Camille MacCauley History 1700 Dueling Documents: Salem Witch Trials (Experience History V.1, pg.

93) The witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts in 1662 were a regrettable part in history. Many innocent people died. It started with young girls growing up in a strict puritan community where games or toys were not allowed. The girls began to talk with a Caribbean slave woman where she would tell stories of her homeland, and play small games with the girls. Two of the girls began to exhibit some strange behavior. Screaming, flapping like birds, barking like dogs and pretending to be choked. When taken to the doctor, he concluded that it must be witchcraft. The girls were asked to identify the person or persons who had the control over them. They were under a lot of pressure and they gave three names. Two were the names of social outcasts that were disliked by the community, and the third one was the Caribbean slave. The two social outcasts were deemed innocent, but the slave woman confessed and claimed that there were other witches in Salem. Anyone could have been accused and no one was safe from it. The trials had many innocent people hanged, pressed, or killed in jail. The accusations against John Proctor that were made by Mary Warren, Ann Putnam, and Sarah Bibber were outrageous. It seems as if all the girls had somehow corroborated their stories, feeding off one another. All of them mention him torturing them and making them write in his book. I can only imagine they mean a devilish book for Satan. What is most outrageous of the accusations is that John Proctor would choke and press them until they bled out of their mouths, but the girls had no signs of this alleged trauma. I don't know how they

were so quickly believed by their peers. The girls were able to accuse any one with whom they had a problem with, had tried to cross them or bring the lies out into the open. John proctor came with a strong message in his defense. He asked that the jurors and judges be replaced with people who were unfamiliar. He stated that he and all the others were not given fair trials and he wanted to be tried in Boston. They didn't have a chance because the verdict of their innocence was decided since before the trial began. The Salem witch trials were a very unfortunate section in our early American colonies. I don't think it was so much about the murder of many innocent people, but the product of hysteria and power.

Dueling Documents: Mistresses and House Servants (Experience History V.1, pg.341) Plantation mistresses were southern white women who looked after many things in the plantation and had a lot of responsibilities. She would nurse the sick, tend to the garden, care for the animals, and oversee food preparation. The women lived very comfortably, but it came with a hefty price. Women in the south were also considered to count as lesser than men, and there was a major double standard in sexual behavior. Male superiority was a fact of life, but many times the women were a breed of their own, not sympathizing with slave women or children. In the documents being discussed, one side is that of a plantation mistress who lives with slaves. The other side is a slave's experience living with a plantation mistress. Mary Boykin Chesnut was a plantation mistress for many years, she writes about how she sympathized with the slaves, and even that the slaves weren't doing their fair part to earn their keep.

An anonymous slave of a plantation mistress by the name of Mrs. Flint wrote about how horribly the slaves were treated, and that the plantation mistress was as every bit as cruel as the Lord of the house. You could argue that it was even more so, as Mrs. Flint is described as laughing in the face of a dying slave child, telling her there was no room for her sort in Heaven and she deserves much worse than what she has gotten. I think that the side of the slave is probably more accurate, but there is no fair way to tell. Slavery was of course an evil horrible thing, but the women of the South were not in very good positions themselves. I think that ignorance, fear, and a lack of knowledge made the slave epidemic so severe. It made white families so desensitized to what was happening to the Africans that it was just a normal way of living.

Dueling Documents: The Problem of the Color Line (Experience History V.2, pg.671) After slavery in the Unites States, there was a remaining struggle for equality for the African-American people. The first document titled "Go Back to Africa" by Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey, he talks about how the most progressive step to inequality would be slowly moving all African-Americans back to Africa. He states "White and black will learn to respect each other when they cease to be active competitors in the same countries for the same things in politics and society. Let them have countries of their own, wherein they aspire and climb without rancor." He wants them to be in Africa because they legitimately own the powers there. That is their former homeland where their heritage lays.

On the other document titled "We Must Oppose All Segregation" by David Levering Lewis, he urges the people of America to essentially become colorblind. Racial patriotism and segregation are keeping equality back. By celebrating only your race you are keeping the problem alive. He wants America to be united, giving every man the same rights and skin color should not matter or be a deciding factor in anything. I can see both sides of this argument. Being proud of who you are and where you come from is important, but so is accepting others cultures and ways of life. We are all the same on the inside, that should not be overlooked.