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Speaker 1: Our guest historian today is Stacy Schiff, author of a

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Speaker 1: number of historical works. Her book Vera was a Pulitzer

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Speaker 1: Prize winner, and she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for

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Speaker 1: her book Santa Suberie, and of course, her book The

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Speaker 1: Witches was one of the works referenced as we researched

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Speaker 1: and wrote on Obscured Season one. Her list of awards

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Speaker 1: of publications is enough to make any historian jealous, So

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Speaker 1: I'll point you toward her full bio on the Unobscured

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Speaker 1: website if you want to learn more. I had a

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Speaker 1: chance to sit down with Stacy Shift this past summer

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Speaker 1: and we had a fantastic conversation. So without further delay,

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Speaker 1: let's get on with the show. This is the Unobscured

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Speaker 1: Interview series for season one. I'm Aaron Mankey, I'm Stacy Schiff.

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Speaker 1: I'm the author of The Witches, um in narrative history

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Speaker 1: of what Happened at Salem, to which I came because

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Speaker 1: I was surprised by how little most of us really

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Speaker 1: know about what happened in Um Salem, which trials seemed

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Speaker 1: like a shorthand, but none of us really understands to

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Speaker 1: what it is a shorthand. Um. I had written a

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Speaker 1: book about Cleopatra before this, and it was the same

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Speaker 1: kind of dynamic of just a name that a name brand,

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Speaker 1: something that everyone recognizes without really having any grasp of

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Speaker 1: the actual history. Well, when you talk about the misunderstanding,

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Speaker 1: I think the place to start here is almost the

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Speaker 1: most obvious question, what was a witch in Salem? And

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Speaker 1: you're right, that's the question over which we stumble because

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Speaker 1: our definition, the century definition of a witch, is not

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Speaker 1: the seventeenth century definition of a itch. So so which

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Speaker 1: at the time witchcraft is a Biblical construct and which

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Speaker 1: at the time has a concrete reality because she's mentioned

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Speaker 1: in he or she has mentioned in the Bible, and

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Speaker 1: which is understood to be any figure male or female,

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Speaker 1: but primarily female, who is in league with the devil,

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Speaker 1: and who works his or her magic by means of

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Speaker 1: little imps or a menagerie of little animals, who can

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Speaker 1: do his or her bidding. Um. And that was something

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Speaker 1: that was imported to the colonies from England. It was

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Speaker 1: an extremely rampant It was extremely common concept in in

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Speaker 1: the Old World and actually throughout the Old World. Although

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Speaker 1: by two the idea of witchcraft has pretty much fallen

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Speaker 1: out UM. In Europe. The colonies are in a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a TimewARP of their own, and they haven't

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Speaker 1: quite got the message that this this the switchcraft concept

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Speaker 1: is a little antiquated by now, UM, but you see

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Speaker 1: it throughout the colonial record there, which is really from

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Speaker 1: the very beginning of New England. And the only difference

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Speaker 1: with two is that UM is the prosecution is that

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Speaker 1: you get this um feverish set of accusing tions and

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Speaker 1: you get a relentless prosecution. In earlier cases, UM, there

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Speaker 1: had been tremendous leniency. Often someone who brought in a

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Speaker 1: charge of witchcraft was accused of lying and was sent

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Speaker 1: home with a whipping. Um. Things were not necessarily taken seriously.

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Speaker 1: In obviously the opposite happens. Going back to these differences

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Speaker 1: in our perception, there's how we imagine it to be

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Speaker 1: and there's the reality of it. How do some of

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Speaker 1: the common symbols of witchcraft that we have today, like

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Speaker 1: flying on a broomstick or black cats, connect with the

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Speaker 1: Sandwich trials or do they? One of the one of

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Speaker 1: the most interesting to meet pieces of this is how

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Speaker 1: the flight gets into UM. The entire panic, the entire

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Speaker 1: delusion in there had not been um, there had not

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Speaker 1: been flying witches in New England before six UM, and

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Speaker 1: it would see and they were not flying, which is

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Speaker 1: an English witchcraft either. So this is really an import

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Speaker 1: from the continent. And it would seem that we get

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Speaker 1: that idea from a narrative that cotton Mouth, one of

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Speaker 1: the most influential ministers at the time, includes in an

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Speaker 1: earlier text of his and he writes about a Swedish

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Speaker 1: witchcraft epidemic in which a little girl UM is on

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Speaker 1: her way to a satanic meeting to two young children

