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It was good to hear from you again. I am glad that all is going well in England, but as you know, this area and much of New England has been plagued by witch hunts and trials during the past few years. In your previous letter, you asked how such an atrocity could occur, allowing many innocent women, children, and dogs to be accused and later hung at the gallows or pressed to death. Now, although many have speculated that this persecution was created and planted into our society by Samuel Parris, the minister at the local church, I have other ideas from which I believe the harassment may have come. In my opinion, the Salem witch trials were caused by an age related rebellion between young people and their mothers and fathers, a conflict between peoples of different regions, and a gender clash between males and females. Youth rebellion is an obvious contributor to the accusation of witches.
Charles, you and I both know that we felt some opposition towards out parents when we were told to help plow the fields, harvest the tobacco, and work other hard jobs and perform other tasks. I feel that the youth blamed many adults to simply get revenge on those that made them work difficult and tough jobs. Once they were blamed, the adults could do nothing because children in the community blamed those same wrongly accused adults. In a sense, the young adults and children were grouping to create the sense that all of them were reliable witnesses who could not be disproved in the local trials. Since the persecution began in 1692, Ive noticed that many of the accused witches and their defenders are located just outside Salem village. Now, although this may seem a bit odd, I also find it a little unusual that all the accusations come from accusers within the village.
It is very obvious that there is a definite separation between those that are accused and those that did the accusing. Many rich merchants in the village may be putting the blame on those on the outskirts of town because people who live in the country may be considered to be too wild and uncivilized, so wild in fact that they may practice the beliefs of witches and voodoo. A large majority of those accused of practicing voodoo and witchcraft were women. This can be attributed to the fact that witch characteristics were first seen in two young girls, the niece and daughter of Samuel Parris. From that moment, the general public may have believed that only women could only be witches, and that is the only sex that was affected by this sickness. Since the general public was informed that only women could be witches, then maybe people only looked towards females as witches.
Only occasionally was a male proved to be a witch. Still, there is a large difference between the amount of women accused of being witches, and the amount of men accused of the same indifference. Charles, I hope that I have cleared up any confusion on why this historical event occurred. I do pray that this incident does not happen again in the future. It has caused the death of nineteen persons and two dogs. I hope this letter finds you in good health and luck.
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