Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1690s, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Spanish Franciscan settler
1.) Spanish Franciscans (religious leaders) who had arrived in the 1670s,
developed a new zeal to root out traditional Native American religious
ceremonies, and began to force the Pueblo Indians to provide resources,
money, and labor. Launching a campaign to restrict native religious
ceremonies, the Spanish friars seized kivas (underground ceremonial
religious chambers), forbade native dances, and destroyed religious
traditional artifacts.
2.) In August, 1680, Pope, a spiritual leader, organized neighbors from two
dozen Pueblo villages to rise up in fury. They burned Spanish mansions,
ranches, and government buildings, systematically destroyed churches, set
fire to the fields, and killed half the friars
3.) In 1694, a new Spanish governor regained Santa Fe and gradually subdued
most of the Pueblo Indians. Learning from Pope’s rebellion, the Spanish
declared a cultural truce, easing their demands for labor and tolerating
certain Pueblo rituals in return for Pueblo acceptance of Christianity.
Periodic tension and animosity continued.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1690s, Near Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pueblo Indian/Farmer
1.) Spanish Franciscans (religious leaders) who had arrived in the 1670s,
developed a new zeal to root out traditional Native American religious
ceremonies, and began to force the Pueblo Indians to provide resources,
money, and labor. Launching a campaign to restrict native religious
ceremonies, the Spanish friars seized kivas (underground ceremonial
religious chambers), forbade native dances, and destroyed religious
traditional artifacts.
2.) In August, 1680, Pope, a spiritual leader, organized neighbors from two
dozen Pueblo villages to rise up in fury. They burned Spanish mansions,
ranches, and government buildings, systematically destroyed churches, set
fire to the fields, and killed half the friars
3.) In 1694, a new Spanish governor regained Santa Fe and gradually subdued
most of the Pueblo Indians. Learning from Pope’s rebellion, the Spanish
declared a cultural truce, easing their demands for labor and tolerating
certain Pueblo rituals in return for Pueblo acceptance of Christianity.
Periodic tension and animosity continued.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1692, Salem Village, Massachusetts
Parent of young girl, Farmer
1.) In 1692, 9-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams
experimented with magic with the aid of Tituba, the slave of Betty’s father,
Samuel Parris, who was the town minister. Fearful of what they had done,
the girls soon began to seize and make wild gestures and speeches. Within
a few days, other girls and young women in the village began behaving
strangely. Village elders extracted confessions from them that they were
being tormented by Tituba and two other women, who were social outcasts.
2.) Prior to 1692, more than 100 people, mostly older women, had been
accused of witchcraft. More than a dozen had been hanged. The initial
accusations multiplied. Dozens were charged. Formal prosecution of the
accused witches could not proceed because neither the new royal charter
issued in 1691 nor the royal governor to rule the colony had yet arrived. For
three months, charges spread, and local authorities could only jail the
accused without trial. By the time the governor arrived in 1692, the events
had careened out of control.
All through the summer of 1692, the courts heard testimony. 19 “witches”
were hanged on “Witches Hill,” and 90-year-old Giles Corey was crushed to
death under heavy stones. The trials continued until 1693, when colonial
leaders and clergy recognized that a feverish fear of one’s neighbors, rather
than witchcraft itself, was to blame.
3.) Many factors contributed to the hysteria. Among there were generational
differences between older Puritan colonists and the sometimes less
religiously motivated younger generation, old family animosities, population
growth and competition for farmland, and tensions between agricultural
Salem Village and the nearby commercial center called Salem Town.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1690s, Salem Village, Massachusetts
Church leader
1.) In 1692, 9-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams
experimented with magic in the kitchen of their small home. They enlisted
the aid of Tituba, the slave of Betty’s father, Samuel Parris, who was the
town minister. Fearful of what they had done, the girls soon began to seize
and make wild gestures and speeches. Within a few days, other girls and
young women in the village began behaving strangely. Village elders
extracted confessions from them that they were being tormented by Tituba
and two other women, who were both social outcasts.
