Comparing The Salem Witch Trials And The Trial Of The West Memphis 3

Let me set the scene for you: you’ve just been accused of a crime you didn’t commit, there’s no reliable evidence to prove you committed said crime, and yet you’re still being found guilty. While this isn’t as common today as it was in the past, it still tends to happen. Some of the most famous cases of this happening are the Salem Witch Trials and the trial of the West Memphis 3. While these are very different events we, as people, can learn many different lessons from both events. The witch trials were started and spread by fear and hysteria. Townspeople were accusing people who didn’t go to church, who didn’t seem to follow the Puritan ways exactly, or people who they disliked and wanted to get revenge on. Hundreds of innocent people

Both were religious communities, but the town of Salem was strictly Puritan. They believed women and men had certain roles within the community, everyone should go to church, and if they sinned they would go to hell. One of the biggest sins one could commit in this society was to be accused of working for the Devil. The punishment for this was hanging, after they had been found guilty at their “trail” of course. I say “trial” because the witch trials were merely a formality, if one was accused they could expect to be hanged soon. This is similar to the West Memphis 3 trials because this trial was merely a formality, once the town had found someone to pin the murders on they wouldn’t rest until someone was

It started with one person accusing their neighbors, friends, and in the case of the West Memphis 3, possible murderers. There was no real basis for their fear, people just started being afraid. Many didn’t know why they were afraid, just that their town was afraid so they should be afraid too. They were so focused on what the majority of people thought, they didn’t think they were allowed to have their own opinions on what was happening. This allowed people to turn a blind eye to what was going on in Salem and West Memphis. If they acted like it wasn’t going on, to them it