The Witch Killing Frenzies Continued
Similar social conditions on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean led to a similar result. Many Puritans, Protestant dissenters from the Anglican Church, emigrated to America in the 1620’s and 1630’s and established themselves as the dominant religion in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans believed that there were persons who entered into a compact with Satan in exchange for the power to do evil. Given this belief, the coming witch hunts were unsurprising.
Cotton Mather, a prolific writer and greatly influential religious leader in the Colonies, published a book on witchcraft in 1689 called "Memorable Providences" that set the stage for public persecution of suspected witches. That book led to others on prophecy and fortune]telling, and among their many young readers during the long, tedious winter of 1691]92 were several young girls in Salem, Massachusetts.
Nine]year]old Elizabeth Parris, her orphaned cousin Abigail Williams and two friends lived in Salem Village, where Elizabeth's father, Rev. Samuel Parris, was a Puritan preacher. Having few amusements, the girls turned to the popular practice of fortune]telling for fun ]] a practice at which the Parris family's Barbados]born servant, Tituba, joined them.
War was raging on both the frontier and in the village, as competing sects of Puritans vied for prominence. Added to that were a smallpox outbreak in the colony, the impressionable nature of the sheltered girls and increasing discussion of witches and magic. It wasn't long before Elizabeth and Abigail began to exhibit strange symptoms: screaming, convulsions, hallucinations.
Then more girls developed the same symptoms. Their doctor, who couldn't find a cause, opined that there might be a supernatural influence, particularly since witches were thought to seek out children.
Suspicion began to focus on Tituba, who had often spoken of voodoo and told stories of witchcraft from her own country. Elizabeth declared that Tituba was the witch who had afflicted her, while the other girls fingered two more local residents, a homeless woman and an elderly woman who had stopped attending church (and was therefore seen as a sinner) as witches.
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