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Speaker 1: in fact set off this witchcraft crisis, and a little

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Speaker 1: girl falls off her broomstick. He writes about all these

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Speaker 1: wonderful details which we will then see transpost to Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1: But he writes about things that had never before happened

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Speaker 1: in New England. A satanic meeting UM in a meadow

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Speaker 1: at which people sign satanic pacts into which they fly

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Speaker 1: on sticks. UM. And that is really there were French

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Speaker 1: flight French flying, which is before suct. Ninety two, there

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Speaker 1: had never really been English flying witches. So that's pretty

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Speaker 1: pretty much seems to be where that aspect of it

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Speaker 1: comes from. Black Cats I spent a lot of time.

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Speaker 1: I live with a black cat, so I spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time on black cats. And they seem to

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Speaker 1: have been the devil since antiquity. They've they've had a

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Speaker 1: bad wrap all along. And if you look at the

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Speaker 1: Salem testimony, the court testimony, you see a tremendous number

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Speaker 1: of cats. They're translucent cats, there are gleaming cats, they're

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Speaker 1: black cats, they're red cats. They're all over the place.

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Speaker 1: And it does it does seem to be it's a

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Speaker 1: seductive creature, it's a female, mean creature many many people's minds,

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Speaker 1: and a black cat will detach itself from the darkness

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Speaker 1: without any warning, and it's a cat is unpredictable. So

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Speaker 1: there's that sense that you can caress a cat and

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Speaker 1: be rewarded with scratches, and all of those things seem

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Speaker 1: to add up to something that people are very uncertain

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Speaker 1: about and often taken aback by. So there are many

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Speaker 1: number of theories as to how black cats get get

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Speaker 1: wrapped up in the witchcraft. But yes, that is a

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Speaker 1: constant from day one. We talk about uncertainties and and

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Speaker 1: the unpredictability of the world around the Puritans. Um tell

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Speaker 1: Us about how they viewed the natural world around them,

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Speaker 1: and you know, in relation to to how they viewed

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Speaker 1: God and their mission of this thriving Puritan culture. You know,

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Speaker 1: you have things like the weather or um, the economy

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Speaker 1: or politics in the world around them, and how do

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Speaker 1: they view all of those as in relation to their

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Speaker 1: their safety or their faith. Everything you just mentioned is

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Speaker 1: in flux and essentially in so you've just you've just

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Speaker 1: given a great overview. Um. They've just a very bloody

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Speaker 1: and very tragic war with the Native Americans, with the

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Speaker 1: Indians they would have called them, has just ended. And

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Speaker 1: pretty much everyone UM in New England at this point

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Speaker 1: has lost a friend or a relative in that conflict

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Speaker 1: and in new war where the Indians is about to start.

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Speaker 1: So there's a sense of being um under assault certainly

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Speaker 1: and under siege, which is very Ums, very much goes

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Speaker 1: to the heart of Puritanism. I mean, these people have

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Speaker 1: come to America because precisely because they feel persecuted. Um.

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Speaker 1: They are at the one the one hand, watchful people,

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Speaker 1: always watching for the second coming, of always watching over

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Speaker 1: each other. There's a great sense of community and they

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Speaker 1: are in a hostile world. I mean, it's not for

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Speaker 1: nothing that they refer constantly to the howling wilderness, and

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Speaker 1: that howling wilderness is, when you begin to look at it, UM,

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Speaker 1: a pretty frightening place. We have wolves, very wolves barking

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Speaker 1: in the wolves howling in the distance. UM at all times.

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Speaker 1: We have obviously the Indians vanishing into the bushes at

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Speaker 1: all times with a lot of UM, with a lot

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Speaker 1: of subsequent trauma for the colonists. We have an economy

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Speaker 1: that's in tatters at this point, and I think not

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Speaker 1: um unimportantly and actually fun to mentally, there's a political

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Speaker 1: hiccup at this moment. You're in two the colonies between

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Speaker 1: governors UM. No one knows they've overthrown the royal governor

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Speaker 1: UM in a really sort of preview for the American

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Speaker 1: Revolution and a military coup a few years earlier, and

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Speaker 1: they don't know if they're about to be punished for this,

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Speaker 1: and they don't know what kind of government they can

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Speaker 1: expect and what kind of governor they can expect. And

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Speaker 1: it's in that little interregnum that the witchcraft breaks out.

