...innocent people in the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. There is a great deal of speculation around the actual causes of the Salem witch trials. The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, had the theory that “the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity...
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...Salem Witch Trials In 1691 Salem, Massachusetts was like any other typical Puritan populated town. The Puritans were followers of the Church of England and put God above everything. But, in January of 1692 two girls starting experiencing uncontrollable screaming, violent contortions and fell ill. A local doctor diagnosed them with bewitchment. Then in late February of 1692 arrest warrants were issued for three girls. A Caribbean slave named Tituba, another being a homeless beggar named Sarah Good and last being a poor elderly woman named Sarah Osborn. They were accused of bewitching the afflicted girls. The three woman were brought before the local magistrates and interrogated for several days, starting on March 1, 1692. Osborne claimed...
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...Salem Village was a lower class, rural, agricultural village with an official population of 550, not including homeless or the few servants whose masters lived there. Even before the Trials, Salem Village was an unsettled place and was full of stress. The residents of Salem Village were adversarial. There were always family disputes (e.g., land claim disputes and arguments over religion). There was also much tension and stress in Salem and in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Salem Village was always fearing an Indian attack even though it never happened; in 1689, King Charles II of England canceled the legal charter with Massachusetts Bay for having religiously based laws, such as the ones that discriminated against Anglicans; after Charles II died, King James II merged the Massachusetts Bay Colony with the Dominion of New England, which was universally disliked by the colonists. It was overthrown at the same time of the Glorious Revolution in England in 1691. The new Protestant King William and Queen Mary combined several colonies, including Massachusetts Bay, and essentially replaced the Dominion politically. Smaller distresses like smallpox outbreaks, the fear that the English were beginning to religiously persecute...
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...Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 during the Witchcraft Trials must have been a mysterious but, scary place to live. Over the year historians have attempted to uncover the reason behind the witchcraft hysteria, some blamed it on political motives, childhood boredom, and biological reasons. The entire witchcraft hysteria started over unexplained affliction doctors couldn’t explain. Allegations were made against mothers, wives and daughters, rich widows, sea captains, army officers and ministers in the upper society no one was safe. The most surprising allegations of witchcraft took place among educated people in the mist of the scientific revolution. I will attempt to discuss several reasons for the hysteria then you can decide for yourself or at least have something to think about. When Betty Parris, age 9 the daughter of a fanatical minister, Samuel Parris accused her first witch, was it her imagination or something else. Betty would secretly play fortune telling games with her fathers salve Tituba from Barbados. Perhaps, she became guilty and the anxiety caused her to become ill, after all her father viewed everything as either good or totally evil, and the punishment for playing such games would be severe. So when she started complaining of knifelike pain throughout her body, temporary loss of speech, sight and hearing. Dr. Griggs was called in to examiner her and finding no logical explanation he blamed her illness on witchcraft. Samuel Parris, being a minister was...
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...There are many allegations on how the Salem Witch Trials started. Of course, there will never be a definite answer, but there is a theory that is very convincing. Ergot poisoning. A fungus that infects rye has a byproduct called ergotamine, which is related to Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, or LSD. Linnda Caporael, a psychology major at U.C. Santa Barbara, was told to choose a subject for a paper in her American History class. Her just seeing a production of “The Crucible” she began to write about the witch-hunt. "As I started researching," she remembered, "I had one of those 'ah-ha!' experiences." An author for one of her sources said he remained at a loss to explain the hallucinations of the villagers in Salem. "It was the word 'hallucinations' that made everything click," Caporael said....
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...Between February 1962 and May 1693, a series of executions, known as the Salem Witch Trials, occurred in Salem, Massachusetts. One of the most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the trials resulted in accusations being brought against around 200 people, 19 of whom were found guilty and executed. The motivations behind these hearings serve as a subject of debate among historians. Puritan beliefs held by the residents of Salem resulted in an extreme fear of witchcraft for nearly every member of the village. However, many of the executed, accused witches had individuals who stood to gain from their deaths. This essay investigates the extent of which the trials were affected by religion compared to politics. By analyzing both primary and secondary...
