Salem Witch Trials Vs Mccarthyism

The trouble in Salem began in January, 1692 when Tituba, a slave from the West Indies was talking to Elizabeth Parris, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Parris, and his niece, Abigail Williams about their futures. After telling them their futures, the girls begin to cry hysterically and act strangely as if bewitched. These fits could be brought on by the idea that their futures as Puritan child-bearing women was at risk or also by the girl’s wanted attention that they had no chance at getting regularly in Puritan society. Tituba also is undergoing torments at this time, seeing specters and having the same type of fits that the other girls are having. As the fits begin to happen to other

“Arthur Miller made the play called “The Crucible” during the 1950’s as a response to McCarthyism and the U.S. Governments blacklisted people.”(Blakesley). Miller was then question and accused of “Contempt of Congress” for not identifying people that were at meetings he attended. McCarthyism and The Salem Witch Craft Trials have been two very wrong things that have happened in the history of the United States for a lot of reasons. First off they both wrongfully accused innocent people of performing not accepted actions of those times. In America you have a right of free will and in both cases they were denied this right just because of someone else’s opinion. In both cases of the Salem Witch Craft Trials and McCarthyism people were being accused of acts with little evidence. People pointed fingers at others so they wouldn’t get blamed for anything, so there was a scare factor taking place. Large groups of people supported these acts maybe because of a get on board everyone’s doing it theme, and if you disagreed you were considered a witch or a communist. Our country supported McCarthy until later we soon regretted it. During the 1940’s and 1950’s communism was a scare in the U.S. so McCarthy capitalized on the subject and said two hundred card carrying communist were in the U.S(PBS). With the Salem Trials people capitalized on the scare of witches and everyone starting accusing the “weird” people. Accusations weather true or false can

The first women to be accused of witchcraft in Salem were seen as different and as social outcasts: Tituba, a slave; Sarah Good, a homeless beggar; and Sarah Osborne, a sickly old woman who married her servant. These women were unpopular and it was easy to point fingers at them. Gossips and rumors were enough to accuse them. Tituba[3] was a dark skinned slave who lived in the household of the Reverend Samuel Parris. She was familiar with the West Indian Voodoo and practicing magic.

Puritans settled in the Massachusetts town of Salem in 1630, with their leader John Winthrop. Winthrop claimed that Salem would be “As a City Upon a Hill,” meaning that the Puritans coming to the New World would set a religious and civilized example among other colonies. However, this wasn’t the case. The Salem Witch Trials were a series of accusations and persecutions due to what was thought to be witchcraft among Salem townspeople. King Philip’s War played a role in the trials. It caused regional mass hysteria which lead to the accusing of witches in Salem. Samuel Parris was the local preacher of Salem and in 1691 he started preaching about the devil and focused more on hell instead of more positive things which also played a role in the crafting of the witch trials. Rich versus poor feuds, the desire to feel around and inspect women, and easily being able to have someone punished by accusing them of being a witch, fueled and motivated the Witch Trials of Salem in 1692.

The Salem witch trials were a dark time in American history. It all started when Reverend Parris’ daughter and niece were acting strangely after spending time with Parris’ slave Tituba. For example, “They were believed to have danced a black magic dance in the nearby woods. Several of the girls would fall to the floor and scream hysterically” (“Witchcraft in Salem”). Parris then believed that Tituba along with two other women had bewitched his daughter and niece, thus starting the witch hunt.

Salem’s civilians were easily influenced and manipulated because in reality they had never dealt with a problem like this one before. They also trusted the religious officials. The third person they accused of witchcraft was Tituba, Reverend Parris´s slave, she had come from the islands of Barbados, in reality she was just an alien who stood out in the community because she was different (Uschan 21). These three women were the first to be targeted and on March 1, 1692 they were questioned in the Salem Village meeting house by two magistrates, Jonathan Corwin and John Hawthorne (Uschan 17). Dorcas Good, a five year old was also accused of joining her mother, Sarah Good in witchcraft; even George Burroughs a former Salem Village pastor was accused.

Does the Salem Witch Trials and The Holocaust Have Things in Common? During both of these times mass numbers of people were being killed and driven by fear in their own society. This fear became mass hysteria. Mass hysteria occurred in 1692 in the town of Salem and again “between 1933 and 1945, [when] more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust” (Lehnardt 1).

In Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, faith was central to the government, just as freedom was the basic foundation of the American government in 1947. Faith and Freedom are both taken personally to a sizable sum of people, but the true meaning of those words varies from each individual to the next. Despite the thought that each person owns their own definition of the words “Faith” and “Freedom”, people who resided in Salem in 1692 were judged so harshly due to the fact that they did not have the same beliefs or morals as politicians or others who were put in charge above them. Salem is a direct parallel to the McCarthy era when people were accused of being communist due to a different thought system that they possessed that others in the government

The infamous Salem Witchcraft Trials began in early 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts. It all began as a childlike game of a fortune teller to discover the future of the young girls. The Salem Witchcraft Trials began January of 1692, when two girls, Betty Paris (nine) and Abigail Williams (seventeen) , began to have fits and convulsions. They were seen by doctor William Griggs, and the only reasonable diagnosis he knew of was bewitchment. By the end of February, two other girls, Ann Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard, became ill. All together, there were 10 girls that were afflicted. Ann Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard accused Sarah Good, Tituba, and Sarah Osborne 's spirits of hurting them. Tituba, Reverend Parris 's slave, had

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 were a series of trials in which twenty-four people were killed after being accused of practicing witchcraft. These trials were caused by different social climates of the area including the very strong lack of a governor, the split between Salem Village and Salem Town, and the strict puritan lifestyle during the time period. Tituba, the black slave, was a foreigner from Barbados. Her role in society was to take care of Mr. Parris’s family. Tituba’s situation contributed to her role in the witch trials because Mr. Parris promised her freedom if she confessed guilty. Tituba also realized that with her false confession of being a witch also helped keep her life, therefore she accused other people in the village

The events which led to the Witch Trials actually occurred in what is now the town of Danvers, then a parish of Salem Town, known as Salem Village. Launching the hysteria was the bizarre, seemingly inexplicable behavior of two young girls; the daughter, Betty, and the niece, Abigail Williams, of the Salem Village minister, Reverend Samuel Parris. The trouble began when two young girls asked the slave, Tituba to help them know their fortunes. They used an old trick of suspending an egg-white in a glass of water to find this out. Over several months, the girls began to exhibit strange behavior, which soon spread to other girls in the town. The girls, under pressure from Reverend Parris, identified two local white women and the slave Tituba as the witches who were causing them pain. The

The evidence of witchcraft and related works has been around for many centuries. Gradually, though, a mixture a religious, economical, and political reasons instigated different periods of fear and uncertainty among society. Witchcraft was thought of as a connection to the devil that made the victim do evil and strange deeds. (Sutter par. 1) In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth century, the hysteria over certain causes resulted in prosecution in the Salem Witch Trials, European Witchcraft Craze, and the McCarthy hearings. These three events all used uncertain and unjustly accusations to attack the accused.

The first thing that made Salem Witch Trials what they are today is when Abigail Williams and the other girls gathered in the woods. Then the kids were seen dancing and chanting to Tituba performing voodoo over the fire in attempts to kill Elizabeth Proctor. Proctor was the wife of Williams’ boss, John Proctor, with whom she had been having an affair. Tituba was asked to cast this charm by Abigail. The next day, Reverend Parris’ daughter, Elizabeth, and niece, Abigail

Many people in this world are accused of crimes so absurd that when put to trial, they name others of the same crime to redirect the focus from them to others like it happens in the actual day, every year, with minor cases. McCarthyism was one of those cases that changed history, likewise the Salem Witch Trials. McCarthyism had the same effect on people, people who were accused of communism blame others to lessen their penalty like in the Salem Witch Trials, so how the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Era can connects although the great difference in time?

After the doctor’s analysis, the townspeople then gathered up all of the girls with the symptoms. The collected girls accused three women: Sarah Good, an odd homeless woman who lived the streets of Salem Village, Sarah Osborne, who had married her servant and rarely attended the church meetings, and Tituba, an Indian slave from Barbados who was in service of Reverend Samuel Parris. Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne denied the accusations, while Tituba confessed, and claimed there were multiple other witches working by her side in Salem.