America is a wonderful country with a history of religious freedom as one of its foundations. It is also a place where periods of intolerance and religious persecution have broken out more than once. Current and future generations would do well to educate themselves about the undercurrents of hatred and fear that fueled the Salem witch trial times in order to prevent them from bubbling to the surface again. Cotton Mather, a renowned Puritan minister of the era, helped create an atmosphere that resulted in the death and destruction of innocent men and women falsely accused of witchcraft.
Mather did many fine things during his lifetime and was a prodigious writer. One of his works, "Memorable Providences", recounts a defining moment in his religious life. He was apparently called upon by a mason to evaluate the disturbing behavior of that person's children. They were experiencing terrible aches and pains and fell into fits of wailing and crying in unison. The minister concluded that the family's washerwoman had demonic powers and was torturing the children.
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.
It is interesting to note that all the women who confessed to being witches survived and those who refused to plead guilty were put to death. In later years, as accused survivors began to recant their guilty admissions, Mather had doubts about some of his actions. He attempted to minimize his involvement, but history remembers differently.
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.
Mather did many fine things during his lifetime and was a prodigious writer. One of his works, "Memorable Providences", recounts a defining moment in his religious life. He was apparently called upon by a mason to evaluate the disturbing behavior of that person's children. They were experiencing terrible aches and pains and fell into fits of wailing and crying in unison. The minister concluded that the family's washerwoman had demonic powers and was torturing the children.
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.
It is interesting to note that all the women who confessed to being witches survived and those who refused to plead guilty were put to death. In later years, as accused survivors began to recant their guilty admissions, Mather had doubts about some of his actions. He attempted to minimize his involvement, but history remembers differently.
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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