...1.In Cotton Mather’s Accounts of the Salem Witch Trials Susanna Martin was charged with witchcraft under many accounts. A few of these accusations included causing a cow to become untame, possessing a cat to choke a man she had a dispute with, and predicting the death of a seemingly perfectly healthy cow; However one of the most prominent claims in this trial was from Joseph Rings. Rings claimed to have been taken by demons to many witch séances. He claimed to have witnessed Susannah Martin attending these séances therefore accusing her of being involved in witch activity. She reacted calmly to these accusations by explaining that she lived a noble religious life. 2.In the Ads for Runaway Slaves, slave owners considered slaves to be property...
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...The year of 1962 was a major turning point in history in Salem Village, Massachusetts. The trials lasted for about one year. Nineteen people died as a result of the trials and more than a hundred people were found at fault by performing the Prince of Darkness’ sorcery. This paper will debate the events leading up, the events that took place throughout the trials, and the people who suffered because of this. The Salem witch trials began in the spring of 1692. A group of youthful girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts claimed that the demon possessed them and “accused local women of the Devil’s magic” (Salem Witch Trials - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com, 2011). The court announced Bridget Bishop of being a sorceress and sent her to the gallows on June tenth....
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...When you compare two time periods with such time in between ,you rarely find any similarities but with expert crafting by Arthur Miller was able to draw lots of the same moods and evidence from both time periods . Using the basis of the witch trials and the red scare he was living through I believe Arthur Miller wrote “”The Crucible” to show how stupid the current era of McCarthyism. The Red scare was a time period in the 1950’s where American senator Joseph McCarthy was accusing many Americans of being communists. This was a time where the entire country was weary of their neighbors because of the thought that they supported the communist opposition. Most of these if not all of the accusations were false and only caused hysteria . The...
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...“START HERE WITH A CREATIVE TOPIC FOR YOUR SPEECH” Topic: Salem Witch Trials Organization: Topically, Specific Purpose: For the audience to understand what happened before, during and after the Salem Witch Trials I. INTRODUCTION A. Attention getter: The biggest witch hunt in American history took place 322 years ago in Salem, Massachusetts where twenty innocent people were convicted and executed for practicing the Devil’s magic. B. Relevance: My immediate audience should care about my topic because it is informative about the biggest witch hunt in American history. It affects them by having the ability to go home having more knowledge about the Salem Witch Trials. They can relate to my topic by being aware of what happened in 1692. C. Credibility...
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...Katherine Harrison- An Explanation Behind the Madness Although witchcraft is commonly associated with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, there were also other trials throughout the century across colonial New England. It is important to look at some of these other trials also in order to see their cultural and historical impacts. The impacts are often overlooked because all of the attention tends to be put towards the Salem trials. One trial in particular, the 1669 trial of Katherine Harrison, is interesting to look at because of its particular circumstances. Although the essays by two respected historians, Jane Kamensky and Carol Karlsen, never address the trial specifically both seem to offer explanations for Katherine Harrison’s particular witchcraft circumstances. In order to fully compare the accuracy of their explanations to her situation a few things need to be addressed. First off there shall be a brief history of witchcraft in New England, then a clear description of the case against Katherine. Following that there shall be a summary of the historians’ individual viewpoints from their essays. Then finally, and most importantly, is the evidence of why Karlsen and Kamensky have explanatory power in the Harrison case. Witchcraft trials started around 1648 in New England and were fueled by the strong faith of the Puritans. The Puritans, a devout religious group, believed that Satan was an angel who had turned against god, and that witches had been possessed by Satan....
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...America in the 1600’s A. Puritanism B. Salem Witch Trials III. America in the 1950’s A. Communism B. Joseph McCarthy IV. McCarthyism A. McCarthy Trials (HUAC) B. Blacklisting C. Elia Kazan D. Arthur Miller V. The Crucible A. The Summary B. The theme VI. The Allegory A. Danforth and the HUAC B. Danforth and Joseph McCarthy C. Elia Kazan and Abigail Williams VII. The conclusion The Connection The Crucible written by Arthur Miller has a symbolic meaning. It is an allegory, “a story in which people, things, and events have a symbolic meaning, often instructive.” (Agnes 17). The setting, the Salem witch trials of the 1600’s is similar to the McCarthy trials of the 1950’s. The people, the events, the details relate to one another. Miller purposely wrote his story to instruct the fact that the mentality of the people in the 1950’s was no different than the mentality of people in the 1600’s. In the 1600’s people followed a strict religion known as puritanism. The Puritans believed they were sent by God to purify the world of sin and evil. Because of this they believed they were superior to others. Consequently, when they did sin, they tended to feel guilty and blame others for their faults. This blame and guilt led to one of the most fearful times in America. The Salem witch trials happened during the 1600’s and at a time where everyone was supposed to live a life of pureness. The people from the Salem witch trials whom named names were quickly disliked...
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...Philip English and the Salem Witch Trials Philip English came to Salem in 1670. He married Mary Hollingsworth and had two daughters. Between the times he arrived and when the accusations of witchcraft began in 1692 he had become fairly wealthy and was an active member of the town. It can be said that the Salem witch trials were a result of differences between town members in regards to wealth, religious beliefs, politics, and plain jealousy. Two prominent families, the Putnam’s and the Porters, were at odds over the control of Salem. The eldest daughter of the Putnam family, Ann Putnam Jr. had accused sixty two people of afflicting her. It would seem that most accusers were in some way linked to the Putnam family. Philip English and his...
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...The Crucible is an allegorical tale of McCarthyism because of the similarities between the two events. Arthur Miller tries to convey the witch trials to the anti-communist trials in 1950. The 1692 Witch Trials were people accused of witchcraft without any real evidence. They relied on the words of little girls that in reality were trying to keep themselves from getting in trouble. Innocent people were accused and no one had really been a victim of witchcraft. In 1950 when McCarthyism, as it was named by Senator Joe McCarthy, became part of this time period. People were being accused of communism without any real evidence. They were only relying on someone else to tell them who was to blame. Abigail Williams was to blame for the girls to accuse...
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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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...Rachel Pilkinton Mrs. Dierks English Composition 2 January 21, 2012 Dream or Reality? Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, “Young Goodman Brown”, is set during the Salem witch hunts and trials in the Salem Village. The true evil of this time, I believe, is not the people accused of being witches, but the accusers, the “witch hunters”, and the people who murdered innocent people for heresay, are the true evil of this time. I believe the story itself is all a dream, a dream that represents an actual reality; a reality that shows what is thought to be good is actually evil. Young Goodman Brown, like his grandfather and father, hunted what they thought was evil, like witches, Indians, medicine men, shamans, etc. He believed the work he was doing was for the good. I believe this is a dream showing Goodman Brown that the work that he , his family, and his fellow towns people are and have done in the name of God, may in fact be the work of the Devil, maybe the line between good and evil is blurring a little for Young Goodman Brown: when he arrives deep in the forest, he sees all the people in his life that represents good: his revered pastor, the good ole Deacon Gookin, Goody Cloyse; the old woman that taught him his catechism( the principles of Christianity), and still to this day, his spiritual guide, he even thought he saw his dead father, his mother, and all the people he believed to be the most holiest of people gathered and...
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