Posted on 09/19/2021 4:20:11 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
Monday, September 19, 1692. About noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was press’d to death for standing mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the Court and Capt. Gardner of Nantucket, who had been of his acquaintance: but all in vain. –Diary of Salem witch trials judge Samuel Sewall
Pressing to death — peine forte et dure — was a brutal procedure that wasn’t technically a method of execution: courts used it to extract a plea from a defendant, since the law of the time (altered in the 18th century) would not allow criminal proceedings to get underway without one.
Procedure: stake a fellow down and start piling crushing weight on his chest for hours or days until he agrees to enter a plea and start the trial.
For the sufficiently obstinate prisoner, it was a manner of exiting the world quite a bit more unpleasant than hanging. But it came with one significant advantage: since one died without a capital conviction, one could pass on one’s property rather than having it confiscated by the state. For Giles Corey, that was worth two days of agony.....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
My wife and I just returned from a short trip to Salem.
We learned that 19 people suspected of witchcraft were executed. Eighteen were hanged; and one was pressed to death.
None of the suspects was burned at the stake. Buring was done in Europe not in the colonies.
St. Margaret Clitherow was put to death in 1586 by the same method. Her sin against the state was 1) being Catholic and 2) refusing to plead. It took place in York.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by 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.I had no idea "The Crucible" was written to condemn the anti-communist efforts of Senator McCarthy.The play was first performed at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway on January 22, 1953, starring E. G. Marshall, Beatrice Straight and Madeleine Sherwood. Miller felt that this production was too stylized and cold and the reviews for it were largely hostile (although The New York Times noted "a powerful play [in a] driving performance") The production won the 1953 Tony Award for Best Play. A year later a new production succeeded and the play became a classic. It is regarded as a central work in the canon of American drama.
Right after the coalition forces secured control of Bagdad after the second gulf war, an Iraqi theatre group went to the American commander to seek permission to put on a play.
That play was The Crucible.
The creative classes thought Joe McCarthy was the worst, most ghastly creature in history.
He basically got treated like Donald Trump. Maybe not even as badly.
And they were both ardent communism-fighters, as was Nixon. They were all effective and all treated the exact same way.
Yeah, they got the full treatment. Although Nixon made it easy for them.
Interesting thing. Those who were arrested for witchcraft and pleaded “Guilty” were given fines and jail time but not executed.
Only those who pleaded “NOT GUILTY” and found “guilty” were hanged.
Joe McCarthy was right, and should be celebrated as a hero throughout this nation..
Thank you for that information. We did not know that.
We enjoyed our trip to Salem. We plan to go again but after October 31. There is much to see and do in Salem; the Peabody Museum has some very fine exhibits.
“when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists”
Obviously, not enough.
John Proctor was a distant relative on my moms side.
True dat, same for tagline.
You could almost switch “guilty” and “not guilty” with vaxxed and pureblood.
Do note that Peabody is pronounced PBD...as fast as you can say the three letters.
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