Sarah Good - Witch Hunting, Legalities And The Crime Of Witchcraft, God's Wrath, Salem, Sarah Good
york trials american witches
Excerpt from the "Examination of Sarah Good"
Reprinted from The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, edited by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum
Published 1977
Seventeenth century colonists believed in witches, as did their European ancestors. The Great European Witch Hunt occurred from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Belief in magic and witchcraft was widespread in the American colonies. It was normal to profess a strong faith in the Almighty God and at the same time to employ magical charms and potions to ward off witches and the devil. Relatively few individuals, however, were accused of witchcraft and fewer still were prosecuted and executed. Accusations were often dismissed, or those convicted received light sentences. The exception played out in New England in the early 1690s. The most famous American witch hunt occurred from May through October 1692 in Salem Town, Essex County, Massachusetts.
For More Information
Books
Aronson, Marc. Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2003.
Boyer, Paul, and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692. Vol. 2. New York: Da Capo Press, 1977.
Hill, Frances. Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997.
Le Beau, Bryan F. The Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies. New York: Viking, 2001.
Additional Topics
The English began successful colonization of the New World in 1607 with other Europeans following by the 1630s and 1640s, bringing with them their belief in witchcraft. Since everyday survival preoccupied most colonists, between the 1620s and the end of the seventeenth century there were only
A woman faints while testifying in court during the Salem Witchcraft trials. (The Library of Congress…
Seventeenth century laws on witchcraft in New England paralleled those in England, based on a verse from the King James translation of the Bible. The verse, from Exodus 22:18, read "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." The King James version of the Bible was ordered by King James I (ruled 1603–25) in the early 1600s. By 1647 all New England colonies had made witchcraft a ca…
The most intense periods of witch hunting in Europe came when a country experienced a particularly stressful time such as civil war, famine, or spreading disease. Why the American colonies had only one large witch-hunt, occurring in Massachusetts in 1692, was most likely the result of extreme stress in the New England colonies. The Puritans of New England, English Protestants who opposed the Churc…
Reverend Samuel Parris from Salem village attended one of the synod gatherings in 1690. In January and February 1692, just before the Salem witch-hunt started, he was preaching that people had failed God and God had abandoned them. Parris insisted all men were evil by nature. Rather than console his congregation in these difficult times, Parris constantly stirred up trouble in Salem. Yet he claime…
The case of Sarah Good serves as an example of one witchcraft prosecution. Sarah Good was well known in Salem. Penniless, she wandered the streets with her children begging from door to door and sleeping in neighborhood barns. Whether she received a handout or not she would leave a house grumbling and mumbling indistinguishable words. New Englanders believed such utterances, especially if they cam…
The examination of Sarah Good before the worshipfull Assts John Harthorn Jonathan Curren (H) Sarah Good what evil spirit have you familiarity with (S G) none (H) have you made no contract with the devil, Good answered no (H) why doe you hurt these children (g) I doe not hurt them. I scorn it. (H) who doe you imploy then to doe it (g) I imploy no body, (H) what creature do you imploy then, (g) no c…
By late August some colonists were dismayed by the gruesome hangings taking place in their communities. Many began to wonder if innocent people were dying and there was growing opposition to the trials. On October 8, 1692 Thomas Brattle, a successful, wealthy Boston merchant wrote a widely distributed public letter stating that the chief judge in the trials, William Stoughton, had been overzealous…
Familiarity: A close relationship. Two more: Tibuta and Sarah Osburn. Spitfull manner reflecting and retorting aganst the authority: Disrespectful, rebellious manner. Base and abusive words: Filthy language; cursing. Bad carriage: The evil manner in which they acted toward her husband. Deposition: Testimony taken in writing under oath outside of a trial setting. Deponent: One who gives evidence in…
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