`` The Republic Of Nature `` By Mark Fiege, The Salem Witch Trials, And Natural Law

The Salem Witch Trials was a very dark period in our history that occurred in the colony of Salem, Massachusetts. These trials began in February 1692 and ended in May of 1693. There were over two hundred individuals who were accused of practicing witchcraft. Of those two hundred accused, nearly twenty innocent souls were lost. This was one of the most severe cases of mass hysteria in recorded history. There was a great effort exhorted by the Massachusetts General Court to declare a guilty verdict, that the framers of the United States Constitution went to great lengths to never let this type of tragedy occur again; commonly known as the eighth amendment. Remarkably so, some may argue that there were similarities in Salem and the

“Nature” is an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and published by James Munroe and Company in 1836. [1] “Nature” has a total of 41 pages. The essay consists of eight parts: Nature, Commodity, Beauty, Language, Discipline, Idealism, Spirit and Prospects. Each part takes a different perspective on the relationship between humans and nature. In this essay, Emerson emphasizes the foundation of transcendentalism, “a religious and philosophical movement that developed during the late 1820s and 30s in the Eastern region of the United States as protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism.” [2] “Transcendentalism suggests that the divine, or God, suffuses nature, and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature.” [3] “Transcendentalism is closely related to Unitarianism, the dominant religious movement in Boston at the early nineteenth century. Transcendentalism evolved as an organic consequence of the Unitarian emphasis on free conscience and the value of intellectual reason.” [4] Emerson divides nature into four stages: commodity, beauty, language, and discipline. These define the ways by which humans use nature for their basic needs. The historical significance of “Nature” was that transcendentalism club led the celebration of the American experiment as one of the individualism and self-reliance. [5]

The Salem Witch Trials began during the spring of 1692 after a group of young girls in Salem Village, MA, said they were being possessed by the devil and accused local women of witchcraft. With chaos running around the village, the special court began taking on cases. Bridget Bishop, the first convicted witch, was hung that June month. Many people of the Salem community had major consequences including death and harrassment. Belief that the devil could give certain humans, or witches, power to harm others in return for their loyalty emerged throughout europe as early as the 14th century. All of this chaos and phenomenon led to a pointing fingers game of who is guilty. Chaos also brought up the question of why it happened, malice, spite, or

Introduction - The Salem Witch trials was a time of hysteria and confusion. People were being accused and giving false confessions of witchcraft being performed on the people of Salem, Massachusetts.

Many people know of the events that transpired in Salem, Massachusetts, when in 1692, several women were put to trial after being accused by their community for committing witchcraft. To this day, these trials act as a hallmark of the puritan beliefs and spiritual controversy that defined the era. While these trials remain infamous in colonial history, many people are unaware of a similar series of events that took place in Stamford, Connecticut, the very same year. These trials would later become known as the Katherine Branch investigations. While they are often overlooked, these trials were influential in challenging the religious beliefs, logic-based legal systems, and hierarchical societies of 17th-Century Puritanism. The clash between the religious and social beliefs of the Puritans and the legal system of the colony throughout the Branch investigations provide historians with vital information on how the Puritans believed that supernatural forces affected their society.

Only surpassed by ministers as the most respected profession, magistrates wielded tremendous power in New England. Hand-in-hand with that power came the understanding that they would preserve the puritanical doctrine of the colonists. In the quest to maintain the purity of the colony, haste sometimes led to improper judgments, and the courts infrequently convicted those who were innocent in an effort to maintain the sanctity of the province. This situation manifests itself in Salem, where, in order to further their own personal desires to continue the trials and free Salem, the judges and prosecutors prefer to preserve their own veneer of authority over administering justice, rely on unreliable and easily manipulative witnesses, and fail

Over the course of a year, dozens of people, mostly teenage girls, claimed to be put in spells casted by men and women who had "enlisted the supernatural powers of the devil". This occurred in Salem village, a small village a few miles away from Salem town. The accusations started in the Parris household in 1962.

In a small town in Massachusetts, a dark event continues to haunt America’s history. America was fairly new around this time. We believed everything we hear, and we had a set of guidelines that all of us followed. Those guidelines was the Bible. Some are more strict about following the Bible and some were more lenient. Unfortunately, for this small town, the people there were very strict. The children tend to get bored in the winter, the town was divided, the crops were bad and the war with Indians increased as they continue to settle. All this leading to an event that most people don’t like to bring up, the Salem Witch Trials.

In American Literature many authors write about nature and how nature affects man's lives. In life, nature is an important part of people. Many people live, work, or partake in revelry in nature. Nature has received attention from authors spanning several centuries. Their attitudes vary over time and also reflect the different outlooks of the authors who chose to discuss this important historical movement. A further examination of this movement, reveals prevalence of nature's influence on man and how it affects their lives.

The concept of Nature has become layered with many complexities due to the numerous ways this word can be interpreted. It could mean anything from “the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing” to “the external world in its entirety” to “a spontaneous attitude” (Merriam Webster). However, despite its many forms, the common bond between all forms of nature is it’s power over individuals. It will always be something that is beyond human control, whether it be the forces that work around people such as weather or animals, or the innate and uncontrollable characteristics within one’s personality. Nature has control over the world, and one can decide to either fight this authority or succumb to it. This idea is seen very

Nature as w e know it means different things to different people. To an economist, natural is often seen as a resource to be transformed and put in readiness for human use. An alternative view is that humans are stewards who should care for natural things as well as making use of nature’s bounty. Another view is that nature of animism, which sees nature as a living thing, something to be respected and not controlled. Some native American’s view the earth as a sacred place could be called animist. Another alternative view is that the entire planet earth is a self correcting system based on a symbiotic relationship between the earth and the living beings(Peacock,

Many people have tried to figure out when the separation of humans and nature first took place and according to The Separation from More-than-Human Nature “others have seen the separation as

Nature is the universe, with all its phenomena, the elements of the natural world. In society there are those individuals that have an intense connection with nature. William Wordsworth, a romanticist, pantheist and transcendentalist believed that the natural world was an emblem of god or the divine and his poetry often celebrates the beauty and spiritual values of the natural world. Chris McCandless believed that nature was the essence of freedom.

I would define nature as the world around us without any type of human involvement. I believe that nature is anything natural to the earth. It is the plants, animals, rivers, forests, birds, weather, etc. It is a gift given to us from god. Most people believe that nature is just centered on the thought of the ocean and forest. Nature to me is the life source for all living creatures it provides us with the four essential things that we need to survive which are food, water, air, and shelter. However, we are so disconnected from nature we do not see the constant damage that is destroying our home.

Nature is arguable the most real and natural thing on earth and can create a sense of truth when it is mentioned in a story because it is universally seen as pure and real. In “How To Tell A True War Story” there is a nature motif, which adds to the realism of the stories being told. The motif adds to the imagery of the stories and makes it easier for the reader to visualize them make them easier to believe. However, the continual description of nature and the questionable portrayals of it, “The trees talk politics, the monkeys talk religion” (O’Brien 71), can also make the stories incredibly difficult to believe. At some points the over