Climates of fear.

Salem's witchcraft trials took place in a land that was still foreign and hostile to settlers. New Englanders faced a harsh climate, shortages of food, and a constant fear of Indian attacks. Although the Puritans had left England to escape religious persecution (attacks), some of their number were banished and even executed in this new land for disagreeing with church leaders.

In the early 1950s, another climate of fear gave rise to a new hysteria in the U.S. With the country locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin, charged that Communists had infiltrated (secretly entered) the U.S. government. McCarthy held a series of public investigations that terrified the nation. As a result of his and other inquiries, the lives and careers of many innocent people in public life were destroyed.

Playwright Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, an account of the events in Salem in 1692, in response to McCarthy's modern-day "witch-hunt." Although the play, which opened in January 1953, was about Salem, Miller saw it as a metaphor for anti-Communist hysteria.

Why are people sometimes quick to accuse others without solid evidence of wrongdoing? Do you think another "witch-hunt" could happen today?

SALEM WITCH TRIAL DOCUMENTS] www.iath.virginia.edu/salem

YOUR TURN

WORD MATCH

1. epidemic   A. judge

2. magistrate B. hear

3. leniency   C. confused

4. Oyer       D. swiftly spreading
                 disease
5. incoherent E. mercy

THINK ABOUT IT

What do the Salem witchcraft
trials teach us about the dangers
of group behavior?

ANSWERS

1. D

2. A

3. E

4. B

5. C