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...Literature Review The Trial of Cardigan Jones by Tim Eagan is the book I have chosen for my third grade class. Cardigan the moose is new in town. As he walks around inspecting his new surroundings he notices an apple pie sitting on a window sill. Cardigan goes over to smell the wonderful looking pie. As he walks away, Mrs. Brown looks out her window to find the apple pie gone and Cardigan walking out of her yard. Hysterical, she frantically calls the police. The police arrest Cardigan for stealing the pie. Cardigan has a trial as do all citizens of the United States to allow the court system to prove whether he is innocent or guilty of stealing the apple pie. He testifies that he did smell the pie but didn’t steal it. To find out what happens next at the trial pick up a copy of the story at your local library. Now the lesson over The Trial of Cardigan Jones will serve two purposes. First it will be a lesson that is used for Socials Studies plus it will incorporate Reading and Language as well. This lesson plan will introduce Social Studies standard number three for third grade. The standard states that societies are shaped by beliefs, ideas, and diversity. Benchmark 3.1 states that the students will recognize and evaluate significant beliefs, contributions, and ideas of the many diverse peoples and groups and their impact on individuals, communities, states, and nations. Benchmark 3.2 states that the students will draw conclusions about significant beliefs, contributions, and...
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...The Salem Witchcraft trials in Massachusetts during 1692 resulted in nineteen innocent men and women being hanged, one man pressed to death, and in the deaths of more than seventeen who died in jail. It all began at the end of 1691 when a few girls in the town began to experiment with magic by gathering around a crystal ball to try to find the answer to questions such as “what trade their sweet harts should be of “. This conjuring took place in the Parris household where a woman named Tituba, an Indian slave, headed the rituals. Soon after they had begun to practice these rituals, girls who had been involved, including the Master Parris’ daughter and niece, became sick. They had constant fits, twitched, cried, made odd noises, and huddled in corners. The family called in doctors, and they were treated for many illnesses. Nothing helped. Many weeks later after running out of reasons for their strange behavior, all of their symptoms seemed to lead to one belief, “The evil hand is upon them.” They were possessed by the Devil. At first the families of the children could not find anyone to accuse for being the witch responsible for possessing the children. Then, late in February of 1692, Parris’ neighbor, Mary Sibley recommended that Parris’ slaves, Tituba and John Indian, should work a spell to try to find the culprits. Even after trying this solution the girls’ condition worsened, and the people responsible still had not been found. The girls began to see hazy shadows...
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...Salem Revisited In 1692, the town of Salem Massachusetts turned on each other. They accused their own neighbors of witchcraft. Between June and September of 1692, nineteen people were unjustly executed by hanging, one crushed to death by stones, and many more incarcerated after trials had found them guilty of acts of sorcery. The trials have been researched and looked at many different ways for years. Scholars and students alike continue to be intrigued by the trials and continue to seek answers for how a small town could do this to itself. Every scholarly discipline contributes to what could be the possible answer from ergot poisoning to the psycho-social factor among Africans and American Indians. The road that leads to Salem comes from Europe where witch-hunts rose and fell. The reasons behind the trials themselves are complex. While economics, socioeconomic class issues, tainted food supply, property disputes, and congregational feuds are all listed as causes, the clergy and its congregation are what fueled the accusations and thereby deaths of many town citizens. Witchcraft and sorcery have long attracted the attention of historians and other scholars with the spotlight aimed at 14th-17th century Europe. During the 14th-17th centuries, thousands were executed but to try to be a number to it would be futile. There have been those who have been able to calculate those executed for witchcraft in small towns but the sheer number of countries a part of the craze makes it...
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...Kenya Finch Mr. Osborn Per. 7 March 17, 2012 Character Analysis Essay The world is made of all different types of people with different qualities. Some qualities we all share and some we don’t. We value some more than others and look down at some. Often the qualities that are look down on is what society seems to create the most around and pay the most attention to. Throughout the reading of The Crucible there are many characters that have been introduced with different qualities. One of the characters that have been introduced that has qualities that stands out more from others which are manipulative, devious, and inconsiderate. The character I’m talking about is Abigail Williams. All throughout the story Abigail displays all these qualities and many other but those three are the ones that are displayed the most. Out of all qualities Abigail displays devious is the one greatly revealed. Throughout the story there are many events that happen that Abigail had something to do with, with each event Abigail always has a different story from what actually happens and convinces people that her story is the truth. One event that happens that displays this would be when Abigail was in the woods with the girls dancing and took it to the next level by drinking blood and taking off her clothing. Before the questioning of what happen in the woods Abigail states “Shut up! All of you. We danced. That is all, and mark this, if anyone breathe a word or the edge of a word about the other...
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...Salem witch trials Sabrina Armstrong Com/220 April 24, 2010 G.L. Beck Salem witch trials: a drug induced hysteria What happened in Salem in 1692? The people involved in the Salem witch trials were more than just names, dates and places; they were people with lives and families as well. The Salem witch trials started with three girls falling ill with mysterious symptoms that the doctors could not explain by medical science during that point in history. Many people still wonder today why the hysteria took place. Some people believe that, what caused the hysteria was a by-product of children’s self-delusions. Other people believe that while, the hysteria fueled the Salem witch trials it was not the cause of the trials. A handful of people instead believe that it was drug induce by a toxic fungus called ergot. Ergot is a mold often found on plants such as rye, wheat, and barley, which during the witch trials and still today people made bread from these plants. St. Anthony’s fire is also another name for ergotism. Ergot is a type of food poisoning; that during; Medieval Times was frequent. Although ergot does not include LSD, it does contain ergotamine, which is the hallucinogen that LSD derives from. The evidence suggests that digesting food with ergot in it will poison people and make them sick; this was a major aspect in the Salem trials but no one realized this until recently, when historian and behaviorist psychologist Linnda Caporael did a study on the trials...
