Read the following passage from “The Devil and Tom Walker.” What statement about the cultural attitudes in Massachusetts is Washing Irving making in this passage?

“Oh, I go by various names,” [says the Devil]. “I am the wild huntsman in some countries; the black miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of the black woodsman. I am he to whom the red men consecrated this spot, and in honor of whom they now and then roasted a white man, by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the great patron and prompter of slave-dealers and the grand-master of the Salem witches.”

A) Irving is praising the colonists for taking a stand against evil.


B) Irving is condemning the colonists’ mistreatment of others.


C) Irving is ridiculing the superstitious beliefs of the colonists.


D) Irving is showing the different attitudes colonists have about the devil.