In Memory: Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes

Today is Thursday, 19 July 2007.

On this date in 1692, five women (of course, women) assassinated, by their fellow Puritans, by hanging, in Salem, Massachusetts for the “crime” of “witchcraft”.

Ah, the Puritans. The common misconception is that they came to The New World to find “religious freedom”.

Ho ho ho!

(But wait, there's more: that’s Santa Claus. The Puritans would have hanged me for any mention of the celebration of Christmas, a pagan holiday.)

The Puritans went into exile because the majority of folks in England and Holland didn’t believe the Puritan claim that God had appointed them his sole representatives and rulers on earth.

(David Koresh? Jim Jones? Sociopathic religious cult, anyone?)

The Puritans began as predators on Native Americans, and then soon turned upon one another.

Murdered on this date in 1692 (two hundred resonant years): Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good, and Sarah Wildes.

As every society which cannot admit that humanity is one, the Puritans must have their demons.