Dbq Essay On The Salem Witch Trials

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The Salem Witch Trials
From 1692 to 1693 the Salem Witch Trials took place in Massachusetts. Roughly 25 people died from being accused of practicing witchcraft. Each person accused of being a witch was put to trial. First of all, the community was very religious, so if there was any weird behavior, it would be blamed on the devil. Second, anyone could accuse anyone of being witch, even with no evidence. Third, to see if someone was a witch or not did not require real evidence. Lastly, if you seemed off or weird, you could be accused of being a witch. These trials were held unfairly and were set up to where the accused people could not win.
The Salem Village was a Puritan community and when speculation of witchcraft rose, people assumed that others were in contact with the devil. It started when two little girls would have “fits”. They would make weird sounds and the girls were acting very strange. A doctor came to see them and concluded that it was the devil that was making the girls this way. This evidence shows that religion had a huge role in this town on a lot of this including medicine.
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Medical technology was not that advanced and in a very religious town it seemed logical to place things that could not be justified on supernatural things. With the blame being placed on supernatural things, evidence like talking to yourself or not going to church may seem weird and out of the norm. So the trials could be justified due to the time period that the Salem Witch Trials took place it. But, that still did not rationalize killing people because they acted differently or because people assumed people practiced witchcraft because people accused them. Also, the accuser could have accused someone of witchcraft simply because they did not like the person. So the trails for the Salem Witches did not have any

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