly, it could be seen why it was so easy to believe and be in harmony with Mather’s beliefs. Not only was Mather a minister of England, Cotton also had scripture from the Bible to justify the hangings of “witches”. He was able to convince the people that they were doing God’s work, and that was insanely important to the Puritan’s. Children can be naive, to say the least. Tituba, a self proclaimed witch, was said to have an effect on some adolescents in New England (Document 8). The young girls most likely weren’t lying when they said Tituba had some kind of magical effect on them, but the anxiety having their fortunes read made them feel as if it were a surreal event and Tituba was the “real deal”. Also, it is shown many girls would have the same kind of fits, as they would cross their legs and be in the exact same kind of position. It is likely the children weren’t really experiencing results of a witch, but being mischievous children. In conclusion, The Salem Witch Trials were a result of the Puritan’s faith in Christianity and any rulers in New England, children’s mischievous ways and silliness, and also because of their fundamentalistic lifestyle in following the Bible word by word, letter by
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