Puritanism

Puritans were the more extreme  part of the Church of England when they started out.  They wanted to purify their national church by eliminating Catholic influence. Hence, the name Puritans.  If you were Puritan and you did not go to Church every Sunday and you disagreed with the minister you would be looked down on as a sinner.  John Proctor is an example of this, kind of, becausehe did not really like Parris.  The Puritans influence us today because society has a set of standards, morals, rules that we must loosely follow and I think that most of these are from the Puritans.  But in a more loose form.  For, instance if i disagreed with a minister people would not necessarily call me a sinner.  But in some states adultery is still a crime.  Some people say it is unconstitutional but it shows that the Puritans have definetly influenced us and still do.

Now Nathaniel Hawthorne ties into this in a way.  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts.  He has written many books and stories.  His father, who has the same name was a sea captain who was a descendant of John Hawthorne.  If you can recall John Hawthorne was one of the judges at the Salem witchcraft trials.

The Moment

The moment I knew I was an American.  This is not an easy thing to answer.  How would I know what an American is, when did I find out?  How should I know what an American is, who am I to judge?
America is a beautiful place.  Our country is based on freedom from a tyrannical king that we proclaimed our freedom to in the Declaration of Independence.  Now don't get me wrong America has not been so perfect.  With slavery, racism, and a whole lot of other things America looks like the worst place to live.  But our founding fathers had a whole lot of bravery to be able to send a document to the King of England saying they were abandoning him and starting their own country.  They did this knowing they would have to face his wrath and superior army on their own turf.
                Now knowing all of this I have a pretty good idea of when I knew I was an American.  I knew I was a free, open-minded American when Barack Obama was elected to office.  White America went from being racist and just mean to people of other races (some still are) to electing an African American for President!  In no other country would this happen. Only in awesome, free America can culture change so drastically in such a short period of time for the better.  That is why I am proud to be an American.

Conflict That Leads to Death

Conflict between two groups whether they be countries or smaller tribes can have the ability to lead to death.  All that needs to happen are a few events that snowball leading up to one person going crazy and killing another person of the different group.  After this happens it is very likely that the two factions would both start killing each other left and right.  One example of something like this happening is when the colonists came over from Europe and met the Native Americans.  At first they were aliens to each other because neither of them had seen anybody like it before.  Then as they got used to each other they helped each other out and took advantage of each other.  The colonists and settlers had an obvious advantage over the Native Americans with guns and when they wanted something the Native Americans pretty much had to give it to them.  When the new colonists wanted to move west and push the Native Americans west as well the Native Americans began resisting which resulted in wars between the two groups and deaths on both sides.  The Native Americans suffered the most because they did not have guns and it was for the most part whit men killing the people who were there first.