2.) Prior to 1692, more than 100 people, mostly older women, had been
accused of witchcraft. More than a dozen had been hanged. The initial
accusations multiplied. Dozens were charged. Formal prosecution of the
accused witches could not proceed because neither the new royal charter
issued in 1691 nor the royal governor to rule the colony had yet arrived. For
three months, charges spread, and local authorities could only jail the
accused without trial. By the time the governor arrived in 1692, the events
had careened out of control.
All through the summer of 1692, the courts heard testimony. 19 “witches”
were hanged on “Witches Hill,” and 90-year-old Giles Corey was crushed to
death under heavy stones. The trials continued until 1693, when colonial
leaders and clergy recognized that a feverish fear of one’s neighbors, rather
than witchcraft itself, was to blame.
3.) Many factors contributed to the hysteria. Among there were generational
differences between older Puritan colonists and the sometimes less
religiously motivated younger generation, old family animosities, population
growth and competition for farmland, and tensions between agricultural
Salem Village and the nearby commercial center called Salem Town.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1890s, New York City
Teacher, College-Educated Progressive Woman
1.) The Progressives tended to be middle-class reformers, who sought to
humanize the modern city by improving housing and schools and providing
a better life for immigrants. Others focused on the working conditions and
the rights of labor. Still others sought to make politics responsive to popular
interests, including those of women. Progressivism had roots in the 1890s,
when many reformers were shocked by the 1893 depression.
2.) Intellectually, Progressives were influenced by Darwinism (survival of the
fittest). Building better schools and houses would make better people and
form a more perfect society. They opposed child labor and looked to create
state and federal laws to protect the rights of women and children. Yet even
the more advanced reformers thought in racial and ethnic categories,
convinced that some groups could be molded more easily than others.
Progressivism did not usually mean progress for blacks.
3.) Like other progressive reform efforts, the battle against child labor was only
partly successful. Too many businessmen profitably employed children. Too
many politicians and judges were reluctant to regulate the work of children
or adults, and some parents, desperately needed their child’s wages, and
opposed the reformers or broke the law.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1890s, New York City
Immigrant factory worker, parent of a “newsboy” (child newspaper salesman)
*(NOT a Progressive)
1.) The Progressives tended to be middle-class reformers, who sought to
humanize the modern city by improving housing and schools and providing
a better life for immigrants. Others focused on the working conditions and
the rights of labor. Still others sought to make politics responsive to popular
interests, including those of women. Progressivism had roots in the 1890s,
when many reformers were shocked by the 1893 depression.
2.) Intellectually, Progressives were influenced by Darwinism (survival of the
fittest). Building better schools and houses would make better people and
form a more perfect society. They opposed child labor and looked to create
state and federal laws to protect the rights of women and children. Yet even
the more advanced reformers thought in racial and ethnic categories,
convinced that some groups could be molded more easily than others.
Progressivism did not usually mean progress for blacks.
3.) Like other progressive reform efforts, the battle against child labor was only
partly successful. Too many businessmen profitably employed children. Too
many politicians and judges were reluctant to regulate the work of children
or adults, and some parents, desperately needed their child’s wages, and
opposed the reformers or broke the law.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1850s, Kansas
Recent migrant to Kansas, farming wife, originally from Vermont
1.) In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, extending the slavery
debate westward into Kansas territory. The Act effectively split Kansas into
two halves: “free state” in the North (where slave labor was not allowed) and
“slave state” in the South (where slave labor was permitted). Massachusetts
Emigrant Aid Society was founded to recruit free-soil settlers for Kansas. By
the summer of 1855, about 1200 New England colonists had migrated to
Kansas.
2.) Secret societies began forming in the Missouri counties adjacent to Kansas,
dedicated to combating the Free-Soilers. Not slaveholders, they believed,
but New Englanders were immoral, uncivilized, and hypocritical. Thousands
poured across the border late in 1854 to vote (illegally) on permitting
slavery in the territory. Twice as many ballots were cast as the number of
registered voters.
