WEBVTT - S1 – 1: The Arrival 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:14.320 None of the remedies had worked. They tried parsnip seeds 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.840 ground up in red wine, and spirits of castor mixed 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.480 with oil of amber. They tried an elixir by taking 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.600 hard shore and oil from the antlers of a deer 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.880 and mixing it with soot. They'd even tried collecting dew 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.800 drops and let them evaporate so they could use the 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.440 minuscule amount of dust to make a tonic, but none 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:38.680 of it had worked. That was frustrating too, because Samuel's niece, 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.680 Abigail wasn't getting any better. It had begun days earlier 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.120 when he found the eleven year old girl crouched beneath 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.200 a chair, her hands pressed against the signs of her head. 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:52.720 She was twisting and writhing and complaining loudly about some 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:57.640 sort of torment. When things got really bad, Abigail would 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.560 collapse onto the floor in a limp heap, as if 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.440 all of her bones had been magically removed from her body. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.600 She would seize up and contort and panic, and in 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.280 a house as small and packed as theirs, that was 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.920 a frightening sight. Samuel and his wife Elizabeth lived in 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.639 that small house with three of their own children, plus 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:22.160 abigail close quarters meant that everyone was suffering vicariously alongside 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.039 the young girl, But it also meant that illness was 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.479 likely to spread unless they could treat it fast. Before 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.600 they could manage to do that, however, their worst fears 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.440 came true. In early January of sixteen ninety two. Screams 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.080 from another part of the house pulled Samuel out of 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:42.759 his frigid upstairs study. He bolted down to see who 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.240 was in trouble and what they might need, only to 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.640 find his nine year old daughter, Betty, suffering through her 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:53.520 own version of poor Abigail's original symptoms. Elizabeth was crouched 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.320 over the girl, hand on her back to comfort her, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.360 but when she locked eyes with her husband, there was 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:04.720 nothing but Hannock in them. The Reverend Samuel Paris felt 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.240 a chill rippled down his spine. He and his wife 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.320 shared a common fear, an assumption about what was really 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.200 going on in their house. There was no doubt either. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.080 Samuel was a deeply religious man who served as the 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.839 minister of the local Puritan settlement. He understood how things 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.560 worked and had heard similar stories before. All of it 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.440 pointed to an obvious conclusion, but just because it was 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:34.760 plain to see didn't make it any less frightening. Something 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:39.200 evil had arrived in Salem and it was just getting started. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:03:22.520 This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mankie. This might come as 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.799 a bit of a surprise, but there's nothing inherently special 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.560 about Salem, Massachusetts. Sure, it's old, having been incorporated in 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.680 sixty nine, which, if you do the math, is nearly 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.680 four years ago, but it's not even the oldest city 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.680 in the state. That honor goes to Plymouth, the site 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.720 of the Mayflower landing in Si. Salem began life as 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.560 a fishing town founded by a guy named Roger Conant, 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.160 but after a couple of years of going at it alone, 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.680 the settlement received an infusion of new colonists, one of 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.200 whom was a man named John Endicott, who had been 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.760 sent to take over leadership of the colony. Conan stepped 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.720 as so peacefully that they named the new settlement Salem, 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.640 a word that comes from the Hebrew term shalom, which 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.920 means peace. Soon the area became home to a growing 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.560 population of English Puritans who were tired of living under 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.960 the rule of a king who didn't support them, and 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.360 an Anglican Church that all out attacked them. The New 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:25.640 World offered them more freedom and less conflict. Here's historian 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.960 Richard Trask, A number of them eventually decided to go 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.040 to the New World. They latched onto an economic device 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.320 of the mass Bay Colony. Once they got here, they 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.360 for a good generation or two were pretty much independent 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.560 to do what they wanted. They looked upon themselves, as 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.760 John Winthrop would later say, establishing a new kingdom upon 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.839 the hill. The first Puritans in Old England and New 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.880 England were very staunch believers. Over the years to come, 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.400 wave after wave of Puritan settlers washed into the new colony. