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The Crucible is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists. Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in jail.
Abigail Williams was an 11- or 12-year-old girl who, along with nine-year-old Betty Parris, was among the first of the children to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft in 1692; these accusations eventually led to the Salem witch trials.
Elizabeth "Betty" Parris was one of the young girls who accused other people of being witches during the Salem witch trials. The accusations made by Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams caused the direct death of 20 Salem residents: 19 were hanged, while another, Giles Corey, was pressed to death.
John Hathorne was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials.
John Proctor was a landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He and his wife Elizabeth were tried and convicted of witchcraft as part of the Salem Witch Trials, whereupon he was hanged.
Elizabeth Proctor was convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was the wife of John Proctor, who was convicted and executed.
Samuel Parris was the Puritan minister in Salem Village, Massachusetts, during the Salem witch trials. He was also the father of one of the afflicted girls, and the uncle of another.
Tituba was a Native American slave woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693.
The Crucible is a 1996 American historical drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Arthur Miller, based on his 1953 play of the same title. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor, Winona Ryder as Abigail Williams, Paul Scofield as Judge Thomas Danforth, Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor, and Bruce Davison as Reverend Samuel Parris. Set in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, the film follows a group of teenage girls who, after getting caught performing a ritual in the woods, band together and falsely accuse several of the townspeople of witchcraft.
Rebecca Blake Eames was among those accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692.
Mercy Lewis was an accuser during the Salem Witch Trials. She was born in Falmouth, Maine. Mercy Lewis, formally known as Mercy Allen, was the child of Philip Lewis and Mary (Cass) Lewis.
Jonathan Corwin was a New England merchant, politician, and magistrate. He is best known as one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692, although his later work also included service as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literary and dramatic depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
Sarah Wildes was wrongly convicted of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials and was executed by hanging. She maintained her innocence throughout the process, and was later exonerated. Her husband's first wife was a member of the Gould family, cousins of the Putnam family, the primary accusers, and court records document the family feuds which led to her persecution.
Abigail Faulkner, sometimes called Abigail Faulkner Sr., was an American woman accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. In the frenzy that followed, Faulkner's sister Elizabeth (Dane) Johnson (1641–1722), her sister-in-law Deliverance Dane, two of her daughters, two of her nieces, and a nephew, would all be accused of witchcraft and arrested. Faulkner was convicted and sentenced to death, but her execution was delayed due to pregnancy. Before she gave birth, Faulkner was pardoned by the governor and released from prison.
Sarah Cloys/Cloyce was among the many accused during Salem Witch Trials including two of her older sisters, Rebecca Nurse and Mary Eastey, who were both executed. Cloys/Cloyce was about 50-years-old at the time and was held without bail in cramped prisons for many months before her release.
Elizabeth Booth was born in 1674 and was one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. She grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, as the second eldest of ten children. When she was sixteen she was accused of being a witch. When she was eighteen, she began accusing people of practicing witchcraft, including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Proctor, William Proctor, Benjamin Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd. Five of these people were executed due to Booth's testimony. Elizabeth Proctor would have been executed as well if she was not pregnant. After the Witch Trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695, and had two children named Israel and Susanna. Booth's death date is unknown.
Mary Black was an African-American enslaved by Nathaniel Putnam of the Putnam family who was accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. Nathaniel's nephew was Thomas Putnam, one of the primary accusers. However, Nathaniel himself was skeptical and even defended Rebecca Nurse. Mary was arrested, indicted, and imprisoned, but did not go to trial, and was released by proclamation on January 21, 1693 [O.S. January 11, 1692]. She returned to Nathaniel's household after she was released, another indication of Nathaniel's view of the charges against her.
References
- ↑ "Cotton Mather, "Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions" (1689)". Archived from the original on 2008-12-19.
- ↑ Dates prior to September 14, 1752, are in the Julian calendar. When reading primary sources, bear in mind that the legal year in England and the British Empire began on 25 March.
- ↑ Salem Village Church Record Book, 27. March 1692
- ↑ Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds., The Salem Witchcraft Papers (hereafter SWP), Vol. I, DaCapo Press, 1977, pp. 248-255
- ↑ SWP, Vol. II, pp. 584-487
- ↑ Deodat Lawson, A Brief and True Narrative of Some Remarkable Passages Relating to Sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft, at Salem Village Which happened from the Nineteenth of March to the Fifth of April 1692 as appears in George Lincoln Burr, ed., Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706, p. 159
- ↑ Lawson, p. 160
- ↑ SWP Vol. 1, pp. 658-662.
- ↑ "Timeline: Court of Oyer & Terminer and Superior Court of Judicature," Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, Bernard Rosenthal, Editor, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009, pp. 923-924
- ↑ "No. 836: Letter of William Phips to the Earl of Nottingham," Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, Bernard Rosenthal, Editor, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2009, pp. 809-811
- ↑ Putnam, William Lowell (2006-06-13). Torquemada Revisited: The Power of Effect Persuasion on Intellectual Freedom ... - William Lowell Putnam - Google Books. Light Technology. ISBN 9781622337040 . Retrieved 2020-04-22.
- ↑ "New Witch Hunt? Child-Abuse Lies". 19 January 1997.