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...puritans in his colony in the church and for the most part out of any trouble. Wouldn't hesitate to bannish "trouble makers" or outspoken individuals from the colony. Bacon's Rebellion - The Virginia planters in the outlying areas in 1776 lead by Nathaniel Bacon. Planetrs in this area would aquire more lands by forcing and killing Indians off their lands. They had asked the leaders in Jamestown to form an expidetion against the Indians, when they were not suported they formed their own army of 500 men. The only thing that this accomplished was a way for everyone to seek lower labor costs, bringing in more black slaves. Salem Witchcraft Trials - Between Janurary and April of 1692 people in Salem Village were diagnosed of having been touched by the evil hand and declared bewitched. By this time there were over 150 people accused of being witches. Trials started and 28 of them were convicted of being witches and sentenced to death, a total of 19 were hanged, while 5 confessed of being witches and were spared and a few others escaped....
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...because I think that history is very relevant to many different age groups. The points in history that I will focus on are the slave era and the Salem witch craft trials because these were dark points in our Americas history and important to learn. The linguistic intelligence; I could teach the children how people communicated in the early years and how poetry was often used as a code to get word to people during slavery years to help people to escape towards freedom. Then I would teach them how to write their own poem about someone or something that they consider important with a hidden meaning in their words. The spatial intelligence; I would teach the children how to visualize what the world looked like for people of the slave era; especially if a person was born of color. To help them to visualize this, I would put them in groups of five and have each group build a small model mock town and make presentations for the class to all see. The musical intelligence; I would tell the children how the women of the slave era made up songs to direct other runaway slave freedom towards then I would have them break up in groups and make up their own song to direct others towards a common goal and see if anyone could follow it. The intrapersonal intelligence; I would have the children take a closer look at not just the victims of the Salem witch trials but also the persecutors which started the whole series of events. I would have them look at how they lived and why they made the choices which...
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...Joshua Smelser Professor Lee Hinds Composition 2 September, 10, 2012 Fear As a Living Person In the movie, The Crucible, inspired by Aurther Miller and directed by Nicholas Hytner, fear is a subtle but important aspect in the movie. In fact, if fear was an actor in the film, it would be the lead character, leading to deaths, lies, and betrayal. Now the movie starts off with the towns teenage girls dancing in the woods, conjuring up spells to make boys like them. As they dance around, some naked, reverend Paris a man with power in a city of puritans discovers the girls. This would be the first time fear appears in the movie. Out of fear the girls scatter to avoid getting in trouble with the reverend. All but two girls get away, the reverend’s daughter Betty, and his niece Abigail. After this scene fear gets its biggest part in the movie. Betty falls into a coma nothing can wake her. The town including her father believes that the devil has got hold of her. I believe that Betty is just scared to get in trouble, and there are pieces of evidence that prove it. First off through the entire movie all the girls of the town are lying that they can see the devil. Why would this be untrue for this small girl? Second during church Abigail and the girls march up to Betty’s room and explain to her that everything is ok, her father knows and is not angry. Remarkably she wakes and says she wants her mom. If Betty was truly possessed I am sure she would not wake at the first instance...
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...The Crucible Essay The play, The Crucible, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials. The trials are started by a group of girls who do not want to get in trouble for dancing and conjuring up spirits in the forest. The theme that is brought about in this play is the nature of authority. In The Crucible, many characters present various views of the nature of authority. There are three examples of this theme: The authority of the church over the lives of the villagers, the control Abigail has over the people who are accused of witchcraft and her friends in the trial, and the power of the judge over the trials. The first example of the nature of authority is the church’s power over the villagers’ lives. The church and the everyday lives of its members are controlled by the preachers. Puritans were highly religious people. They had to live under a set of strict religious policies set forth by the church. The Puritans were governed by a theocracy, which is a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler. The Puritans in the late 1600’s believed that the preachers were the purest men on the face of the earth. Unfortunately, that is not so. As evident in the novel, even preachers can become corrupted. John Proctor puts it as “I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I’ll not conceal it.” (856). Miller proves that this is so with his depiction of Reverend Parris’s...
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