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.520 They built new lives there in a strange land, but 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.240 did so upon the familiar foundations of their religious beliefs 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.839 and a common vision for a brighter future. Over the 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.800 coming decades, though this vision of a city on a 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.080 hill would begin to waver a bit. Some people had 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.719 called for the loosening of rules around church membership, a 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.320 concept that became official in sixteen fifty two under an 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:32.200 agreement known as the Halfway Covenant. Mary Beth Norton is 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.800 a professor of American history at Cornell University. The Halfway 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:41.000 Covenant allowed people who had been baptized as children but 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.800 had not yet experienced saving faith to in effect be 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.480 members of the church, to be under the church at supervision, 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.720 and to have communion, and to have their babies baptized. 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.640 But as the population of Salem grew, it also spread westward, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:00.760 creating pockets of smaller communities far from Sale Harbor and 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:05.320 original settlements. They called these the Salem village to avoid 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.240 confusion with the older, more wealthy Salem Town. During the 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.680 early years, though, some of these smaller communities managed to 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:16.160 break off and become recognized independent towns of their own, 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:21.280 places like marble Head and Manchester, Wenham and Beverly. It 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.640 was as if Salem Town was having babies and they 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.440 were moving out and growing up. One other thing. When 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.520 these towns became independent, they also earned the right to 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.440 collect their own local taxes, as well as build and 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.440 staff their own local churches. They became their own authority 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.120 in a sense, rather than depending on Salem Town for everything, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:48.120 which was a healthy development. The fields and woods farther inland, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.719 about a dozen miles west of Salem Town, were parceled 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.200 out to a handful of families who were ready to 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.560 settle down and farm there. Families with names like Putnam 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.440 and Porter, Hutchinson and ing U Saul. They might sound 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.320 unfamiliar to you now, but give it some time. You're 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.240 going to hear a lot about them soon enough. But 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.200 as these families moved west to set up their farmsteads, 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:15.960 they encountered a few problems. Namely, they became disconnected socially 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.800 from the thriving community in Salem Town. They didn't feel 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.280 like they were part of the popular crowd anymore, but 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.040 more like outsiders instead. To make matters worse, though, they 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.360 were still required to contribute to the responsibilities of their 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.120 former home, having to serve in Salem Town's militia, but 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:36.520 also travel the twelve miles each week to attend church 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.440 and participate in the night Watch. As you can imagine, 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.560 that was more than a little frustrating. So it probably 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.600 won't shock you to learn that a few of the 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:49.760 prominent farmers in Salem Village banded together in sixteen sixty 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:54.760 six to petition Salem Town for their independence. Salem Town, however, 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.560 refused to comply. If you look at a map, Salem 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.559 Town is right on the coast. That's Richard Trask again, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.680 it's a fairly large community. In sixteen nine two they 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.680 have about dred residents. It looks more to the commercial 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:16.680 ventures to fishing. People there tend not to be Yeoman farmers, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.680 but people who have occupations besides farming. The center of 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:24.080 Salem Village is about seven miles from the center of 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.400 Salem Town, and Salem Village was looked at kind of 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.720 as the bread basket for Salem Town. A year later, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.360 in sixteen sixty seven, these same farmers traveled south to 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.760 Boston to petition the General Court. They didn't get the 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.960 independence they wanted, but they did walk away with a 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:47.040 smaller victory. Anyone living outside of a four mile circle 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.920 would no longer be required to serve in the Salem 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:53.120 Town Watch. It was enough to keep a lot of 0:08:53.120 --> 0:09:02.280 people happy for a while. At least. Every movement has 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.880 two things, supporters and detractors, and the push for Salem 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.840 Village to become a community