The Importance Of The Salem Witch Trials

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Recommended: Historical analysis of the salem witch trials

Throughout the course of American history, the idea of a people being ruled by a single government and a strict set of rules to ensure the peace and harmony has been considered necessary to maintain order. Overtime, the rules have gone through numerous changes to improve the system. Some rules have been seen as controversial, and hence have been changed after being proven unable to uphold equality and justice. Such laws include those in the event which this paper studies. So, how have laws and legal procedures changed since then? Firstly, what were the laws and procedures last time? A good reference would be the Salem Witch Trials, a perfect example of religious law and legal, open discrimination. The Salem Witch Trials was a period of mass paranoia in Salem, Massachusetts that lead to not only deaths but a long lasting impact on the people. Government should not be run by or influenced by belief in religion and higher beings but in law and justice. Also, trials and cases should be carried out on a logical basis with the use of credible and concrete evidence, unlike the Salem Witch Trials. However, in Salem from 1629 under the reign of puritans, law was created with the contribution of beliefs, mainly in the devil and God. The idea of theocracy ruled in Salem. Theocracy was the belief that God and State worked as one, God delivered his will through the government. Thus, the belief of the people was in God and the supernatural, this led to the people “blindly” following the leaders of Salem Village. The leaders then, were puritans who originated from England. Puritans are a group of people who devote to “purifying” the church, by basing their way of lives on the bible. Puritanism was a religious reform movement that arose within... ... middle of paper ... ...lenged due to their relationship with the accused. Thus, is someone were to be accused, the person was basically found guilty until proven innocent. In trials and cases nowadays, more care is taken in what could be accepted as concrete evidence, referring to the admittance of spectral evidence during the Salem Witch Trials. This event has also proven to us that hysterias and tragic events can be caused if we are blindly religious, superstitious etc. The unfairness of the trials led to an improvement of the rules, which did not allow the use of spectral evidence in a trial. Also, it drew attention of the world to the discrimination suffered by women, although the event did not have much impact on discrimination against women. If any benefit came out of it, the Salem Witch Trials had opened up opportunities to develop and improve rules and procedures as people have

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