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Salem Witchcraft | Settlement of Colonial America




Salem Witchcraft


In 1692, the peaceful village of Salem was torn apart by one of the most curious events in American history. A group of young girls managed to create widespread hysteria with their accusations that took the lives of 25 people and imprisoned countless others. Known as the Salem Witch Trials, this outburst of accusations remains unmatched in American history; yet, in Europe, wide-scale accusations of Christian witchcraft and their resulting executions reached a crescendo in the 17th century. Although several incidents of accusations of witchcraft are on record for17th century New England, it was not until the Salem Witch Trials that a high concentration of executions and accusations surfaced. As this map demonstrates, accusations tended to ally with factions between Salem Village and Salem Town. Also, some historians point to ongoing Indian-colonists violence just north of Salem in Maine as adding to the tension in the town. Regardless, the Witch Trials were run with disregard to traditional court-room rules and many of the accused had little chance in a fair trial. Five years later, many of the participants in the trials admitted that the proceedings had been unfair.





1

Examine the map closely. Which areas of Salem were near trade roads? Which were more remote?



2

Examine just the accusers. Where were most of them located? Why might that have been so?



3

Examine just the witches and their defenders. Where were they clustered? Why?


Settlement of Colonial America


The European population of the North American colonies increased more than six fold between 1700 and 1760. In this period, settlement expanded from a narrow band along the Atlantic seacoast to the very edge of the Appalachian Mountains to the west and up against Spanish and French possessions to the south and north. While dominated and generally administered by the English, colonial America was ethnically and racially diverse. In the middle colonies, for instance, Dutch colonists remained prominent in New York City and the Hudson River valley through the eighteenth-century, and German immigrants settled large regions of Pennsylvania and Maryland. African slaves were heavily concentrated in the tobacco, rice, and long-staple cotton producing regions of the Southern coast, and large numbers of Scotch-Irish settlers moved into the backcountry Virginia and the Carolinas. The economy was also becoming more complex, with new industries dotting the landscape and intensive farming spreading to the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Such rapid development had an equally profound effect on the original occupants of the coastline; many of these Native American tribes would play a central role in the European wars for domination of North America.





4

Within the colonies, which areas were most ethnically diverse? In which regions (New England, Mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake, South) did three or more ethnic groups coexist? What areas had the least diversity?



5

Why did English settlers in the Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake regions settle along the ocean, while the Dutch, Scotch Irish and Germans settled further inland? Describe the patterns that you see in this immigration. What would this pattern lead you to predict about where subsequent immigrants would settle?



6

What was different about the coming of Africans to the New World, as compared to other ethnic groups - reasons for coming to the area? What regions were Africans concentrated in? Briefly, how would this pattern of migration affect later Southern and American history?



7

What did the spread of settlement into the American interior mean for the native populations? Were relations with Native Americans different in the northern and southern colonies? Where were the more powerful Native American civilizations located? Did their presence shape the pattern of European settlement in those areas?



8

You are a settler writing back to your homeland about the colony you are living in. Tell the residents of your former city or village the name and location of your settlement, how your settlement is growing, what types of people are arriving in the colonies, and how people are getting along with groups they had never encountered before in the Old World.






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