Witch Trials Reflection

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Despite me learning various counts of American history, I rarely knew about witch trials. The topic was discussed but only at a minute effort. In my senior year of high school, the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts were brought up in American Literature. For some odd reason, I thought it was more of a mythical concept so I didn’t pay attention to the teachings of it. I also didn’t know there were additional witch hunts at the time, others happening in Stamford, Connecticut, until I read Escaping Salem. I honestly thought that witch trials had to do with witches sitting around a fire sacrificing people for the pleasure and benefits along with doing magic tricks to amuse others. That was the only image that came to my head when I thought of…show more content…
In history books, Christianity is the dominant religion mentioned and practiced by most communities. There isn’t much information displayed about the dark practices such as witchcraft being apparent in earlier eras. Though it doesn’t go with our country’s practices of various religions it should still be taught because it’s a part of history. This book proved that the 17th century was also an era of supernatural times. Events that occurred in the 1600’s have no to seldom occurrence in today’s world. During this time period, the world was in its’s fetal stage of traveling, discovery, and colonization of new lands. I was only heavily taught the developments of the New World in the 1600’s. I didn’t know the various witch trials occurred during the same time. Although there is documentation of Satanic rituals in early communities like Stamford, it still practiced Christianity and used it as a guideline. This makes me wonder if scholars ever found importance in the witch trials from the unfamiliarity of it taught in classrooms or was it because the United States filtered it out of the educational…show more content…
Something I was confused about was the fact that Katherine Branch had the same fits as her mother however they diagnosed her mother with epilepsy but said Katherine was bewitched. My research on witchcraft isn’t extensive but I wondered why all witches were considered females. In this book, Satan was gendered as a male however why must all witches be just females. What makes them not likely to be males? Something that sparked my interest was the effects of damaging actions the witches did to their prospects. Kate recalled multiple times of being pricked resulting in red marks throughout her body (28, Godbeer). If this happened as she was saying and there were witnesses taking in the event, prying should have been done to gain advanced knowledge. If this occurred in the 21st century, various experiments could have led to unusual discoveries. I can say I was thrown off by Katherine’s behavior because her stories often didn’t add up or contradicted themselves. An event that interested me was the process of giving a trial on witchcraft. Though there were various counts of information from people that supported the theory of Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough being witches, according to public leaders and magistrates it still didn’t qualify as sufficient evidence. When they did certain exercises like dunking to rationalize Disborough and Clawson’s innocence, it often provided no evidence because it was seen as gaining
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