Massachusetts

freedom of religion, and also limited the government from doing unreasonable searches and seizures, and taking property without compensation. The governmental system established in the Massachusetts constitution consists of three branches. The first is the legislative branch known as the General Court of Massachusetts, which contains a Senate and House of Representatives. Next is the executive branch, which is led by a governor. Lastly, is the judicial branch, in which the highest court is the…

When starting a journey to the New World, everyone has a different reason for leaving England. When leaving England, everyone also has different ideas of what should happen when they arrive in the New World. Massachusetts and Virginia are two of the first established colonies, who have two very different stories. The idea of money and power take over one colony, while religion and unity help shape another. The first group of settlers left from England to Jamestown, Virginia. In 1607, with…

series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. Although it is believed that the witch hunt of 1692 started in Salem Village, in reality it first occurred in Charlestown. First of all, the witch hunt of 1692 started long ago in Charlestown by Margaret Jones who was a midwife, and the first person to be executed for witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. According to Winthrop’s journal, Jones was accused in…

Norton presents a text where she offers a “new interpretation of the witchcraft crisis” of Salem, Massachusetts (101 of 8616). She argues that rather than solely analyzing Salem, scholars must analyze the whole of Essex County, Massachusetts (113,184). She also argues for the need for exploration of the history of the witchcraft crisis as a history of frontier warfare because of the military affairs such as King Williams’ War occurring simultaneously in New England as the rise of the witchcraft…

Vowell was very interested in the way the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony lived their lives. Their group is best remembered for two of their banished heretics: Roger Williams, a founder of Providence, Rhode Island, and Anne Hutchinson, the earliest preacher of a theory of the "Jesus is my personal savior" of American Protestantism. Without the some of the theological disputes of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans, the modern-day America would not have the same prospects. American…

interest on debt started to rise as the states levied their duties. This problem was most prominent in the western Massachusetts where many people lost their farms and…

Britain. The British government had made arrangement to resist the enforcement of alterations made to the colonial government after the Boston Tea party. The locals responded by organising an illegal patriotic government which was known as the Massachusetts provincial congress. They encouraged local militia to train for potential attacks and succeeded in controlling areas outside Boston. The British declared…

In his book New England's Crises and Cultural Memory, John McWilliams points to what he sees as an overlooked aspect of the historical interpretations of the Salem witch trials, particular the significance of the "racial and wartime dimensions of the Salem witch trials [which] should have been so long obscured within the progressive New England historical tradition" (161). McWilliams makes reference to the early historian George Bancroft and how his analysis of the trials was in error and that…

played an important role in the community, yet they were still being accused of the misfortune of others, instead of identifying and assessing the real issue, and solving. This place I so generously refer to is located in none other than in Salem, Massachusetts, but more specifically the historical event that took place there, the Salem witch trials. Any normal human being would probably choose a less violent, per say, place to…

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of witchcraft trials which arose after a group of young girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by some of the older women in the colony. Twenty individuals were put to death by the Governor of Massachusetts because of this. Our story begins after these events with a woman known as Abigail Williams. Williams was one of the main accusers involved in these trials and is responsible for the deaths and troubles of many. The year is 1694,…