The Salem Witchcraft Scare.

Essay by rosie1301College, Undergraduate October 2003

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The Salem Witchcraft Scare

The Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century was interrupted in many different ways including the opinion of Carla Gardina Pestana in which she writes and believes that the executions where not solely based on the fact of witchcraft itself but also based on the importance of economic and political clause. She also believes in fact and support of other authors that it is also based on the gender, character and religion of the accused.

In the beginning of this era the three woman accused were simply "outcast and deviants" in their community but things started to change in early March when three more persons were accused but of social status. Then in April twenty-two more persons were pointed out including a wealthy ship owner named Phillip English and a minister by the name of George Burroughs. Much of the selectman were accused by the end of the summer but never went to trial.

The independence of Salem Village and the division of the church members didn't unify the towns people but intensify their inner division. The anti-Parris political control of the church caused anger among Parris and followers because Parris was striped of any salary for daily supplies and firewood to keep his own home warm. Since the pro-Parris group played the leading role in the witchcraft prosecutions, it has typically been portrayed as a powerful and domineering clique. From the evidence, however, this group emerges as by far the most vulnerable of the two: less wealthy, owning less land, having anti -Parris neighbors and less able to benefit from the commercial developments(pg.65 parag. 20). The economic dispute between the people of the town and the village was that the people who lived in the town had better access to trades such as potters, physicians,