independent from the rule and 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:14.240 oversight of Salem Town was no exception. On the side 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.400 in favor of breaking off. Was the second wealthiest family 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:21.000 in the area, the Putnam's. Their dynasty had begun decades 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.560 earlier when Old John Putnam arrived in sixteen forty one 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.079 and purchased over eight hundred acres of land, land that 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.720 now belonged to his three adult sons, Thomas, Nathaniel, and 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.840 John Jr. In fact, if you were to time travel 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:37.440 to Salem Village in the sixteen sixties and take a 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.520 walking tour, most of the farmland you would see belong 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.200 to one of the Putnam's. The Putnams weren't happy with 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.520 a lot of things. They weren't happy with the Halfway Covenant, 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.040 that church policy that loosened the rules around membership and piety. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.120 The Putnams believe that the church needed to become more strict, 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.520 not less. They weren't happy with paying taxes to a 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.400 town that rarely benefited, and when living outside the town's 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.320 borders independence, to them, was a better way of life. 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.640 On the opposite side of the argument were the Porter brothers, Joseph, 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:14.720 Benjamin and Israel. While the Putnam's owned eight hundred acres 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.959 of land, the Porters had amassed over two thousand acres 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:21.040 Between them. They were the top dog, the most wealthy 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.560 and influential of all the Salem Village farmers. But not 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.320 only that, they heartily supported the halfway Covenant, putting them 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:32.480 in direct conflict with the more pious Putnam family. The 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.040 Porters also had deep financial ties to Salem Town, and 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:40.280 an independent Salem Village would harm them financially. The land 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.240 they owned actually straddled the line between the two communities, 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.200 so breaking them up would also break their property up. 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.840 Oh and they also owned three of Salem's four sawmills, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.400 which were incredibly busy thanks to the town's constant growth. 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.840 Splitting off from Salem Town was not a plan that 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:02.320 the Porters supported. In six teen seventy, Salem Town voted 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.000 to build a brand new meeting house, a church building 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.640 that served double duty as a community gathering place, and 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.319 they wanted to levy more taxes to raise the necessary funds. 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.160 The Putnam's over in Salem Village refused to hand over 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.240 any more wealth to the town. They returned to Boston 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.120 to petition the General Court for help, but were sent 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.440 back to Salem to sort the matter out with their 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.280 Salem Town counterparts. It took them two years, two years 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.720 of haggling and fighting, of arguing and counter arguing, but 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.560 in sixteen seventy two they managed to win Salem Village 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.800 had permission to build their own meeting house and hire 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.679 a minister to lead them. They even had permission to 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.720 set themselves up as a township, but not completely independent. 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.440 They would still have to defer to Salem Town for 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.000 all of their major legal matters. A good way to 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.800 think of it was that Salem Village became a recognized 0:11:55.840 --> 0:12:00.800 district within Salem Town, but it wasn't good enough. Building 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.199 the meeting house was the easy part. The Putnam's had 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.719 the money and timber to help that happen, and there 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.680 were enough farmers around to help construct it. The bigger challenge, though, 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.839 was finding the right minister for the job. He had 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.679 to be firmly against the halfway covenant, suitably pious and 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.200 well trained for the position, and what better place to 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.320 start than a friend of the family. James Bailey was 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.560 the brother in law of Thomas Putnam, junior, grandson of 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.480 Old John Putnam. When Bailey graduated from Harvard, the Putnams 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.760 asked him and his wife to come to Salem Village 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.720 and serve as their minister, which sounded like the happy 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.400 ending to a long and tragic fairy tale, except it 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.920 wasn't that simple. Once Bailey arrived, he proved to be 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.680 much less religious and strict then they'd hoped. In fact, 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.920 they began to fear that although he was close to 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.680 the Putnam family, he wasn't actually close to God. They 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.160 managed to avoid ordaining him for seven whole years, and 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.760 even refused to build him a house. He ended up 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.520 doing that himself, but life didn't get any easier when 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.800 he left Salem in sixteen seventy nine. He actually quit 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:13.680 the ministry entirely, becoming a doctor instead. The second minister 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.280 to arrive in Salem Village was George Burrows. He had 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.000 graduated from Harvard the year after Bailey and represented an 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.720 attempt to bridge the gap between Salem Village and Salem Town. 