Salem Witch Paranoia Essay

When creating the American constitution, the cold days of England's terror lived in the minds of the Founding Fathers. Disputes between Federalist and Anti-Federalists over an addition of a Bill of Rights stalled the ratification of the Constitution; however, Jefferson argued that a Bill of Rights embodied American concepts such as freedom and individualism, and was necessary to protect individual rights. As a result, the addition of a Bill of Rights the freedoms promised in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence came together to create the First Amendment: freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, and the right to assembly and petition. Hence, the beginning of a slippery slope for American discourse began.
America is a revolutionary

The most infamous examples of witch paranoia occurred in Salem, Massachusetts. What became known as the Salem Witch Trials began on March 1st 1962, with two ill young girls, Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Parris, accusing Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and an Indian slave, Tituba of performing witchcraft on them. There are several documents of them petitioning for their freedom but ultimately, one admitted to being a witch and so the trials went on. Over the next few years several women and a few men would face the same paranoia based accusations, many tortured and killed in brutal ways.
The Salem Witch trials displayed the first widespread response to conspiracy based paranoia that occurred on American soil. Throughout the late sixteen hundreds up until independence, the colonies were always looking to expand and a lack of connection to Britain kickstarted the founding of American values. The newfound belief in having freedoms and independence were majorly derived from Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke with his social contract and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Although, even before independence these values affected the mindsets of colonists, creating a unique American identity, the same freedoms allowed for an elaborate hysteria based game of pointing fingers, resulting in the death of several falsely accused witches. America's acclaimed freedoms have continued to lead to the creation of conspiracies that would prove

Darwinists in turn, believed biology to be destiny and that if one's ancestors were unfit their children would be as well. Much like in evolution, Spencer assumed that the unfit populations would decline overtime due to their failure to compete, however paranoia led some Americans to speed up this process, introducing eugenics. Eugenics were supposed to improve men, ridding the undesirable traits of the unfit and changing genetic structure to create more fit individuals. The Eugenics movement in America took people of color, the mentally ill or disabled, LGBTQ individuals, and other members of society deemed unfit, and conducted experimentation ranging from forced breeding, involuntary sterilization, or institutionalization on them. Although the movement was eventually stomped out, it violated thousands of