Theme: The Pit and the Pendulum

ByEdgar Allan Poe

Human cruelty toward other humans

• Reign of Terror• African Slavery• Japanese Americans WWII• Holocaust• Chinese Immigration to the Amer. West• Trail of Tears of the Cherokees• Bosnia• Apartheid• Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge• Armenian Massacre

Spanish Inquisition

• Event that was fueled by greed and prejudice and led to torture and death for many innocent people.

• An effort by the Roman Catholic Church to seek out and punish heretics (those who oppose teachings of the church)

Began with Constantine(306-337)

*teaching of the Christian Church were regarded as the foundation of law and order, heresy was an offense against

the state and the church*civil rulers unable/unwilling to control

Constantine the Great

Pope Gregory IX

• Created a special court in 1231 to investigate suspect and force heretics to change their beliefs

1500s

• Dominican and Franciscan friars served as judges

• Mainly in Spain, France, Germany and Italy

• Worked in secret; misuse of power, torture, burning

• During this time, turned against the Protestants

Tomas deTorquemada

• Roman Catholic priest• For 15 years inquisitor-general of Spanish

Inquisition• 2,000 people were executed for heresy

Impia torturum longos hic turba furores

Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.

Sospite nunic patria fracto nunc funeris antro

Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent

• Here the impious clamor of the torturers, insatiate, fed its rage for innocent blood. Now happy is the land, destroyed the pit of horror, and where grim death stalked, life and health are revealed.

Jacobin Club HouseParis, France

• Political group of the French Revolution, identified with extreme radicalism and violence.

• Formed in 1789 as the Society of the Friends of the Constitution

• Met in a former convent of the Dominicans (known in Paris and the Jacobins)

• Originally formed to protect the Revolution’s gains against a possible aristocratic reaction

• Closed in 1794; although officially banned, some clubs lasted until 1800