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.920 You see, Burrows was actually related to the junior minister 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.440 of the Salem Town Congregation. Hiring him could be seen 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.280 as a sort of olive branch. He was a play 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.640 for unity, but when he arrived, he moved into the 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.480 home of one of the Putnam's, which upset the porters. 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.520 Whatever hope they had of uniting their divided village evaporated 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.320 like missed over a new England field in the spring. 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.959 The porters also refused to contribute to the minister's salary, 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.520 leaving him without an income. Two years later, Burrows left 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.400 for Maine. Their third attempt at finding a minister to 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.400 guide their new church was a man named Deodat Lawson. 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.800 He arrived in sixteen eighty four and really did his 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.880 best to try to unite the community. They've been trying 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.920 to get their new church up and running for twelve 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.280 years at that point, and everyone was feeling a bit desperate. 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:20.640 But two years after his arrival, something unexpected happened. Thomas Putnam, senior, 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.680 son of the patriarch Old John Putnam, died in sixteen 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.320 eight six and his will needed to be executed. He 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.200 had an immense fortune and nine children from two separate marriages. 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.800 Everyone expected the fortune to be divided up equally among 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.720 the nine, but that didn't happen. That's because Thomas Sr's 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.520 second wife, and the mother of only one of his 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.560 nine children, was also the daughter of Israel Porter, and 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.120 Israel Porter somehow managed to become appointed executor of the will. 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.800 When it was over, a large chunk of the Putnam 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.000 family wealth had headed back towards the Salem town side 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.160 of the community. Dao dat Law and tried to manage 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.680 the situation as any good minister might, but he failed 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.600 to help smooth things over. Defeated, he quit his position 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.360 and left the church and the village defend for itself. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.280 Fourteen years after beginning their search for a minister to 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.000 bring the community together under one roof Salem Village found 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.920 themselves returning to square one. They had tried and failed 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.880 not once, but three times, and I have to imagine 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.840 it was beginning to feel rather hopeless. But there were 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:33.280 still some who refused to give up entirely. The Putnam's, 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:44.520 you see, had an ace up their sleeve. Samuel's uncle 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:49.120 made his fortune selling other human beings. John Paris was 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.640 one of those enterprising english Men who took full advantage 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.320 of the global empire his country was building. Early on, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.080 he got involved in the African slave trade, helping to 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.160 kidnap Africas and sell them to plantation owners in the 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.200 New World. One of those locations was the island of Barbados, 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.120 which England had begun to colonize in sixty seven. After 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.920 earning a heavy profit from the sale of slaves, John 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.480 Paris bought a plantation there and settled in It. Turns 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.360 out John wasn't very good at running his own business. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.760 Sometime in the sixteen fifties, his brother Thomas took over 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.920 running everything in an attempt to turn things around. In 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.960 sixteen sixty, John died, leaving everything to his brother, who 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.800 packed up his entire family and moved them from London 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.320 to the plantation, and that included seven year old Samuel. 