Throughout history, there have been many “witch hunts” that have created mass hysteria. Two of which were called the Salem Witch Trials and the Scottsboro Case. The two trials have many similarities to each other and so have many other trials.
The Scottsboro Trials, in summary, was about nine young black men being accused of raping two young white women. Although, what really happened was one of the white girls stepped on one of the boys hands and they started fighting and throwing rocks.”8 out of the 9 boys were trialed with death” (Linder). The court during the time had a strong racial dislike for the black race. On January 1932, the court ruled 6-1 on all but one of the convictions. By the end, the main accuser, Ozie Powell, dropped the charges because later on, too much proof showed that the boys did not rape the two girls.
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“The first to be accused was a slave from Barbados named, Tituba”(Wallenfeldt). The two girls that started all the hysteria was a girl named Abigail, age 11, and Betty, age 9. The two girls would have strange behaviors such as, screaming, throwing things, contorting their bodies, and would have biting and pinching sensations. The two girls were starting to be interested in Fortune telling with Tituba and when people found out they accused Tituba of Witchcraft to save themselves. This made the people believe that this was the work of the devil. Though the citizens of Salem would just use this to take what they wanted. Many innocent people were hung in this tragedy and a memorial has been put up to commemorate the innocent lives taken