Witch Hunt Research Paper

Witchcraft was defined for the masses by the publication of the Malleus Maleficarium also known simply as the Handbook. Written by two Dominican friars in 1486 it’s purpose was to be used as a handbook to identify, capture, torture, and execute suspected witches. Opinions stated as facts and written in the Malleus Maleficarium, “handbook”, were based their faith, church doctrine, and the Bible. No doubt a religious masterpiece in it’s time this handbook is a neatly woven together a group of beliefs, experiences, wisdom of ancient writers, religious ideas, and God inspired writings that justify it’s purpose. Written by and used by Catholics this handbook proved useful for Protestants as well. Based on biblical interpretation and ideas the handbook provided Protestant Church leaders biblical authority to prosecute witchcraft as well. Translated into today’s vernacular phrases such as, “everybody knows that women are feeble minded” or “everybody knows that women are more superstitious than men” and “all women have slippery tongues” are included in the handbook and presented to the reader as foregone conclusions. Specific

In 17th-century Colonial America, contact with the supernatural was considered part of everyday life; many people believed that evil spirits were present and active on Earth. This superstition emerged 15th century Europe and spread with the colonization of North American puritan colonies. Women were believed to be the most susceptible to demonic behavior; females were considered simple targets for Satan due to being viewed as the weaker sex physically, spiritually, and morally. Women who did not conform to the Puritan ideals at the time were usually ostracized, institutionalized, or brutally murdered. In 1692, thirteen women were famously put on trail for accusations of witchcraft; famously known as the Salem Witch Trails. Most of these women were put on trial and later burned to death for erratic and un-Godly behaviors, 78% of the people charged were women who were accused of doing devilish things such as; speaking out against church officials, being a financially wealthy widow, having pre marital sex, or just being too beautiful. According to Michael Coren’s Why Catholics are Right “five million women were killed by the Church as witches… witch hunts began in the sixteenth century in Europe and that between 30,000 and 50,000 men and women were burned to death for

Witch hunts blazed across Europe over the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries not just killing innumerable innocent people, but stripping women of much of the power they had once held, and changing society's perceptions of women all together. The economic hardships, religious rivalries, and troubled politics of the time made accusing your neighbors of witchcraft convenient. Where there was war and poverty, or merely bad luck, peasants would assume witchcraft and rush to blame an old, defenseless woman in trials which involved unbelievable cruelty and horrible sadism. As religion and the Catholic Church began to complement and perpetuate the increasing hysteria, European society as a whole could do nothing but

American History – HY 1110-15L-15 Unit II – Scholarly Activity – Salem Witch Hunt By LeQuay Marsh – 218182 It is extremely challenging to know with a great deal of certainty what happened in 1692 in Salem. However, there are many otherwise reliable sources that suggest that the Salem Witch Hunt began when multiple females from the Village of Salem began demonstrating odd behavior including strange fits with insane responses followed by a mixture of crying and laughing, unintelligible speech, endeavors to fly, and entering into a phase something like that of a trance. This peculiar behavior allegedly began shortly after mysteriously sessions with an Indian slave named Tituba from the Caribbean. During these sessions, the girls would chant with

Were the witch-hunts in pre-modern Europe misogynistic? Anne Llewellyn Barstow seems to think so in her article, “On Studying Witchcraft as Women’s History: A Historiography of the European Witch Persecutions”. On the contrary, Robin Briggs disagrees that witch-hunts were not solely based on hatred for women as stated in his article, “Women as Victims? Witches, Judges and the Community”. The witch craze that once rapidly swept through Europe may have been because of misconstrued circumstances. The evaluation of European witch-hunts serves as an opportunity to delve deeper into the issue of misogyny.

During winter, there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. The trees will rest, and live off the food they stored during the summer. They begin to shut down their food-making factories. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves.

