Damn witches!

[champion]

Okay, so this is technically seen as European history, but it is now American soil, so I think it qualifies. The...you knew it was coming...Salem witchcraft trials. Any thoughts, opinions, questions, your own interpretations?
-Champi

[jlswenka]

Hmmm....where do I begin.....I'll have to get back to ya, need to gather my thoughts a bit more before I reply. :)

[jlswenka]

Okay, so this is technically seen as European history, but it is now American soil, so I think it qualifies. The...you knew it was coming...Salem witchcraft trials. Any thoughts, opinions, questions, your own interpretations?
-Champi

What are your thoughts on this??

[champion]

In a word - crap. All of it. Crap. No witches, no witchcraft, no bewitching, no possessions, no nothin'. Crap.
-Champi

[Yellowrose]

Crap...Crap...Crap...Crap.......!

[champion]

Crapity crap crap!

There are valid questions, though, like: If there were no witches, then what happened, why were there trials? Why did people believe there were witches?
-Champi

[jlswenka]

What started that whole thing anyway? Wasn't it a couple of spoiled little girls who wanted to get revenge on a neighbor because they wouldn't let them do something they wanted to, so as revenge they labeled her a witch, and it got blown WAY out of proportion?

As a Shamaness, I had studied this topic. Not extensively, but I used to know a good deal about it. Keywords here being "used to".

But that was over 15 years ago, and it's all so foggy now......
Could you help me jog my failing memory a bit, and give me a little history on this?? :confused:

[champion]

I think you're refering to Tituba, the Caribean slave/nanny of Samuel Parris, the village minister. Ol Sammy had his daughter and neice living in his house and Tituba would teach them divinations because they wanted to know what job their future husbands would have (the fate of a woman in those times was very much dependant on their husbands having respectable jobs).

[jlswenka]

Okay, that sounds a bit familiar....but what happened that set the whole thing off? Was it that, or that and a combination of other things? And this all happened in the late 16th to early 17th Century, right? (I told ya, my memory is pretty bad! lol :) )

[champion]

The trials took place through all of 1692 and the early part of 1693. By most accounts, 142 people were accused, 19 were hanged, and 1 was pressed to death.
-Champi

[President]

ignorant pilgrims... LOL