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Speaker 1: So there is this sense of being on the precipice,

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Speaker 1: watching for signs. And this is a religion which gives

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Speaker 1: itself very much to watching, making meaning of any little incident,

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Speaker 1: which of course means that when you see something you

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Speaker 1: can't explain. Witchcraft is a very good explanation, um. Watching

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Speaker 1: for this new what this new government will constitute watching

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Speaker 1: each other, which of course also ends in accusations of

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Speaker 1: various kinds, um, and trying to make sense of this

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Speaker 1: very very hostile, difficult world. You talk about the wilderness,

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Speaker 1: and I think what I appreciate about what you brought

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Speaker 1: to your approach to the Sandwich trials is that it's

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Speaker 1: easy for a lot of people to stay in Salem

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Speaker 1: in the sale, you know, the town, in the village,

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Speaker 1: and leave the focus there. But but what you're bringing

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Speaker 1: up is that there's this there's an outer conflict going on,

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Speaker 1: especially to the north in the frontier of Maine on

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Speaker 1: the edges of what people feel like is they're safe space,

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Speaker 1: and that conflict is quite literally coming back into Salem village.

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Speaker 1: I mean some of these refugees right exactly, and you

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Speaker 1: have you have both that conflict beginning to approach because um,

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Speaker 1: because the border with the Indians is getting closer and closer,

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Speaker 1: and you have this influx of refugees and there are

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Speaker 1: any number of the accusing girls whom we know have

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Speaker 1: come from families and what is today southern Maine, um

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Speaker 1: who had known Indian attack or who had lost parents

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Speaker 1: in Indian attack. I should also just have mentioned, by

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Speaker 1: the way, the darkness, and this was something that struck

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Speaker 1: me over and over when reading the court testimony, the

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Speaker 1: prior court testimonies. These people were lived in a pitch

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Speaker 1: black world. And when objects move and and make sounds

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Speaker 1: in the dark, you know, we you know what that's like.

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Speaker 1: And this is a world in which really you can't

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Speaker 1: see the shapes, and shapes very often resolve themselves into

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Speaker 1: something else altogether. Um. In that sense of really being

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Speaker 1: on edge and having the inexplicable you know right before you,

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Speaker 1: and not knowing what danger you should anticipate is very raw.

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Speaker 1: And you see a lot of it throughout, even things

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Speaker 1: which don't concern witchcraft. You see a great deal of that.

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Speaker 1: People sneaking into basements, people not being able to make

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Speaker 1: sense of a creaking beam, people wondering, you know, how

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Speaker 1: how the roof has suddenly flown off the meetinghouse. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I just keep thinking back to what you said about

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Speaker 1: black hats and how they do bleed into the blackness

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Speaker 1: of the night or a dark room and just step

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Speaker 1: out whenever they want, and it's kind of systematic or

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Speaker 1: symbolic of everything happening around them. My favorites were always

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Speaker 1: the court testimony. This is prior to the witchcraft years,

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Speaker 1: of women who would report that they'd come home at

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Speaker 1: night and they've crawled into bed to find another man,

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Speaker 1: not their husband's sleeping there, right, I mean, just anything

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Speaker 1: could happen because you couldn't see in the dark, right.

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Speaker 1: And also and the length of the winter was unpredictable,

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Speaker 1: so there was the additional question of do we have

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Speaker 1: enough firewood, do we have enough food? Are we going

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Speaker 1: to make it through the winter? This is a you know,

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Speaker 1: this is a very barren climate in many ways. Um,

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Speaker 1: some winters in the winter before sixteen ninety two was

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Speaker 1: particularly severe. Some winters were very very horrible. Um, how

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Speaker 1: are you going to make it through? Do you have

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Speaker 1: the firewood? It's going to take? Well? You know, you

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Speaker 1: talk about the darkness and the unknown and the propensities

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Speaker 1: who look for excuses or to play supernatural blame on things.

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Speaker 1: Colinists seemed to see the devil everywhere around them. What

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Speaker 1: was their view of the devil. Who was the devil

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Speaker 1: to them? In two? The devil is I spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time on this. The devil is a very um.

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Speaker 1: There's a very abstract and inconsistent sense of the devil.

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Speaker 1: At this point, there's an enormous amount of devil talk,

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Speaker 1: both from the both from the pulpit and among the people.

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Speaker 1: There are lots of just in day to day discourse,

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Speaker 1: there are lots of mentions of the devil, and go

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Speaker 1: to the devil, and you know you are a devil,

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Speaker 1: and your wife's, especially your wife's a devil. Um. No

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Speaker 1: one really seems all that certain who the devil is.

