The Crucible And Dispatches: Return To Africa's Witch Children

In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller and the documentary “Dispatches: Return to Africa’s Witch Children” are both connected through the lessons and messages portrayed throughout. Both works are based on witchcraft and focus on real life accusations that have occurred throughout history. In each of the works the lesson of not making accusations without any solid evidence is present.
The Crucible is a play set in Salem during Puritan times, and is based on actual witch trials that occurred in Salem Massachusetts from 1692-1693. The play starts out with Betty Pariss, a young girl and daughter of the town Reverend, falling unconscious with no known cause. The town is sent into a frenzy when rumor starts that she has been affected by witchcraft.

The documentary reveals the horrific Witch Trials that occurred in Nigeria in the early 2000’s and on. Parents of children as young as two were abusing and abandoning their kids because they believed they were witches, and needed someone to pin their struggles on. For example, “Charity is just one of the many children now living on the streets after being accused of witchcraft. For the past two years, the 13-year-old has been living in a makeshift hut in the middle of a dump site on the outskirts of Calabar'' (pulitzercenter.org). Charity is just one of the many children cast out of her home due to false accusations. This violence began because of the religion in the villages allowing people to blame any negative event or problem on witchcraft, and children were the easiest to accuse. The defenseless children could not fight back or stop the abuse that happened to them. Fake pastors would profit from this torture by offering illegitimate services such as exorcisms to dispel the Devil from children. Parent’s would also use witchcraft as an excuse to stop caring for their children if they were struggling financially. No real proof was ever given for these accusations, if something bad happened it could easily be pinned on a child. Innocent children would be outcast from their homes and villages due to false claims and unnecessary anger toward them. Had these accusations not been made, considering how unjust they were, hundreds of children would have been spared the abuse, torture, lifelong trauma, and in some cases death they were met