The Magic of Ordinary Days is a heartwarming and enchanting film that takes viewers on a journey of love, hope, and new beginnings. The film, adapted from the novel of the same name by Ann Howard Creel, tells the story of Livy Dunne, a young woman who finds herself in a challenging position when she becomes pregnant out of wedlock during World War II. Set in rural Colorado in the 1940s, The Magic of Ordinary Days beautifully portrays the simplicity and serenity of everyday life. Livy, played by Keri Russell, is a woman of great strength and resilience. When her father arranges for her to marry a taciturn farmer named Ray Singleton, portrayed by Skeet Ulrich, Livy reluctantly agrees to the arrangement in order to avoid disgrace and provide her child with a stable home. As the story unfolds, Livy gradually finds herself falling in love with Ray, and he with her.
The Salem Witch Trials According to the Historical Records
The Scottish Ballet performs Helen Pickett’s ballet version of The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s play based on the Salem witch trials of 1692. Miller used historical records and texts to help construct his play.
On March 23, 1692, a warrant was issued for the arrest of four-year-old Dorothy Good of Salem Village on “suspition of acts of Witchcraft.” She was taken into custody the next day and jailed with her mother, Sarah, who had been accused of the same capital crime three weeks earlier. Since witches were often shackled in jail, something like shackles must have been adapted to fit little Dorothy, the youngest person in Salem accused of practicing the devil’s magic. Over the next year, more than 150 women, men, and children from Salem Village (present-day Danvers) and neighboring communities were formally accused of practicing witchcraft. A third of those arrested confessed but were not necessarily given lighter sentences. In all, 19 were hanged, one pressed to death, and five others died in jail.
Trouble in the tiny Puritan village started in February 1692, when eleven-year-old Abigail Williams and nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris, daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris, began acting strangely. The girls complained of bites, contorted their bodies, threw things, and fell into trances. A doctor’s examination concluded they were suffering from the evil effects of witchcraft. The “afflicted” girls were asked to name names, and they did.
“If you think about what’s going on in New England—threat of attack from warring tribes, unease about a new charter—and suddenly something strange happens in your household and you’re a minister. You know a witch was arrested in Chelmsford and another up in Ipswich. You believe that the devil is against Massachusetts, and you believe the devil is against your church, and you believe the devil is against you as a Protestant Puritan minister. And it’s in your house! There were reasons why it was credible that there could be witches in Salem Village,” says historian Margo Burns, the associate editor of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt.
Burns examines the witch trials through original-source documents in “The Capital Crime of Witchcraft: What the Primary Sources Tell Us,” a presentation sponsored by the New Hampshire Humanities Council.
Three women were taken into custody on March 1. Sarah Good, a beggar and mother, Sarah Osborne, a woman who hadn’t attended church in some time, and Tituba, Parris’s Indian slave, were all charged with witchcraft. Tituba confessed and identified more witches from Salem.
“It didn’t have to go any further than those three,” says Burns, “but they didn’t have a way to defend themselves. Just the usual suspects. All were marked for class and Tituba for race. John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, the local magistrates, coerced a false confession out of Tituba. If it had been another time, it might just have stopped there. The next two people should not have had their cases go forward. Hathorne and Corwin could have said, ‘Okay, we don’t buy this. No, you didn’t see her, because we know this person. This is not true.’ But they held them over.”
The next two defendants were Rebecca Nurse, an ancestor of Burns, and Martha Cory, both fully covenanted church members and of high social standing. They were accused of witchcraft based on “spectral evidence,” which meant the court accepted testimony that disembodied spirits, or specters, were sent through dreams or visions by the accused with the help of Satan to harm the victims by stabbing, choking, biting, and jabbing them with pins. The accused were interrogated in public. During questioning, the purported victims exhibited dramatic reactions while townspeople watched.
“There were discussions going on between ministers,” says Burns. “It wasn’t so much whether specters existed, it was how you interpret it. The big discussion was whether the devil could impersonate somebody with or without their permission. So that was tantamount to saying Rebecca Nurse gave the devil permission to go out and afflict these girls in her image.”
