How Does Susanna Endicott Objectify Tituba

Cotton Mather accounts the witch trial of Martha Carrier through reporting the accusations and crimes prosecuted against her. This trial was unjust because prosecution occurred to explain unnatural events by using unfounded, spectral evidence. All unnatural events affected the witnesses negatively in matters of health or occupation. This led the people of Salem to create a scapegoat for their misfortune and other ‘witches’ to persecute those near to them in the fear of death.

Myth-busting: Ergot Poisoning The years 1691 to 1692 mark an important date in Salem Massachusetts. A small village on the North coast of Massachusetts, Salem became notorious for their injustice and cruelty of their Witch Hunts, in which over 20 people, men and women, were executed in half a year. Surrounded by Religious Paranoia and uncertainty in their newfound community, people began looking at practices of the Devil as a scapegoat for unusual happenings. Believed to have been works of the devil for centuries, this idea has been rebuked in recent times, as a study in 1976 strongly suggested the effects of Rye Ergot Poisoning to be the main force behind the Witch trials.

In 1692, a group of young girls from Massachusetts named Elizabeth and Abigail, believed they were being possessed by the devil and falsely accused several woman, men and children of witchcraft. Once the men and woman were accused they were ordered to attend multiple trials in which would be help in the Massachusetts general court. Once the men and woman were taken to trial they were proven guilty by the girls actions that proved the court these men and woman were apart of witchcraft. After the accuses were proven guilty in front of the court they were either held in prison and eventually died or hanged and died. There were multiple young girls who were apart of the witchcraft accusing other than just Elizabeth and Abigail.

Many minority groups were vulnerable to enslavement placed upon them by white Americans throughout the 19th century. In the episodic autobiographies Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave written by Fredrick Douglass and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by Harriet Jacobs, both authors present the physiological manipulations associated with slavery. Douglass's and Jacob’s experiences suggest that slaves endured a continuous treatment of brutality, loneliness, and sexual abuse. Slave-owners deprived slaves of positive human qualities because they (slave-owners) became divested from their sense of identity. The dehumanizing institution of slavery caused slave-owners to conform to social roles instituted by society and forced slaves to suffer from learned hopelessness.

Mary Rowlandson was a remarkable writer whose work tells an important piece of Colonial America’s history. It depicts how English colonists and Native American people of the Massachusetts region misunderstood each other. Her account became popular reading and reads much like a novel with use of descriptive and creative writing, although the language used is a bit difficult for modern readers as it is written in a more formal manner than we are accustomed to today. God’s intervention is ever present throughout the account and she believed that everything that happens to her or to any other human being is caused by God and carries with it a meaning or lesson. God controls all worldly events and determines their outcomes and Rowlandson applied the Puritan principles and ideals during her time as a captive.

During the late 1691 several young girls began to suffer fits and nightmares, attributed by their elders to witchcraft (Foner 106). Tituba who was a slave from Barbados that lived with two of the girls that were having fits as a servant. The girls invited several friends to share this delicious, forbidden diversion. Tituba’s audience listened intently as she talked of telling the future. Villagers sat spellbound as Tituba spoke of black dogs, red cats, yellow birds, and a white-haired man who bade her sign the devil’s book.

In the seventeenth century, the belief in witchcraft was spread among Europe and the colonies. According to the textbook, America a Narrative History, “Prior to the dramatic episode in Salem, almost 300 New Englanders had been accused of practicing witchcraft, and more than 30 had been hanged.” This outbreak of witches ruined Massachusetts Puritan utopia. This paper will discuss the settlers of Massachusetts prior to this calamity, what happened during, and the outcome.

Could there be contrasts and likenesses between two accounts composed by two unique individuals? Confronting various types of afflictions? It is conceivable to discover contrasts and likenesses in two stories relating two various types of occasions? Imprisonment accounts were main stream with pursuers in both America and the European continents. Bondage stories of Americans relate the encounters of whites subjugated by Native Americans and Africans oppressed by early American settlers.

The narrative offers an account which can be used to describe the particularly puritan society based on the ideals of Christianity and the European culture. It offers a female perspective of the Native Americans who showed no respect to the other religious groups. The narrator makes serious observation about her captors noting the cultural differences as well as expectations from one another in the society. However, prejudice is evident throughout the text which makes the narratives unreliable in their details besides being written after the event had already happened which means that the narrator had was free to alter the events to create an account that favored her. Nonetheless, the narrative remains factually and historically useful in providing the insights into the tactics used by the Native Americans

The Salem witch trials are an outstanding example of a dysfunction in a “perfect” society. Tituba as part of that society helps us understand the simpleness of a complex shaped idea. Notwithstanding that Tituba is considered irrelevant during the Salem trials, nevertheless Tituba exposes European perceptions of Native Americans as a basis for cultural superiority and oppression, since Tituba is an indisputable symbol of injustice, of an ignominious drama, slavery, racism, as well as the defamation of a culture. The decisions that Tituba made throughout her trial, contributed in a substantial magnitude to the American history that’s known nowadays.

The Salem Witch Trials The well-known events that took place in Salem, Massachusetts during 1962, were known as the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials quickly began after a group of young girls began making accusations about the use of witchcraft by several members of the community in Salem. “The trials are known as one of the darkest times in American history.” (Brooks)

Putnam claims that “There is a murdering witch among us, bound to keep herself in the dark. Let your enemies make of it what they will, you cannot blink it more” (16). Putnam is yet another powerful male figure in Salem Betty has taken a grip over in the town. He, in this quote, truly believes that the devil is among the town of Salem based on Betty’s current condition. Reverend Hale, encouraging Tituba to give more names of witches, tells her to look at Betty’s “god- given innocence; her soul is so tender; we must protect her; Tituba; the Devil is out and preying on her like a beast upon the flesh of a pure lamb.

Religion was a very strong influence in the lives of Puritans as they followed a very strict moral code and based their entire lives on their faith. Most Puritans were taught from the Bible that "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Doc. A), which explains why the witch scare was taken so seriously and why the accused were punished so harshly. They believed and feared that "evil spirits were all around" (Doc. C) as noted in Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions by Cotton Mather, who at that time was a reputable expert in the "invisible world. " It seems strange to 21st-century dwellers that people believed that witches could be identified by marks of the devil, as portrayed in an 1853 painting by T.H. Matteson (Doc. D).

Literature is often credited with the ability to enhance one’s understanding of history by providing a view of a former conflict. In doing so, the reader is able to gain both an emotional and logistical understanding of a historically significant event. Additionally, literature provides context that can help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the political climate of a time period. Within the text of The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead’s, the use of literary elements such as imagery, metaphor, and paradox amplifies the reader’s understanding of early 19th century slavery and its role in the South of the United States of America. Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition

Cotton Mather: Wonders of the Invisible World In this writing, Cotton Mather, a Puritan Theologian and a renowned reverend talks about his fears of the Christian religion being slowly obliterated from the country, which he believes is being taken over by the devil and his minions by the use of Witchcraft. In 1963 Cotton Mather was asked to create a literary piece, in defense of the persecutions, one year after the events of the Salem witch trials actually took place, where questionable events happened were depicted. This work was called the Invisible Wonders of the World. Throughout the writing, Mather is always depicting the devil as a real and tangible being (e.g. “invisible hands” and supernatural happenings).