The United States has been through many dark and destructive times that today's young people need to study, understand, remember and learn from. In the land of the free, people have been enslaved, tortured, persecuted, and murdered with the open and tacit approval of local, state and federal government. The Salem witch trials were a blot on America's reputation that happened in the late sixteen hundreds. The eminent Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, is most remembered for his part in inciting Massachusetts' citizens to accuse and shun neighbors and friends.
In one of his most famous works, "Memorable Providence", he recounts a disturbing episode involving a local mason. This individual called on him because he did not know what was happening with his children. They were suddenly complaining of severe pain and would burst into unexpected wails of distress. The minister looked into the matter and concluded that a washerwoman was to blame for demonizing them.
During this time the Puritans became fearful and intolerant of those who did not completely obey the tenets of their religion. They considered impure thoughts to be as sinful as impure actions and targeted anyone they believed guilty of nonconformity. Behavior that today we would associate with a mental disorder, they perceived as the devil living inside the afflicted person.
In order to purge their villages of presumed witches, hundreds were rounded up and arrested. It was such an easy way to get rid of a pesky neighbor or a unpopular family member since almost anyone could be made to look suspicious. Without today's medical knowledge, the scourge of smallpox, that threatened the region at this time, was explained away as the work of these devil worshippers.
Household pets, especially cats, became known as familiars if it was believed their owners had turned them into accomplices. Hundreds of animals were put to death for this reason. Any kind of skin blemish could cause the villagers to accuse individuals of being possessed. They could be arrested and searched for something as common as freckles.
Eventually twenty people, mostly women, were put to death. Many others either died in jail, escaped, or were eventually pardoned. In one instance, an ex-minister, George Burroughs, who had been convicted and sentenced to hang, recited the Lord's Prayer on the scaffolding, which he shouldn't have been able to do if he was truly demon possessed. The crowd called for a stay in the execution, but Mather insisted that it go on.
None of the women who pleaded guilty to witchcraft were ever hanged and several later recanted their confessions. Mather eventually came to the conclusion that he might have been hasty in his accusations and sought to minimize his involvement in the affair.
If we don't want history to repeat itself, we have to understand and learn from it. Today we see many signs of religious and racial intolerance that have begun to mirror the times of the Salem witch trials. What was wrong about the thinking and behavior then is just as wrong today.
In one of his most famous works, "Memorable Providence", he recounts a disturbing episode involving a local mason. This individual called on him because he did not know what was happening with his children. They were suddenly complaining of severe pain and would burst into unexpected wails of distress. The minister looked into the matter and concluded that a washerwoman was to blame for demonizing them.
During this time the Puritans became fearful and intolerant of those who did not completely obey the tenets of their religion. They considered impure thoughts to be as sinful as impure actions and targeted anyone they believed guilty of nonconformity. Behavior that today we would associate with a mental disorder, they perceived as the devil living inside the afflicted person.
In order to purge their villages of presumed witches, hundreds were rounded up and arrested. It was such an easy way to get rid of a pesky neighbor or a unpopular family member since almost anyone could be made to look suspicious. Without today's medical knowledge, the scourge of smallpox, that threatened the region at this time, was explained away as the work of these devil worshippers.
Household pets, especially cats, became known as familiars if it was believed their owners had turned them into accomplices. Hundreds of animals were put to death for this reason. Any kind of skin blemish could cause the villagers to accuse individuals of being possessed. They could be arrested and searched for something as common as freckles.
Eventually twenty people, mostly women, were put to death. Many others either died in jail, escaped, or were eventually pardoned. In one instance, an ex-minister, George Burroughs, who had been convicted and sentenced to hang, recited the Lord's Prayer on the scaffolding, which he shouldn't have been able to do if he was truly demon possessed. The crowd called for a stay in the execution, but Mather insisted that it go on.
None of the women who pleaded guilty to witchcraft were ever hanged and several later recanted their confessions. Mather eventually came to the conclusion that he might have been hasty in his accusations and sought to minimize his involvement in the affair.
If we don't want history to repeat itself, we have to understand and learn from it. Today we see many signs of religious and racial intolerance that have begun to mirror the times of the Salem witch trials. What was wrong about the thinking and behavior then is just as wrong today.
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