In May, the new Massachusetts governor, Sir William Phips, established a special court to try the witchcraft cases, presided over by William Stoughton. “The court didn’t convene until June 2, 1692, so over half those accused, around 70, were just piling up in the jail,” says Burns.
Just as the jails were filling up with accused witches, the number of those claiming affliction also ramped up. One of the accusers listed in the court documents of Sarah Good was her daughter, Dorothy, who was coerced during an interrogation.
A number of villagers petitioned the court on Nurse’s behalf. Nurse was found not guilty, but Stoughton sent the jurors to reconsider. They changed their verdict to guilty. She was hanged on July 19, with Sarah Good and three others.
Five more were hanged in August and eight in September. In October, Increase Mather, a prominent minister in Boston, denounced the use of spectral evidence: “It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned.” That same month, Governor Phips terminated the special court. But that wasn’t the end. Cases would continue in a regular court in January. “When pious men and women who were in good standing in their own churches were accused, there was pushback,” says Burns.
The accusations ran their course in Salem Village, but not in Andover, where 48 were accused compared with 23 in Salem Village says Burns. “A lot of people were against spectral evidence, so confessions were now the gold standard to find people guilty. The confessions that came before were from people with no agency whatsoever, like little Dorothy. But when they got to Andover, the magistrates were really good at interrogating people in private. By September, they could coerce people like clockwork. There, a lot who confessed were children as young as six.” In 1693, the new Superior Court of Judicature tried the remaining cases and eventually cleared the jails. Phips pardoned all those sentenced to be executed by Stoughton in January 1693. The cases continued to be tried until mid May, but no one else was convicted. “The grand jury couldn’t even indict Tituba,” says Burns. The colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated many of the families. But the damage was done, and it was devastating.
On September 13, 1710, William Good went before the court to receive restitution for the losses he endured years earlier. In his petition he wrote:
To The Honourable Committee The humble representation Will’m. Goodof the Damage
sustained by him in the year 1692. by reason
of the sufferings of his family upon the account of supposed Witchcraft1 My wife Sarah Good was In prison about four months & then Executed.
2 a sucking child dyed in prison before the Mothers Execution.
3 a child of 4 or 5 years old was in prison 7 or 8 months and being chain’d in the dungeon was so hardly used and terrifyed that she hath ever since been very chargeable haveing little or no reason to govern herself. And I leave it unto the Honourable Court to Judge what damage I have sustained by such a destruction of my poor family. And so rest Your Honours humble servant
*William Good Salem.
The Youngest Person Accused In The Salem Witch Trials Might Surprise You
The Salem witch trials hysteria began in 1692 when four young women in Salem, Massachusetts, accused a number of other Salem residents of witchcraft. The young girls also said they had been possessed by the devil, and the ensuing alarm led to the hanging of 19 women and the subsequent imprisonment of not just women, but also men and children, according to History. The first person put to death for being a witch in Salem was Bridget Bishop, sentenced to hang on what's now called Gallows Hill, near Salem.
The trials by which these verdicts were reached was far from fair and balanced, products of one of the most infamous witch hunts in history. The senseless witch-mania spread beyond Salem to Gloucester, Andover, and Boston, according to Britannica. Among all the poor souls who lost their lives in this unfortunate period in history, it's the story of the youngest person accused in the Salem witch hunt that just might surprise you the most.
As the story unfolds, Livy gradually finds herself falling in love with Ray, and he with her. Their relationship blossoms amidst the breathtaking backdrop of the Colorado countryside, with rolling hills and vast fields forming the perfect setting for their burgeoning romance. The charm and beauty of their surroundings parallel the beauty of their love and the tender connection they share.
She was only 4 years old
According to Academic, the youngest person accused in the Salem witch trials was Dorcas "Dorothy" Good. Dorcas Good's name was correctly spelled on her arrest warrant, which was, in fact, her given name, even though it was occasionally written as Dorothy on historical documents from that time, leading to some confusion. Dorcas Good was only about 4 years old at the time, and both of her parents had already been accused of witchcraft themselves. After interrogation from the local magistrates, the poor child fingered her mother for witchcraft and confessed to being a witch herself, leading to her arrest. Dorothy's mother, Sarah, was the first person accused in the trials, according to New World News.
