In the late sixteenth century, Puritanism was an English religious reform sect that broke away from the Anglican Church. Since Puritans were heavily persecuted by the English Government and the Anglican Church, they began to come over to the New World in large numbers from the 1620s to 1640s. Unlike most New World settlements, the Puritan settlements consisted mostly of families. The first Puritan colony was the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Puritan life was difficult; their religion was extremely strict, so much so that the punishment for missing church was lashings. Once, after coming home from a long sea voyage, a man kissed his wife in public and was imprisoned. The Puritan settlements tended to be poorer than other settlements …show more content…
Salem Village was a lower class, rural, agricultural village with an official population of 550, not including homeless or the few servants whose masters lived there. Even before the Trials, Salem Village was an unsettled place and was full of stress. The residents of Salem Village were adversarial. There were always family disputes (e.g., land claim disputes and arguments over religion). There was also much tension and stress in Salem and in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Salem Village was always fearing an Indian attack even though it never happened; in 1689, King Charles II of England canceled the legal charter with Massachusetts Bay for having religiously based laws, such as the ones that discriminated against Anglicans; after Charles II died, King James II merged the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Dominion of New England, which was universally disliked by the colonists. It was overthrown at the same time of the Glorious Revolution in England in 1691. The new Protestant King William and Queen Mary combined several colonies, including Massachusetts Bay, and essentially replaced the Dominion politically. Smaller distresses like smallpox outbreaks, the fear that the English were beginning to religiously persecute them again, and refugees from the French-English war in Northern New York increased the stress in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There also …show more content…
The two girls had hallucinations, fevers, and threw strange fits. In February, Samuel Parris called for a doctor to find out what was ailing the two girls. Historians believed him to have been Dr. William Griggs. Since Griggs had found nothing physically wrong with the girls, he determined that the problem must be of a spiritual nature, perhaps bewitchment. Shortly after the diagnosis, the girls accused Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; Sarah Osborne, a lower class widowed woman; and Tituba to be the ones bewitching them. Soon, other girls in Salem began to have similar symptoms. In total, there were ten girls afflicted by the strange ailment and were called, “the Afflicted Girls.” The Afflicted Girls’ ranged in age from nine-years-old to well into adulthood. Their social classes of the ranged from being a daughter of the deacon to being a servant. These girls’ accusations and evidence of bewitchment would come to be used as the main evidence that sent many innocent people to the