Free Republic

On this date in 1821, a chief of the Seneca Native American nation slit the throat of a woman named Kauquatau, who had been condemned as a witch. As Matthew Dennis explains in his book on the Seneca of the early American Republic, Seneca Possessed, the rapid march of European settlement and the Seneca’s recent and ambiguous incorporation into the newborn United States had strained the indigenous society in complex ways. One of those reactions was a period of gendered witch-hunting in the early 19th century, especially growing out of the religious movement of the prophet Handsome Lake. “Handsome Lake...

The eruption split a 1km chasm in the iceAn Icelandic volcano, dormant for 200 years, has erupted, ripping a 1km-long fissure in a field of ice.The volcano near Eyjafjallajoekull glacier began to erupt just after midnight, sending lava a hundred metres high.Icelandic airspace has been closed, flights diverted and roads closed. The eruption was about 120km (75 miles) east of the capital, Reykjavik. What volcanic scientists fear is the fact that this eruption could trigger an eruption of Katla, one of the most dangerous volcanic systems in the world.Eruptive events in Eyjafjallajökull are often followed by a Katla eruption. The...