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Speaker 1: He has, however, a very palpable presence, and the sense

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Speaker 1: that evil is lurking obviously is very close to the

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Speaker 1: to the mind of many of these many of the

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Speaker 1: villagers who are at the heart of a story. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: when the witchcraft testimony, when there will be a lot

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Speaker 1: of witchcraft testimony, you begin to see that people have

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Speaker 1: a very different vision of who he is. He's sometimes

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Speaker 1: a tall man, he's sometimes a short man. He has

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Speaker 1: a club and foot, or he doesn't have a club

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Speaker 1: and foot. It's there's a very vague sense of who

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Speaker 1: this sinister creature is, but he's very palpably there. Absolutely

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Speaker 1: years before Salem, we have the episode with the Godwin children.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell us about how the event with the

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Speaker 1: Godwin children UM shaped the response like that initial response

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Speaker 1: when when Betty and Abigail begin to have these similar

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Speaker 1: fits in the home of a minister, it would have

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Speaker 1: been almost impossible for Samuel Paris, the father and uncle

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Speaker 1: of those two girls, not to have known intimately of

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Speaker 1: the Godwin case. Um. First of all, the Godwin case

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Speaker 1: is included in an earlier book of Cotton Mathers, so

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Speaker 1: many people would have read of it, and I mean

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Speaker 1: it was this was sensationalist reading. We would all have

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Speaker 1: you known of this in a way, um. And he

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Speaker 1: was friends with one of the he Paris was friends

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Speaker 1: with one of the ministers who had observed the girls

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Speaker 1: in their distress, with those children in their distress, and

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Speaker 1: it was his congregation which was involved in Boston, So

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Speaker 1: it would have been a story that he was on

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Speaker 1: quite close terms with the symptoms in the Paris household

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Speaker 1: and in the Godwin whole household are very similar. Um.

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Speaker 1: He's very Paris is very slow to mention the word witchcraft,

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Speaker 1: but the word must have been at the tip of

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Speaker 1: his tongue because they're such a correlation between the two.

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Speaker 1: So in the Godwin case, UM, you have a couple

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Speaker 1: of afflicted children who begin to um, to writhe and

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Speaker 1: to roar and to gallop around on imaginary steeds, and

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Speaker 1: who can't seem to pray and conscrub a clean table

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Speaker 1: but not a dirty table, and won't do their chores,

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Speaker 1: very similar set of symptoms. Conn mother will step in

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Speaker 1: and try to make a sort of clinical study of

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Speaker 1: what is happening with those children. UM. And in the

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Speaker 1: course of that, a washer woman and a laundry woman

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Speaker 1: in Boston is accused of having bit witched the girls,

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Speaker 1: and she actually will hang on Boston Common. And that's

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Speaker 1: the most recent UM prosecution for witchcraft before and one,

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Speaker 1: both in terms of the symptoms and in terms of

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Speaker 1: the fallout that would have been on many people's minds.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned the symptoms. One of the things that I've

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Speaker 1: noticed through my work. On my other podcast lore UM

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Speaker 1: some continental you know you you talked about the broomsticks

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Speaker 1: and the flying witches and how there were differences between

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Speaker 1: Europe and England and then and then the New World

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Speaker 1: we here, Um, the symptoms seem to be interpreted differently,

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Speaker 1: whether it's on the continent or in England or the

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Speaker 1: New World. You know. So we have the events of

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Speaker 1: lu Dunne in France, where a lot of nuns at

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Speaker 1: a convent went through a lot of the same symptoms

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Speaker 1: of convulsions and seizures, but that was viewed as possession.

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Speaker 1: And it seems that here in Salem, same symptoms but

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Speaker 1: viewed as they are being afflicted by a witch who's

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Speaker 1: outside somewhere. And why are the differences like that? Is

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Speaker 1: that an Anglican versus Catholic difference or is it something deeper?

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Speaker 1: It's not. And it's something that even in six people

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Speaker 1: had trouble passing one from the other. There's a little

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Speaker 1: confusion as to where witchcraft ends in possession begins. And

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Speaker 1: you see it even in the work of Cotton Mother,

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Speaker 1: where initially he says it's either witchcraft or possession. Um.