During that time, many women were accused of being witches because of the fear surrounding witchcraft. The deeply religious Puritan society believed in witchcraft, so whenever strange occurrences would happen, they'd often attribute them to witchcraft. The fear of witchcraft in the highly religious area led to the wrongful accusations and execution of many women. Because of this fear and paranoia, many people strayed away from the spread of “witchcraft” and just wanted to get rid of as many strange women as possible without even rationalizing whether or not they were involved in the sin. The people were so consumed by the fear of witchcraft that they lost sight of the real problem being the decline in their population and the growing distrust in those accusations.

In the 1680’s and 1690’s there was mass hysteria in New England over supposed witchcraft. The most famous outbreak was in Salem, Massachusetts, hence the name Salem Witch Trials. In Salem, there were young girls who started acting strangely, and they leveled accusations of witchcraft against some of the West Indian servants who were immersed in voodoo tradition. Most of the accusations were against women, and soon the accusations started to shift to the substantial and prominent women. Neighbors accused other neighbors, husbands accused their wives, etc. and it kept going on for a while. There was this nature of evil and the trials didn’t end until nineteen Salem residents were put to death in 1692, more importantly before the girls

It was 1909 in Salem Washington, during that year the wolves were awful,killing most of the livestock and making the winter hard and cruel. The wolf was even more afraid of the people than the people were of it. The people were actually frightened by something off in the forest. It was a woman in a long dress robe. It was a witch. Fear and agony spreaded throughout the air like a virus. The townspeople were scrambling to get to safety. They had a safe house in town full of heavy weapons. The men retreated and decided to bear arms against this evil scrutiny. The witch was standing in front of a forest which stood behind the town. She knew she had to hide or else she would surely be hung. The men had flaming torches and pitchforks and were starting

The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be

A few centuries ago in Europe, the fear of witchcraft led to witch hunts and executions. These occurred mostly in France, Germany, northern Italy, and Switzerland. “Tens of thousands of people in Europe and European colonies died,” and “millions of others suffered from torture, arrest, interrogation, hate, guilt, or fear,”. It is estimated that the early modern witch trials claimed the lives of nine million Europeans, 80% of whom were women which led early feminists such as Margaret Murray, Mary Daly and Barbara Ehrenreich, among others, to wonder: “Was the witch-hunt an intentional woman-hunt”. Back then, women were accused of being witches since Accusations of witchcraft required no evidence of guilt. The trials were “intended only to produce

Topic 1: The Witch Hunts Witch Hunts during the post middle ages were a tragic event that led to many people to be falsely accused for the act of witchcraft and devil worship. During the 15th to the 18th centuries Europe experienced a dramatic changed in socitity as it faced the Renascence, the Protestant Reformation, and the culmination of diverse societies, this would lead to the Church and many other Europeans weary of the supernatural to find and purge anyone who would be in league with the Satanic Cult. Since those who were accused of portraying to be a servant of the Devil, would be put on trial for their crime and would be subject to many forms of punishing trials that led to over 40,000 people were put to death. Since the belief of magic was popular during those times, the higher social class would be involved in developing the idea of Devil

Witchcraft was a focal point of fear during the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. A dramatic rise in the number of witchcraft prosecutions caused society to respond with religious fear, pervasive fear, and tension in society. The rise of witchcraft also caused thousands of tragic deaths among innocent people who were accused of witchcraft. Witchcraft contributed to the widespread spread of fear and death all around Europe at that time. This period of intense fear and hysteria, known as the European witch hunts, resulted in the execution of countless individuals, mostly women.

The witch-hunt that blazed a trail across Europe (and indeed the world) over the 15th to 18th centuries stripped women of much of the power they had historically held. Not 100% of all accused Witches were female but 75% to 90% of accused witches in Europe were in fact women (Levack, 1987, p.124).

Females in the 1692-1693 were one of the largest groups accused of being part of the Salem Witch Trials. According to Washington State University, “As events unfolded, 185 people were accused at Salem, 141 women and 44 men. Of that number, 52 women and 7 men were tried; 26 women and 5 men were convicted; and 14 women and 5 men were executed, the last group on September 22, 1692.”(Campbell 1) this statistic shows that women were more likely to have been accused of being a Witch. Women were thought to be much lesser than men and weren't