Explain the fear of witchcraft and significance of the Salem witchcraft trials.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Europeans and American colonists had sporadically prosecuted witches, most of whom were women beyond childbearing age who spoke out freely, were economically independent, or had left their husbands. Witches challenged God's will but also threatened the role of men as heads of family and society. What made the witch trials of Salem in 1692 different were the scale and the range of the accused. What had begun with the identification of three witches responsible for the fits and nightmares of several teenage girls came to include witchcraft accusations against hundreds of Salem residents—since only the uncovering of other witches could spare one from conviction and execution. Some used the trials to settle old scores; others simply accused others to save their own lives. Over 150 people, most of them women, were put on trial. Most confessed, but fourteen women and five men were executed. The scale of this prosecution discredited the colony's system of justice and motivated colonists to find scientific explanations for natural events and illnesses rather than explaining them as magic.