preview

Summary Of The Movie Three Sovereigns For Sarah

Decent Essays

The movie “Three Sovereigns for Sarah” was an accurate representation of what went on during the Salem witch hanging trials of 1692. There were five major concepts that played pivotal roles in the hysteria surrounding Salem, Massachusetts; superstition, religion, politics, economics, and gender roles. The town of Salem was consisting of mostly Puritans. A Puritan is a member of a group of English Protestants of the late 16th and 17th centuries who regarded the Reformation of the Church of England under Elizabeth as incomplete and sought to simplify and regulate forms of worship. Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) was known for its fractious population, who had many internal disputes, and for disputes between the village and Salem Town (present-day Salem). Arguments about property lines, grazing rights, and church privileges were rife, and neighbors considered the population as "quarrelsome". In 1672, the villagers had voted to hire a minister of their own, apart from Salem Town. The first two ministers, James Bayley (1673–79) and George Burroughs (1680–83), stayed only a few years each, departing after the congregation failed to pay their full rate. (Burroughs would subsequently be arrested at the height of the witchcraft hysteria, and was hanged as a witch in August 1692.) Despite the ministers' rights being upheld by the General Court and the parish being admonished, each of the two ministers still chose to leave. The third minister, Deodat Lawson

Get Access