American Literature / Unit 4 AML 0321 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Samuel Sewall's Diary and *The Selling of Joseph*
Captions available
The idea
Samuel Sewall, Harvard graduate and Boston merchant, sat as a judge at the Salem trials and later stood in church while his recantation was read aloud. His diary records births, deaths, courtship and public life over decades, and his Selling of Joseph argues against slaveholding from scripture.
In practice
A judge's apology, and an early antislavery tract.
Where people slip
The witness counts twenty executed at Salem.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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