Why should students continue to read about the Salem witch trials?

Question

It is in our curriculum to teach our students about the Salem witch trials, but why should students continue to read about the Salem Witch Trials today? Is it important that we read first hand accounts and why?

Answer 1

"The great witch hunt began in the Western world in the fifteenth century, there were isolated trials for witchcraft as late as the 1690s (as there were in America, notably at Salem)."

Students should read about the Salem Witch Trials for many reasons. First, it was a very interesting event! Second, it gives us a good idea of how life was when religion and law were still one! We should read about this today because we have made great progress in the legal field, and today no one in the Western world is put to death for practicing witchcraft. It is important to read first-hand accounts as they often contain terms that are no longer in use, but were used at the time they were written. Lastly, we get a good idea of the excesses and the murders committed in the name of God.

Answer 2

~J.S., TY for the comments I've been running into from you of late.

Jennifer, if all you do is read history, it matters little what source you use. If you want to understand an event or an era, you must refer to first hand accounts and primary sources. Anything else is just someone's biased interpretation, usually with the intention of supporting propaganda of some sort or another.

More importantly, if you read historical accounts rather than study history, understand history and then generalize and conceptualize that which you have read, you are wasting your time. For instance, can you not see the parallels between the Salem witch hunts and the invasion of Iraq. If not, you don't know how to study history and you are doomed to repeat it. Read the accounts out of Salem, then listen to Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly (or Georgie the Younger if you can catch him in a rare lucid moment.) Need I say more?

We didn't get where we are suddenly and without our historical background. If you don't study the background and learn from the mistakes, or from the 'good' choices, how do you propose to move forward? On the other hand, given the popularity of TV shows like "Big Brother" and "Survivor", the dearth of decent theater, music and art since disco killed culture, and the inability of high school graduates to string a few words together into a properly spelled grammatically correct sentence, I guess we're doomed anyway, with or without the lessons of history.

Answer 3

Quite simply, every age has its own form of "witch hunts."

In 1690's Massachusetts, it was a hysterical hunt for those presumed to be in league with the devil to the detriment of God-fearing Puritans. Throughout much of the westward expansion, it was the conviction that "The only good Indian is a dead one." In the 1950's, it was the panicked search for Communists hiding behind every shrub.

The point I'm trying to make here is that once a group is targeted, all too often emotions get in the way and concepts of justice get skewed. Suddenly, all it takes to have investigators all over a person like white on rice is to associate with someone who is a suspect, or even just express an opinion contrary to the prevailing thought.

Then, of course, this makes an unbiased hearing almost impossible--the targets are often already convicted in public opinion, just as the "witches" were.

We need to learn from the mistakes of the past in order to try to avoid them.

Answer 4

We should read about the Salem witch trials for the same reason we should read about the Holocaust or any other great tragedy in history ... so it never happens again! Besides, people who are ignorant of the past are doomed to repeat it. Besides, I don't want a bunch of cultural illiterates voting!

Answer 5

The Salem Witch Trials is a fascinating part of American history. No one knows for sure why it happened. Whether it was a conspiracy, mass hysteria, intolerance or pranks of bored adolescents; it makes for a good read.

Answer 6

You see the power of society in persecuting individuals who do not conform to established standards (traditions). Really, the "witch" represents anyone who has crossed the line of what society deems as safe. No one is safe if we target "witches." And yes, similar kinds of things happen in America all the time, except that our laws do not allow us to exercise the death penalty very easily or quickly; in politics, in the court room, in religion, in psychology, and in education (just to name a few).

Answer 7

It is important to learn what ignorance and fear can do to people. If we don't learn that and try to avoid it, something like it could happen again.

Answer 8

Religious intolerance is still an issue.