3.) Both sides saw Kansas as a holy battleground. An Alabaman sold his slaves
to raise money to hire an army of 300 men to fight for slavery in Kansas,
promising free land to his recruits. A Baptist minister blessed their
departure from Montgomery, promising them God’s favor. At Yale University
in the Northeast, the noted minister Henry Ward Beecher presented 25
bibles and 25 rifles to young men who would go fight for the Lord in Kansas.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1850s, Missouri
Recent migrant to Missouri, farmer, originally from Alabama
1.) In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, extending the slavery
debate westward into Kansas territory. The Act effectively split Kansas into
two halves: “free state” in the North (where slave labor was not allowed) and
“slave state” in the South (where slave labor was permitted). Massachusetts
Emigrant Aid Society was founded to recruit free-soil settlers for Kansas. By
the summer of 1855, about 1200 New England colonists had migrated to
Kansas.
2.) Secret societies began forming in the Missouri counties adjacent to Kansas,
dedicated to combating the Free-Soilers. Not slaveholders, they believed,
but New Englanders were immoral, uncivilized, and hypocritical. Thousands
poured across the border late in 1854 to vote (illegally) on permitting
slavery in the territory. Twice as many ballots were cast as the number of
registered voters.
3.) Both sides saw Kansas as a holy battleground. An Alabaman sold his slaves
to raise money to hire an army of 300 men to fight for slavery in Kansas,
promising free land to his recruits. A Baptist minister blessed their
departure from Montgomery, promising them God’s favor. At Yale University
in the Northeast, the noted minister Henry Ward Beecher presented 25
bibles and 25 rifles to young men who would go fight for the Lord in Kansas.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1940s, Los Angeles
American Soldier
1.) At the beginning of World War II, ethnic and racial tensions in Los Angeles
increased. First, all persons of Japanese ancestry had been forcibly removed
from the city and would spend the war in concentration camps. Second, the
number of military personal in the city increased. The military at this time
was racially segregated so the military personnel tended to be Anglos, many
of whom had had little contact with Mexican-Americans.
The Anglo soldiers and sailors often resented the zoot suiters whose sense
of fashion made them stand out. The zoot suits were large, billowy outfits
made out of wool which was rationed at the time. In 1942, the War
Production Board—the government agency in charge of rationing—had
prohibited the manufacturing of wool. However, bootleg tailors still sold the
suits. The soldiers and sailors justified their anti-Mexican racism as an
expression of patriotism and when they saw Mexican-American youth in
zoot suits, they saw people who they viewed as un-American. They saw the
zoot suits as a way of flouting the laws of rationing.
2.) On the evening of Monday, May 30, 1943 about a dozen sailors and soldiers
were walking on a downtown street. They passed a group of Latino men in
zoot suits. As the two groups passed each other, Sailor Joe Dacy Coleman,
fearing he was about to be attacked, grabbed the arm of one of the zootsuited young men. Coleman's move proved to be a big mistake. Coleman
was almost immediately struck on the head from behind and fell to the
ground, unconscious. Other young civilians pounced on the sailors with
rocks, bottles and fists. After the ferocious attack, the sailors managed to
escape and carry Coleman to the safety of the Naval Armory. "The details of
the fight grew larger and more distorted in each re-telling of the story." It
wasn't long before sailors organized a retaliatory strike against zoot-suiters.
3.) The next day, 200 sailors organized a convoy of taxicabs and headed into
the Mexican-American neighborhoods (barrios) of East Los Angeles. Their
first victims were a group of 12 to 13-year-old boys. They attacked the boys
with clubs and beat any adults who tried to stop them. They tore the zoot
suits off the boys and then burned them.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1940s, Los Angeles
Mexican-American Youth
1.) At the beginning of World War II, ethnic and racial tensions in Los Angeles
increased. First, all persons of Japanese ancestry had been forcibly removed
from the city and would spend the war in concentration camps. Second, the
number of military personal in the city increased. The military at this time
was racially segregated so the military personnel tended to be Anglos, many
of whom had had little contact with Mexican-Americans.
