Salem witch Trials(2)

A picture of a accused witch being hung as a punishment.

Salem witch Trials

A trial on what to do with the accused witches.


What I learned about the Salem Witch trials is it all started when the local priest's daughter fell ill to a indescribable hysteria. The first three women to be accused of performing witchery were Sara Osborn, Sara Good, and Rev Paris African slave Tituba.When each of the girls were individually interrogated, Sara Osborn and Sara Good plead innocent, Tituba told the officials she knew of the voodoo in which they were talking about. The punishment was usually to be hanged, yet one man who refused to testify was crushed by a huge stone. In the end people with higher authority realized that the witch trials were just becoming a disgrace and a mockery, and the people seemed to finally come to their senses.

Image source: http://library.thinkquest.org/J002399/salemwitch/Image2.jpg
Infomation source: http://images.google.com

ancestors

Norwegian immigrants came to the U.S to farm. They settled in Minnesota and Iowa. Norwegians  eat fish and lamb but my family does not. In Norway the average pay they received each year was in between $40-$60 a year. In America they averaged $4-$5 a day. I was  able to trace the Holven family back to the 1900's. (This is my mother's family).  Her name is Mable Holven and she lives in Decorah, Iowa (source:  ancestry.com).  

I learned....

The puritans wanted a new life, one that god controlled the outcome of each and every move, every final decision. They got that life but over half of them died the first winter and they still believed that is was god's will. The puritans still believed in god even after he took half there lives because they thought god knew what was best for them, but they were wrong.

I discovered.....

The other thing that i was discovered by was that the indians were the first to be sighted on land at cape cod, the english fearing them ran away. The english feared the indians because they thought they were barbarians out to kill them. The indians gave the english food and they no longer feared them then. The english assumed the indians were barbarians because of the stories they had been told by other travelers.

I was surprised that the first winter the Indian's went through, half of them died. The surprising part of it is the Indian's truly believed they were being punished by a higher power such as god for something they had done. They believed that if they performed good deeds, they would be greatly rewarded.