US History

U.S. History Study Guide

might have been exposed to witchcraft. After this, mass hysteria broke out and the girls began to accuse more and more people. There were many bizarre methods they used in court as evidence against those accused. Most of the victims were convicted on the basis of spectral evidence where the girls would report they were being tortured by a ghost or demon in the court room, controlled by the accused and nobody but the girls could view it. Various torture methods were used to get a confession, like a method called piling in which a board was put on your chest and rocks on top of it until you confessed. By the end of the trials in 1693, twenty-four people had died mostly by hanging. Some of the accused had confessed as being witches, but none of them were hanged, it was believed since they confessed they could be forgiven and make pennants for their sin. Also worth noting, the colonial government could seize their land on admission of guilt. Some theories blame land hungry colonists, because at the time Salem was very populated and land was valuable, trying to expand their power by using these girls to force admissions of guilt on innocent people in order to obtain their land. Others say there might have been a fungus called ergot that has some components of LSD, a hallucinogenic drug. These girls might have initially been having side effects from it. Others say it might have just been a case of young girls in a male driven puritan society that loved the attention. No one is really sure why the witch craze spread as it did. Significance • Brought lasting changes to the legal systemand the way testimony andwitnesses were treated, and the Salem Village hangings were the last executions of accused witches in America. • It would result as the end of the control of the Puritan church in New England 4.8 Immigrants Most settlers who came to America in the 1600s were English. Among others were Dutch, Swedes, and Germans in the middle region, a few French Huguenots in South Carolina and elsewhere, slaves from Africa, primarily in the South, and a scattering of Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese throughout the colonies. After 1680 England no longer was the main source of immigration, surpassed by Scottish and “Scots- Irish” (Protestants from Northern Ireland). In addition, tens of thousands of refugees fled northwestern Europe to escape war and oppression. By 1690 the American population had risen to a quarter of a million. From then on, it doubled every 25 years until, in 1775, it numbered more than 2.5 million. 4.9 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment started as a European intellectual movement that promoted reason as the basis of authority, no longer religion. Amajor part of this Europeanmovement was the Scientific Revolution that emphasized reason, science, rationality, and natural law. The leaders of the Enlightenment

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