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.960 That's the world Samuel Paris grew up in, but it 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.200 was also a very Puritan lifestyle, leaning hard toward the 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.920 conservative side of the Christian spectrum. In fact, Samuel's older 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:51.880 brother was a Puritan minister back in England, and he 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.240 had an uncle, John Oxenbridge, who served as a minister 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:58.400 of Boston's Puritan First Church. So when it came time 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.240 for Samuel to consider his edge accation and trained to 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:07.119 be a minister, there was only one place to send him. Harvard. Today, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.320 Harvard is a bastion of progressive thinking, but it began 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.879 life as a conservative alternative to more liberal schools like 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.960 Oxford or Cambridge. Sure, Thomas could have sent Samuel back 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.760 to England for training as a minister, but Harvard was 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.240 the safer choice for a Puritan. So in sixteen seventy 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.760 Samuel left home and headed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.560 where he joined the ranks of students at Harvard just 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:35.760 outside of Boston. Real life doesn't always play along with 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.359 our carefully laid plans, though. Just three years after arriving 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.040 in Boston with his degree in sight at the end 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.320 of the tunnel, Samuel's father died and he was forced 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.160 to return to Barbados to take over the family business. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.919 Two years later, the bottom fell out of the sugar market, 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.399 destroying most of his fortune. Months later, a hurricane devastated 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.320 the island, and after that racial tensions began to boil over. 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.040 This was a time when nine out of every ten 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.000 people on the island were black, yet the whites held 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:12.040 all the power. People were upset, and rightly so. When 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.560 a smallpox outbreak arrived in sixteen eighty, Samuel took it 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.880 as a sign. He sold everything off, packed up, and 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.280 headed back north. He arrived in Boston with at least 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.200 one of his slaves, a woman named Tituba, as well 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.760 as a small fortune that he hoped to use as 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.480 a seed for something greater. He bought one of the 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.199 wharfs in Boston's Harbor, a downtown shop and interest in 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.600 one of the smaller shipping companies. Being back in New 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.080 England was refreshing for Samuel. He was back in touch 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.000 with his Harvard friends and reconnected to the Puritan movement. There. 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:49.080 He had begun to brush shoulders with religious leaders like 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.000 Increased Mather and his popular son Cotton. He even worked 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:55.680 for a time alongside his uncle at the Puritan church 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.199 in Boston, and it was there that he met a 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.560 physician named William Griggs who had some family north of 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:06.480 the city, and they we're looking for a minister. This 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.439 family turned out to be none other than the Putnams, 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.320 and their timing was actually perfect. Samuel wasn't doing so 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.359 well compared to some of the other businesses around him. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.919 He was earning good money, but nothing compared to the competition. 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.000 So in six he began conversations with the folks in 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:28.119 Salem Village about shifting careers once again and stepping into 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.960 their vacant minister role. Here's Richard Trask. He had not 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:37.120 been an ordained minister. I guess the term today would 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:40.000 be had taken courses. He was a man who had 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.760 changed his occupation. He was a merchant. Didn't do that 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.200 while there had a belief in wanting to do good, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.840 and so took the call in Salem Village, and the 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.760 village took him on as the minister. It took them 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.880 nearly a year of negotiations, but in November of six nine, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.119 Samuel Paris took over as the fourth minister of the 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.800 Salem Village Congregation. And not only did he get the job, 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:08.359 but unlike his three predecessors, he was even ordained by 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:12.120 the community there. This was huge, but things weren't all 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.640 rose colored glasses and smooth sailing. You find that in 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.399 his coming to Salem Village, you had some problems, and 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:25.800 the problems were you always had within your community, the 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:30.640 covenant members usually like ten of the population, and then 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.000 the others, the outsiders who had to contribute to the 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.800 meetinghouse for the church but didn't really have too much 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.320 of a say that way. You see, you can hire 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.560 a new minister, even one that meets that very specific 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.760 list of requirements that Salem Village had, but you can't 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:51.040 change the culture around the village. If Paris was meant 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.920 to be a seed for change, he'd been planted in toxic, 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.320 unfriendly soil, and nothing good could ever grow. From that. 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.560 Don't get me wrong, there were flaws on both sides 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.680 of the argument. On one hand, the Putnam's finally had 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.440 an ultrapious minister who would fight against the halfway covenant. 