Why did Cotton Mather believe in witchcraft?
Cotton Mather. Mather and his fellow New Englanders believed that God directly intervened in the establishment of the colonies and that the New World was formerly the Devil’s territory. Cotton Mather’s account of the witch trials reinforced colonial New Englanders’ view of themselves as a chosen generation of men.
Did Cotton Mather believe in witchcraft?
He combined a mystical strain (he believed in the existence of witchcraft) with a modern scientific interest (he supported smallpox inoculation). The son of Increase Mather and the grandson of John Cotton and Richard Mather, Cotton Mather lived all his life in Boston.
What was Cotton Mather afraid of?
He is Cotton Mather, one of the most brilliant minds of his era with progressive views on disease control. Yet his strict religious views and fear of the devil led him to condone the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials.
What was Cotton Mather known for?
Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman in Massachusetts known for his scientific studies and literary works, as wells as for the peripheral role he played in the witchcraft trials at Salem. He was a highly influential figure in early America.
Did Cotton Mather ever regret that innocent lives were taken?
Perry Miller describes Cotton’s later years as a time of intense regret and remorse about the trials. He points out that Cotton’s diary paints a picture of a man “panicky lest the Lord take revenge upon his family ‘for [Mather’s] not appearing with Vigor enough to stop the proceedings of the Judges'”.
Why is Cotton Mather important in history?
One of the most important intellectual figures in English-speaking colonial America, Mather is remembered today chiefly for his Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) and other works of history, for his scientific contributions to plant hybridization and to the promotion of inoculation as a means of preventing smallpox and …
Who started the Salem witch trials?
The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft.
What is the legacy of the Salem witch trials?
What is the legacy of the Salem witch trials? The Salem witch trials contributed to changes in court procedures, which included instituting rights to legal representation, cross-examination of accusers, and the presumption that one is innocent until proven guilty.
What was the most infamous Salem witch trial?
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men).
How long did the witch hunts last for?
About eighty people throughout England’s Massachusetts Bay Colony were accused of practicing witchcraft; thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that occurred throughout New England and lasted from 1645–1663. The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–1693.