Act One: Salem Residents

• forefathers were Puritans persecuted in England

• believed others corrupt

• Europeans considered US missionaries a barbaric frontier and a sect of fanatics

• no holidays - only occasional celebrations

• plenty who did not conform

• hard working

• strict morals

• difficult conditions: hard winters, unfertile soil

• minded each other's business

• suspicious

• told on each other to magistrates

• dangers of starting again in the new world were fading and frustrations and envy emerging

• close to wilderness

• afraid of heathens who they thought were devilish

• parochial

• missionaries who failed to convert native Americans

• resistant

• disciplined

• dedicated

• communal

• long suffering

• theocratic - combined state and religion

• repressed

• long held hatreds of neighbours

• jealousy