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Speaker 1: The bottom line, and TI meant to put it baldly,

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Speaker 1: is that in possession you are not complicit um. I mean,

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Speaker 1: are you are complicit in the witchcraft? You are not

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Speaker 1: complicit in what's happening, so a case of possession would

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Speaker 1: have been preferable. Um in many ways, Um, you see

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Speaker 1: increased mother cotton, mother's father also a minister grappling with this,

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Speaker 1: trying to basically differentiate the two. They sometimes they in

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Speaker 1: a way bleed into each other. The differences that with

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Speaker 1: possession you don't have a guilty party, and in witchcraft

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Speaker 1: you have you can point an accusing finger at the

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Speaker 1: person who is causing this distress. The similarity with with

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Speaker 1: Ludon is interesting because um, again you have a case

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Speaker 1: of women living together in a very cloistered, very sheltered environment,

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Speaker 1: very visually monotonous. I mean, there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: similarities with a winter, a very white winter in the

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Speaker 1: cold in Salem, absolutely or Samuel Willard's experienced twenty years

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Speaker 1: before Salem with exactly exactly who goes on to marry

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Speaker 1: a man named Samuel Scripture, which I have always pleasure

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Speaker 1: in that she's she's actually a fascinating character because she's

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Speaker 1: clearly so enjoying this attention, and I've loved reading about

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Speaker 1: her because there were so many hints anyway of what

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Speaker 1: must have been it must have felt like for the

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Speaker 1: Salem girls in the sense that you could dismiss the

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Speaker 1: women around your bedside but ask for the handsome men

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Speaker 1: to stay to observe you in your distress. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: there were many advantages to some of these afflictions. Let's

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Speaker 1: shift gears from witchcraft and perceptions of the world and

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Speaker 1: talk about the trial for a bit. Um in your estimation,

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Speaker 1: who were the people who are really propelling the trial forward?

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Speaker 1: What were the cultural forces who were pressing them into

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Speaker 1: this sequence of events. You can't have this kind of

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Speaker 1: a prosecution without an inherent belief in the existence of witchcraft.

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Speaker 1: So for starters, you have a religious base here, which

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Speaker 1: obviously encourages this kind of an examination, if not prosecution. UM.

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Speaker 1: Everyone has his reasons. In this case, you have local reasons,

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Speaker 1: and then you have larger cultural reasons, and you have

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Speaker 1: political and religious reasons. Locally, you have a minister, and

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Speaker 1: this would be Samuel Paris, who was it on with

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Speaker 1: his community. UM was divisive by nature, was bitter by nature.

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Speaker 1: UM had had every reason to fall out with certain families.

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Speaker 1: And in this case it's probably not. It's probably happy

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Speaker 1: to encourage something that is going to UM somewhat purge

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Speaker 1: the community of auto off some elements. UM. In a

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Speaker 1: larger way, however, which you really have is a set

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Speaker 1: of ministers and a set of civic authorities, UM, whoever

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Speaker 1: different reasons, are really working in lockstep, working hand in glove. UM.

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Speaker 1: Each of those groups has a tremendous amount to gain

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Speaker 1: at this very sort of precarious political moment from a

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Speaker 1: witchcraft prosecution. And you can see that most clearly, I

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Speaker 1: think with Cotton Mother, Um, the young Minister of the

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Speaker 1: young sort of great hope of the New England Ministry,

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Speaker 1: and William Stowton, who's the Chief Justice and the Lieutenant Governor,

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Speaker 1: who really is the driving force behind the trials and

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Speaker 1: was probably the single person who had the power to

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Speaker 1: slow them down, if not stop them, and choose and

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Speaker 1: chooses not to. And in fact when the court, when

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Speaker 1: the Witchcraft Court will be shut down in the fall

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Speaker 1: of two, he will throw a very public temper tantrum

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Speaker 1: because he feels that he was, as he puts it,

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Speaker 1: on his way to ridding New England of these creatures

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Speaker 1: and he's been stopped. Stoton Sorry, So Stone is really

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Speaker 1: the figure. Insofar as one is tempted to lay blame

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Speaker 1: at someone's feet, I would have alas Finger William Stowton,

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Speaker 1: who he's very little. Uh. There's very little paper record

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Speaker 1: for Stone, and it's it's shocking how little there is.

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Speaker 1: It's also interesting that after the trials, when he clearly

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Speaker 1: is the driving force and the most devout and most

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Speaker 1: pious of he really feels he's on a crusade against

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Speaker 1: this witchcraft. Um. He will remain in political power. That

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Speaker 1: will never be a sense of questioning him, that will

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Speaker 1: never be a sin of sidelining him. He'll remain in power. UM.