2.) The Anglo soldiers and sailors often resented the zoot suiters whose sense
of fashion made them stand out. The zoot suits were large, billowy outfits
made out of wool which was rationed at the time. In 1942, the War
Production Board—the government agency in charge of rationing—had
prohibited the manufacturing of wool. However, bootleg tailors still sold the
suits. The soldiers and sailors justified their anti-Mexican racism as an
expression of patriotism and when they saw Mexican-American youth in
zoot suits, they saw people who they viewed as un-American. They saw the
zoot suits as a way of flouting the laws of rationing.
On the evening of Monday, May 30, 1943 about a dozen sailors and soldiers
were walking on a downtown street. They passed a group of Latino men in
zoot suits. As the two groups passed each other, Sailor Joe Dacy Coleman,
fearing he was about to be attacked, grabbed the arm of one of the zootsuited young men. Coleman's move proved to be a big mistake. Coleman
was almost immediately struck on the head from behind and fell to the
ground, unconscious. Other young civilians pounced on the sailors with
rocks, bottles and fists. After the ferocious attack, the sailors managed to
escape and carry Coleman to the safety of the Naval Armory. "The details of
the fight grew larger and more distorted in each re-telling of the story." It
wasn't long before sailors organized a retaliatory strike against zoot-suiters.
3.) The next day, 200 sailors organized a convoy of taxicabs and headed into
the Mexican-American neighborhoods (barrios) of East Los Angeles. Their
first victims were a group of 12 to 13-year-old boys. They attacked the boys
with clubs and beat any adults who tried to stop them. They tore the zoot
suits off the boys and then burned them.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1960s, Nashville
Student, President of the Black Student Union
1.) The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme
Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation
facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional.
2.) On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights
activists, mostly students from Fisk University, launched the Freedom Rides,
a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in
interstate bus terminals. The Freedom Riders, who were recruited by the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a U.S. civil rights group, departed from
Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals
along the way into the Deep South. African-American Freedom Riders tried
to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa. The
group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the
route, but also drew international attention to their cause. Over the next few
months, several hundred Freedom Riders engaged in similar actions. In
September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations
prohibiting segregation in bus and train stations nationwide.
3.) On May 14, 1961, the Greyhound bus was the first to arrive in Anniston,
Alabama. There, an angry mob of about 200 white people surrounded the
bus, causing the driver to continue past the bus station. The mob followed
the bus in automobiles, and when the tires on the bus blew out, someone
threw a bomb into the bus. The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst
into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the surrounding mob.
The second bus, a Trailways vehicle, traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, that
day, and those riders were also beaten by an angry white mob, many of
whom brandished metal pipes. Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner
Bull Connor (1897-1973) stated that, although he knew the Freedom Riders
were arriving and violence awaited them, he posted no police protection at
the station because it was Mother’s Day.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________
Cue Card # _____:
Date and Location:
Character Name:
Character Profession/Trade:
Three Historical Events
1960s, Nashville
Parent, African-American Business Owner
1.) The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme
Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation
facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional.
2.) On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights
activists, mostly students from Fisk University, launched the Freedom Rides,
a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in
interstate bus terminals. The Freedom Riders, who were recruited by the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a U.S. civil rights group, departed from
Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals
along the way into the Deep South. African-American Freedom Riders tried
to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa. The
group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the
route, but also drew international attention to their cause. Over the next few
months, several hundred Freedom Riders engaged in similar actions. In
September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations
prohibiting segregation in bus and train stations nationwide.
3.) On May 14, 1961, the Greyhound bus was the first to arrive in Anniston,
Alabama. There, an angry mob of about 200 white people surrounded the
bus, causing the driver to continue past the bus station. The mob followed
the bus in automobiles, and when the tires on the bus blew out, someone
threw a bomb into the bus. The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst
into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the surrounding mob.
The second bus, a Trailways vehicle, traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, that
day, and those riders were also beaten by an angry white mob, many of
whom brandished metal pipes. Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner
Bull Connor (1897-1973) stated that, although he knew the Freedom Riders
were arriving and violence awaited them, he posted no police protection at
the station because it was Mother’s Day.
Document: ______________________________________________________________________________________