Samuel Sewall

Samuel Sewall can be considered a valiant figure in history. On its face, it seems paradoxical that one of the magistrates presiding over the brutal Salem witch trials should earn such a gallant label. However, Sewall was a courageous, forward thinker far ahead of his time. Aside from being the only judge to publicly apologize for his dealings in the witch trials, he attempted to invalidate slavery in his anti-slavery tract The Selling of Joseph. While these accomplishments may not be impressive

Selected excerpts from Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, this source were short part of Samuel Sewall’s diary. The first one is from back 1692 and the last one is around 1693. With reading his diary, even thought it’s just some parts, you can learn a lot about people of that time perspective at the witchcraft and how much they were afraid of it. He talked about the court and how the judge and the jury were putting the suspect under pressure till he or she confess that they’re

Michael Wigglesworth's Wrathful Poetry Michael Wigglesworth was born in England in 1631. He came over to America with his family at the age of seven. He was raised in the town of New Haven, Connecticut until he went to Harvard at sixteen. He graduated in 1651 but remained a tutor for three years. He was called to the ministry and accepted a call to a church in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1655 and remained in that town the rest of his life. He had three wives and eight children. Wigglesworth

Samuel Sewall is a man known for many things from an education at Harvard, a judge of the Salem Witch Trials, and an author. Sewall is best known for The Selling of Joseph, one of the first anti slavery tracts printed in America (McMichael, 220). Ironically, Sewall who believed slavery was wrong, also had a very racist mentality despite his strong belief that every human being is a child of God. In The Selling of Joseph, he gives four objections to slavery as well as biblical support on why the act

Jonathan Sewall and John Adams were close friends and agreed on many issues. British policies towards the American colonies during the 1760s and 1770s, however, was not one of them. Sewall, a staunch supporter of authority, defended British policies. John Adams, on the contrary, believed the policies to be unjust and thus challenged British authority. Sewall believed that the colonial challenge to British authority threatened the very way of life in the colonies while Adams thought that British authority

in December 1997, on pages 873-897. 6. Your research led you to a book titled Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Critical Essays, in which you found an essay called Emily Dickinson and the Limits of Judgement. The book was edited by Richard B. Sewall, and the essay was the work of Yvor Winters. The essay begins on page 38 and ends on page 56. The book was published in 1963 by Prentice-Hall in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 7. Your research uncovered an essay, Father and Daughter: Edward and

Good Intentions; Unfortunate Results “The path to hell is paved with good intentions,” says an English Proverb. This can also be seen as true about literature set in the 17th century all the way to characters living in the turn of the 19th century. Those were simpler times when people believed in the devil, witches and vampires as explanations because there were so many things they didn’t understand. Characters in these strict moral times would try to do what they thought would be for the best

Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials was a hysterical tragedy that began in the Spring of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. The beginning of the Witch Trials came after a group of young women claimed to be possessed by the devil, claiming that witchcraft was the cause of this possession. To rid Salem of this witchcraft, the people of Salem began fasting and praying in hopes to remove the devil’s influence on Salem. Inside their community in Salem, the young women were pressured to identify the witches

Human beings always have been curious creatures. We are a species that is always searching for answers to unexplainable events. Take aliens for example. To us, aliens may or may not exist (depending on your individual belief of course). Yet we still take such an interest in them that we continuously search for answers and proof of alien. Now that we have modern day technology, we can attain “proof” of alien life-form somewhere deep in outer space. But given the date 1692 in New England, if we were

The devil visited Salem in 1692, or did he? Nicholas Hytner’s The Crucible depicts the 1692 witchcraft epidemic in Salem, Massachusetts. The film was adapted from a play written by Arthur Miller in 1953. The film’s producers, Robert A. Miller and David V. Picker, released the film along with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 1996. The film focuses on one female resident of Salem and her revenge against her ex-lover. The revengeful girl and her group of friends begin to accuse other members