The witch hunt is one of the most shameful pages of human existence. For many centuries, witches have been punished based on accusations not supported by facts. About a hundred thousand innocent people were killed by Puritan ignorance. However, the events in Salem (USA) were recognized as the bloodiest court, where all Salem witches were brutally executed. About 20 women were executed in a short time.
To familiarize yourself with these facts, you can watch the movie “Salem Witches”. This documentary film. From it you can learn that the tragic events of Salem began completely innocently. According to the documentary film The Witches of Salem, the children of Rev. Parris, Betty, and Abigail were under the watch of the black slave Titula, who was taken out of Barbados, on long winter evenings.
She brightened up the girls' leisure time, telling them about their homeland, about voodoo magic, and it so attracted children's hearts that saw nothing but the plow and the Bible that they decided to try some spells in practice. Together with the slave, they built a primitive magic ball by immersing an egg in a glass of water. During this occupation they were found by their father, who did not know what to do next. The children, fearing reprisal, began to get nervous, this later turned into hysteria, which soon swept all the girls in the village. A friend reported on a friend, saying that his neighbor had once done something strange long ago. The girls accused Titulu of their fits. The doctor, sent to treat the girls, only spread his hands with the words: "Bewitched."
Since then, a witch hunt has been declared.
About 20 people were sentenced based on children's testimonies. They mainly blamed those who did not go to church, did not merge with the crowd and did not enjoy a good reputation. The title with two other women was executed first. Before the Salem witches went to execution, they had to languish for a long time in a Boston prison, where they were refused food. The title, by the way, not only confessed to witchcraft, but also issued two other women of the village. Who knows, maybe these three really owned witchcraft spells? However, all subsequent allegations were based on lies, prejudices and self-interest of neighbors. Shackled and convicted were all who even simply protested against undeserved violence and torture.
Until the end of the strange hysteria in Salem, 19 of the 141 people who were involved in the case were hanged, and two more Salem witches died in prison. But the death of Giles Cory, an eighty-year-old landowner who refused to utter a word, knowing that his guilt was confirmed, and then his ancestors would not go to his ancestors, was recognized as the most brutal. For indomitable spirit, the court sentenced him to torture. The sheriff’s people put the old man on the field, covered him with a board and gradually laid stones on it, so the authorities wanted to “talk” to the silent proud. However, they did not succeed, and instead of confessing, they heard the dying curse of Giles.
And only when it came to accusing his wife, Governor Phips put an end to this insanity.
Compared to all Salem residents, the real “Salem witches” are presumptuous girls who have decided that they can decide the fate of people. And how dark were the times if adults blindly trusted the instructions of juvenile tantrums? The world needs a lot of blood to finally learn how to heal its wounds ...