What's also surprising about the youngest person ever accused in the Salem witch trials is that she escaped execution. She was imprisoned without trial. She spent nine months in custody, a trauma that would lead the child to suffer from poor mental health for the remainder of her life. It's all a chilling reminder to be thankful that neither testimony nor a confession from a child at that age would be admissible in a court of law today.
How old was the youngest person accused of witchcraft
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| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| In what year did the Salem Witch Trials occur? | 1692 |
| In Europe between the 14th and 16 centuries, how many people were executed because they were though to be witches? | 40-50 thousand |
| What is a witch hunt? | authorities encourage local to fear and accuse each other |
| What was one sign of witchcraft according to "The Hammer of Witches"? | devil's mark/ witch's teet |
| What is swimming the witch? | dunking a accused witch underwater; if she sinks she is innocent if she floats she is a witch |
| Why was witchcraft considered an act of treason? | The king was also the head of the church so if you went against the church you went against the king |
| Where and when was the first witch trial in America? | Charlestown, 1648 |
| Who was Cotton Mather and what was his connection to witchcraft? | A minister, wrote a book on it and was apart of the court |
| What was the town of Salem, MA like in the late 1600's? | Small, chaotic, about 500 people |
| what was the puritan ideal of women? | silent, docile, helpful, submissive, motherly |
| Why was it thought that Puritan women were more likely to be witches than men? | lustful, impressionable, wanted knowledge, less likely to be ministers |
| Who was Tituba and what did she show/tell the Parris girls? | a slave of Reverend Parris; showed them voodoo tricks, told them tales of magic |
| What did Reverend Parris order the girls to do? | tell him who the witch was; accused Tituba, Sarah Goode, and Sarah Osborne |
| What is spectral evidence? | evidence that the accused appeared to the person being tormented as a spector |
| How did the afflicted Parris girls react every time Sarah Goode denied being a witch? Why was this important? | went into convulsive fits and screamed; this was considered strong evidence of her guilt |
| What was different about the first people accused and those later accused? | Began as low status outsider, became upstanding members of the community |
| In the spring of 1692, how many people were arrested/accused of witchcraft in salem? | 100+ |
| How old was the youngest person accused? | 4 (Dorkus Goode) |
| What happened if you spoke out for someone who was accused of witchcraft? | considered a suspect; accused/arrested |
| What was the one sure way to survive a witchcraft trial? | plead guilty/ confession |
| Who was Bridget Bishop? What was her punishment? | first killed in Salem, independent, previously accused; hanged |
| How many people were accused of witchcraft during the trials? How many died? | 200+; 24 |
| Were witches burned at the stake? Why? | No; it was forbidden by English Law |
| One man died a horrific death with stone. Describe. | refused to plea so large stones were placed on him in order to get a confession; crushed him |
| What did Increase Mather do to prevent people from being wrongly accused and convicted of witchcraft? | no longer accepted spectral evidence |
| What is one possible reason/explanation for why the young afflicted girl behaved the way they did during trials and accused people of witchcraft? | faked it for entertainment; really believed they were possessed; some members may have profited by accusing |
| How did the young Parris girls behave after hearing Tituba stories? What did they do? | acted crazy and possessed; threw fits, screamed, claimed to feel needles and knives |
Created by: williscallip
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Unravelling the Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials
Have you ever heard about the Salem Witch Trials? It's a fascinating yet haunting part of history in the 17th century. Often shrouded in mystery and misconception, these events captivated and terrified people for centuries.
If you're curious about what happened during the Salem witchcraft trials, you're in the right place. Let's delve into this intriguing chapter of history together.
Jump to:
- What Were the Salem Witch Trials?
- When and Where Did the Salem Witch Trials Take Place?
- Who Were the Witches of Salem?
- Why Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen?
- Salem Witchcraft Trials: A Flawed Process
- What Were the Punishments for Witches?
- How Were Witches Killed in Salem?
- Who Was the Youngest Girl Killed in the Salem Witch Trials?
- 10 Salem Witch Trials Facts
- Witch Trials in America: Beyond Salem
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