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Later, after Francis married, she was unhappy and willed the cat to kill her six-month-old daughter and make her husband lame. [6] The confessions that Elizabeth Francis made expanded the scope of her crimes considerably. [7] Elizabeth Francis was the first to be accused, and is the one who accused Agnes Waterhouse.
It was a common belief that witches' children inherited witchcraft from their parents. It was often the practice to charge a whole family of witchcraft, even if only one individual was suspected. Accused witches who confessed often claimed that they learned witchcraft from a parent. Pierre de Lancre and Francesco Maria Guazzo believed that it ...
This description reflects the phenomenon that women were more likely to be accused of witchcraft if they deviated from the societal acceptance of being young, beautiful, and involved in society life. When looking at other interpretations of witches, forms of the arts are how early depictions of literature showcased what a witch would look like. [5]
An estimated 75% to 85% of those accused in the early modern witch trials were women, [10] [126] [127] [128] and there is certainly evidence of misogyny on the part of those persecuting witches, evident from quotes such as "[It is] not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, [witches], should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex" (Nicholas ...
Witch-hunts against children were reported by the BBC in 1999 in the Congo [153] and in Tanzania, where the government responded to attacks on women accused of being witches for having red eyes. [154] A lawsuit was launched in 2001 in Ghana, where witch-hunts are also common, by a woman accused of being a witch. [154]
On August 29, 1957, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts voted to wipe from the books the convictions of six women that had been unjustly accused of being witches 265 years earlier. Gov. Foster Furcolo signed the legislation that intended to clear Susannah Martin, as well as Ann Pudeator, Bridget Bishop, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot ...
Two parents allegedly tried to choke their 17-year-old daughter outside her high school in an attempted “honor killing” for refusing an arranged marriage with an older man, according to police.
During the witch-hunts in the early modern period, women suspected of witchcraft were repeatedly charged with killing, roasting, and eating babies in Satanic rituals. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] In a Satanic panic starting in the 1980s in the United States, thousands of people have been wrongly accused of abusing children in Satanic rituals, sometimes ...