The Salem Witch Trials: Cause Or Aggressive Behavior?

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The Salem Witch Trials is a prototype example of scapegoating, which is the unfair blame put on a person regardless of the contribution or actions of others. The people of Salem, living in a very religious and isolated community, had a heightened and almost irrational fear of the devil and its supposed agenda to destroy Christians. In February of 1962, two young girls started to demonstrate unusual and aggressive behavior. A doctor was called to examine the girls and found no physical causes for their strange behavior, so he concluded that the girls' problems might have a “supernatural origin.” Based on a reference, “[m]any modern theories suggest the girls were suffering from epilepsy, boredom, child abuse, mental illness or even a disease brought on by eating rye infected with fungus” (History of the Salem Witch Trials). …show more content…
According to a source, “[t]he village began praying and fasting in order to rid itself of the devil's influence. The girls were pressured to reveal who in the community controlled their behavior” (The Salem Witch Trials, 1692). Resulting in the girls accusing the first three victims, Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne of possessing them with black magic and witchcraft. In a twist of events “Tituba, one of the accused witches, confessed that she and [the] others were in fact witches working for the Devil” (History of the Salem Witch Trials) even though the other two accused repeatedly claimed their innocence. There were many other contributing factors, however the confession of Tituba, is the main reason why the Salem Witch Trials began and why hundreds of more people were killed and prosecuted on groundless
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