In both The Crucible and in modern day witch hunts, witch hunts are caused out of fear or for personal gain. Jill Schonebelen wrote a research paper on Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights. Throughout this article, it mentions the persecution of witches today in communities around the globe, mentioning the flashbacks of similar strategies that were used in the past, doing different types of tortures. In Modern days, recent generations have abandoned wonderful traditions. Rather, recollecting others with distasteful memories such as witchcraft.
In 1741 a series of thirteen fires broke out in the streets of New York as part of a conspiracy plot for slaves to gain their freedom back. An investigation by the supreme court looked into the matter, what resulted in over one hundred slaves being captured and interrogated and in fear for their lives they used scapegoats to try and save themselves what only fuelled the fire of the witch hunt for those who were actually responsible. The Negro plot of 1741 was an example of a witch hunt because it caused mass hysteria within the white community and also because the slaves convicted of being a part of the conspiracy used scapegoats to try and save their own lives. One of the reasons The Negro Plot of 1741 is considered a witch hunt is because during the investigation of the fires, white people in the community were afraid that the slaves were trying to fight back in order to gain their freedom back, which caused a lot of negative emotions to stir within the community causing vigilantes to take the law into their own hands. Soon A discontented Spanish Negro came under strong suspicion on April 6, when four new fires broke out and the cry of “ Take up the Spanish Negros “( Linder ) echoed the streets of New York.
As Whitney mentioned, the witch hunts occurred in the 17th century were due to the fears of women becoming “economically and psychological” independent, and threatening the male control of property and social order. Those women were viewed as “discontent” meaning the refusal of accepting their predetermined social status (Whitney 85). In contrast, men who had high authority and social status like the Putmans and Parris could purposely manipulate women and instigated the public resentment to falsely accuse, and cruelly eliminate their enemies such as Rebecca and other accused witches. Certainly, the girls and women in the Putman and Parris’s families who made the false accusations of witches and witchcraft were wielded by
The witch hunts were an act of mass hysteria within the community. I believe that scapegoating is so common in both literature and the real world is because it is such an easy thing to do if you have enough authority/power and the desire for
The Civil Rights Movement and The Salem Witch Hunts “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” - Martin Luther King Jr. In both the 1690’s Salem Witch Trials and the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement there were groups of people who were mistreated and faced dark times. Leading up to the protests in The Civil Rights there was enormous tension in the USA between African-Americans and their oppressors due to the history of slavery and discrimination against the minority. African-American citizens, like those accused of witchcraft in The Crucible, suffered from the inability to work, they were more likely to be assaulted or a victim of a violent crime, and were segregated from the public.
The Renaissance, Religious Reformations, religious wars, and oversea expansions lead to changing attitudes in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Protestant Reformation raised the status of women, but at the same time reformers like Martin Luther believed women should be domestic figures and stay out of the public area. As a result of the strong religious feelings from the Reformations, people became insecure with certain women, like widows and midwives, and developed the idea that they were witches and conferring with the devil. This insecurity and confusion launched the Great European witch-hunt. A witch-hunt is the searching for witches, which often resulted in the trial and persecution of women allegedly practicing witchcraft.
They have been seen as a mirror of the times' fears and tensions, as well as a warning of the risks of public frenzy, bigotry, and injustice. Witch-hunts were triggered by several circumstances, including
The Puritans ran from persecution but then used the witch hunt to persecute innocent people based on the word of the women and men who had ulterior motives. The women used this opportunity to punish people they long had problems or resentment for. These women- Abigail, Tituba, and Mary- were aware of the power they felt when they were being heard by people in their community who were deemed Godly, upstanding citizens. So, they loved the sense of power they felt. Although the townspeople of Salem used religion as the reason for the witch hunt, the witch hunt created chaos because people started using it a revenge mechanism.
Analyze at least TWO factors that account for the rise and TWO factors that explain the decline of witchcraft persecution and trials in Europe in the period from 1580 to 1750. The European great witch hunt began before the Protestant revolution and continued until 1750. People were hunting the devil spirit which they believed lived is some people, or people that used dark power to get what they wanted. Mostly women were affected because of their beauty and lack of physical power.
I think you have a valid point but with so many people accused of rape, murder, etc... and the number of times someone has been falsely accused of one of these events, backed up logs of DNA tests to go through, evidence being lost or getting mixed up with another individual, so on and so on. I don't think we should have modern day witch hunts just because someone is accused of a crime that they may not have committed. Obviously, it isn't a quick process of being accused but there have been individuals who were convicted of crimes and released decades later, some even being exonerated after their death. We should work harder to get through cases, so that those who have done the crime are actually
Tracing back to the 16th century witch hunting has been around causing the lives of many innocent people destruction. Witch hunting has never died off, it is still here today. In my opinion witch hunting will always exist and occur as long as we have fear, ignorance and jealousy. Many people were accused of being a witch or committing witch activity mainly throughout the 16th and 19th century. Primarily because people fear for what they don't know or can't understand.
The first known witch hunts took place in the early 1300’s (Wallenfeldt). As early as the 1400’s, prominent and trustworthy European figures like the pope released pamphlets on finding and persecuting witches (Saari 13-15). The Salem Witch Trials weren’t even the first to occur in America; a woman in Boston had been hung for witchcraft shortly before the Salem trials began. The people of Salem even cited the Boston trials as proof for their accusations; because their afflicted girls had the same symptoms as those in Boston, then clearly both must have been telling the truth (Alexander 194). It would make sense for Salem residents to look to past events to try and understand their current situation, since this is something that happens frequently through history and even
Social: 1600s During the 1600s, there were plenty of witch trials and wars regarding religion. In the 1600s, there was a new thing going on. In Europe, people were hunting witches, whether they were men or women. Usually, the ones that were victims, falsely accused were women, for doing witchcraft.
An example of a “witch hunt” that has happened recently was, of course, the 2017 presidential election. There was a myriad of hostile words and actions towards our “unified” country for people having their own opinions about our country’s leader. There were thousands of attempts of discrediting one another using unfair tactics simply for believing what they thought was right. In fact, that seemed to have made up a majority of the election. This not only happened amongst the people, but the candidates, too.
The word witch is like the word women and unsurprisingly women was about 80 percent of accused witches In early modern europe and most of them women were prosecuted for witchcraft. As a result of this there are no pages in human history more filled with horror than with records of witch madness of three centuries from the fifteenth to the eighteenth. Today looking back many historians believe that the witch hunts were a war against women. The communities that were fearful and hunting witches were organised towns and villages with moral values and strong beliefs in God.
