(1663-1728) Puritan minister and author in colonial Massachusetts. Implicated in inciting the hysteria that led to the execution of nine people in the Salem Witch Trials. Advocated inoculation against smallpox, after an African named [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Notes to Fill/Onesimus]] whom he held as a [[Slavery|slave]] described his experience in Africa. Conducted experiments hybridizing maize and was inducted into the Royal Society of London. Mather was not an abolitionist, but he did publicly denounce the [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Atlantic Slave Trade]]. After he was unable to convert Onesimus to Christianity, Mather still freed him in 1716. Mather was less enthusiastic about Native Americans. In a history he published in 1702, titled *Magnalia Christi Americana* (Latin for the great works of Christ in America), he wrote that “The Indians of these parts had newly…been visited with such a prodigious Pestilence; as carried away not a Tenth, but Nine Parts of Ten (yea, ‘tis said Nineteen of Twenty) among them…So that the Woods were almost cleared of those pernicious Creatures, to make Room for better Growth” (Really. Here's a link: https://archive.org/details/magnaliachris01math/page/48/mode/2up?q=pernicious).