Salem Witch Trials In American History

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The Salem witch trials are a large event in American history and its significance is still strong. There was already tension throughout the new world with balancing Christianity with their new American views such as capitalism or freedom. There were many rules and values in that Puritan society which limited people in what they could say or do, so when there was an opportunity to kind of break apart from these rules everything got out of control. The people of Salem used witchcraft and Christianity as their excuse for acting in the ways they did. This time was full of lies, deceit, and massive violence. As seen in The Crucible, people may have been trying to kill other women to get to their spouses and others were just getting rid of people they dislike. People were following anything that was said just because of their fear from the devil which is …show more content…
Now that we are looking at this from the present, it is easy to say that things like this are in the past and it might seem like they are, but I believe it is still happening just on a smaller scale. There have been periodic mentions of witch hunts such as the 1980’s day care satanic witch hunt. I believe any witch hunt is just abuse or wrong doing to others out of paranoia or fear from large groups of people. For example, former Arizona police chief, Joe Arpaio, was arrested and then pardoned by President Trump for detaining Latino Americans which he believed to be illegal immigrants. He did this with no factual evidence and he detained many illegal immigrants as well as actual citizens based solely on prejudice (Liptak). How is this much different from arresting people because they have spectral evidence against them? People are still making rash decisions based on fear which leads to even more rash decision and then eventually chaos. As a young black male living in America, I have had experiences myself with being profiled, and I have witnessed it happen to others just like