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.880 Paris refused to give church membership to anyone who wasn't 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.119 willing to take on the highly conservative practices that he taught. 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.000 He refused them communion and baptism, which was like depriving 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.040 starving men of a good meal. On the other side 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.679 of the argument were the Porters. They were some of 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:29.160 the people denied membership by Samuel Paris, and they weren't 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.119 happy about that. But one of the Porters was the 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.400 leader of the Salem Tax Committee, so he fought back. 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.040 If Paris was going to play hardball with essentials like communion, 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.120 then they would simply refuse to pay him his salary 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:48.200 and regular allotment of firewood. Historian Maryland k Roach at 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.560 one point, He's really low on it and complaining about it. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.560 He's riding in the winter and in the ink praises 0:21:54.600 --> 0:22:01.000 in the innklow. So it was a necessity, which is 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:05.520 why in early January Paris was freezing in his upstairs study. 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.600 It was his space away from the rest of the household, 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:11.679 where he retreated to prepare his sermons. But New England 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.560 winters have always been a brutal experience, and he probably 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.320 spent just as much time breathing into his cupped hands 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.000 as he did dipping his quill in the ink. Thankfully 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.919 though he kept writing. In fact, his Minister's Notebook is 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.680 one of the most important documents we still have today, 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.000 and it provides a unique window into the events that 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:36.199 were about to unfold. During my time with historian Richard Trask, 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.000 I got to see that notebook for myself. This is 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:43.679 the Minister's record book. We had it restored back in 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:48.159 the nineties seventies, so he is the original piece of 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:53.000 paunchment on a new binding. Yeah, and this is all 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:59.399 in the handwriting of Reverend Paris. The notebook helps us 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.439 see the new wants in the story. The tensions in 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:06.000 Salem were a lot more complex than just withheld firewood 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:10.479 deliveries and religious disputes between two prominent families. There was 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.639 another layer to their worldview, one that was filled with 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:18.040 dark powers, horrifying dangers, and a system of rules that 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.280 was so loose and full of holes that anyone could 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:25.160 be accused of breaking them. Taking it all into account, 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:29.840 it wasn't just bad. It was a recipe or a disaster. 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:41.720 Samuel Paris had guts, that much was clear. But while 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:45.080 he was preaching harsh messages to his church about wandering 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:49.600 in the wilderness, about suffering through hatred and persecution, about 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:52.720 the wicked and reprobate people who were working with the 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:56.600 devil to destroy the church, well, things were falling apart 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:01.280 back home. It wasn't just that Betty Abigail were suffering 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:04.680 from something they couldn't treat. No, there was something else. 0:24:05.119 --> 0:24:08.480 It reminded Paris of another story, one from just a 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:14.880 few years before. In six four children of a Boston 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:20.680 family by the name of Goodwin began to show unusual symptoms, fits, seizures, 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:24.560 and violent twisting, the sort that caused great alarm and 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:28.119 were also very hard to forget. At some point in 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:30.520 their suffering, the four girls cried out that they were 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.000 being attacked by their neighbor, an elderly Irish immigrant named 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:37.520 Goody Glover. Goody, by the way, wasn't a first name. 0:24:37.800 --> 0:24:40.199 The terms Goody and good Men were sort of a 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:44.080 seventeenth century version of Mr. And mrs. That After a 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:48.040 long trial, Goody Glover was convicted of witchcraft and hanged 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:52.120 in Boston. There were others too, and they had all 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:54.720 been written about and spread to the far reaches of 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:57.960 the colony there. We can blame Cotton Mother for that, 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:01.119 because he had a passion for collect these sorts of tales, 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:04.320 in publishing them as a sort of warning to the pious. 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:09.840 Here's Jane Kamensky, Professor of American History at Harvard University. 0:25:10.480 --> 0:25:15.000 Kind Mother was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:21.280 fancied himself a scientist of international connection. So it's not 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:27.680 education or intellect that explains where people came down and 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:32.000 and how this is a world in which science and 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:38.359 religion and ghost stories all are are very much of 0:25:38.440 --> 0:25:42.600 a piece. They had a particular cosmology, parts of which 0:25:42.640 --> 0:25:46.280 we believe we have proved wrong. We also have a 0:25:46.359 --> 0:25:51.560