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Speaker 1: But you see it most clearly because these um, both

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Speaker 1: of these forces, the church and the civic authorities, are

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Speaker 1: trying together to prop up a new government. They have

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Speaker 1: William Phipps, the new governor who's arrived. They have um

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Speaker 1: not endeared themselves to the mother country, and they're trying

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Speaker 1: to prove their own a law and order campaign. They're

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Speaker 1: trying to prove um that they can adjudicate their own affairs,

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Speaker 1: that they can um, they don't need any help from

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Speaker 1: the old country. There is not utter chaos and disorder

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Speaker 1: in the colony as has been reported. And in Stone's case,

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Speaker 1: he's really trying to rehabilitate himself. He's a He's a

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Speaker 1: the ultimate political survivor. He's been a member of many

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Speaker 1: different governments. He had helped out the previous very prominently,

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Speaker 1: had ousted the royal governor. Um, and this is a

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Speaker 1: case where he can really prove his metal. Um Cotton

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Speaker 1: Mother will go to him just as the objections to

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Speaker 1: the trials begin to surface in the fall and say,

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Speaker 1: why don't I write something to flatten the fury, as

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Speaker 1: he puts it? And Um, when that book is published,

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Speaker 1: which we know as Wonders of Invisible World, it will

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Speaker 1: come out as if as if Stone had actually asked

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Speaker 1: Um Mather to write it. So you begin to see

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Speaker 1: a little bit of the of the of the game

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Speaker 1: these two are playing together in the most damning statement.

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Speaker 1: I guess, Um, and answer to your question, after the trials,

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Speaker 1: Um Cotton Mother will write, not not for publication, that

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Speaker 1: he felt afterward that Um, these events had really helped God.

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Speaker 1: They Christ had got more disciples, God had was more

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Speaker 1: closely embraced, This had awakened the sluggish that had filled

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Speaker 1: the pews, and the devil had got precisely nothing out

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Speaker 1: of the deal. It doesn't mention, of course, the innocent

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Speaker 1: lives that were lost in the process. Absolutely the cost

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Speaker 1: of all of that. Um. And a lot of that

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Speaker 1: began in the meeting house in Salem Village. Um, sort

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Speaker 1: of that pre trial examination that happened before we moved

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Speaker 1: to oil and terminer in Salem Town. But what do

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Speaker 1: you think the atmosphere was like in that meeting house especially?

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Speaker 1: You know that first and talking to Richard Trask, he

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Speaker 1: said that first day there there gonna be fifty people

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Speaker 1: living in Salem and they were standing out the packed house,

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Speaker 1: standing outside the windows in the cold, watching And what

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Speaker 1: do you think that was like? If there were five

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Speaker 1: people in Salem? And I think Richard's exactly right. They

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Speaker 1: were probably more than five packed into that space, which

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Speaker 1: I think is by thirty eight or some I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's tiny, it's a tiny little space. Um. And we

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Speaker 1: know from there too, extremely good accounts of those early examinations,

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Speaker 1: one from a man whose wife had come to try

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Speaker 1: to defend herself and the second from a from a

401
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Speaker 1: former minister who had come back. Um, we know it

402
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Speaker 1: was pandemonium. We know it was utter chaos. Um. Everyone

403
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Speaker 1: is packed cheek by jowa. People are sitting in the pulpit,

404
00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:38,959
Speaker 1: people are gathered together in the gallery of the places

405
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Speaker 1: is really overflowing, and everyone is very is packed in

406
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Speaker 1: very tightly against people whom they suddenly are wondering, Um,

407
00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:48,600
Speaker 1: whom they're wondering about, whom they're thinking maybe the guy

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Speaker 1: next to me is also guilty of the switchcraft. And

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Speaker 1: meanwhile you have these convulsive, screaming girls who are crashing

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Speaker 1: to the ground, and you know, assuming these acrobatic postures,

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Speaker 1: UM and who are stopping the trial. It's a very

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Speaker 1: stop and go process. Not trials stopping the examination. It's

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Speaker 1: a very it's a very slow and and you know,

414
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Speaker 1: plotting process, because you have to wait until the girl

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Speaker 1: has just fallen lifelessen to the trance revives herself before

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Speaker 1: you can continue. UM. And the girls, according to one

417
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Speaker 1: of these accounts, are allowed to prowl around the room,

418
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Speaker 1: so they're sort of canvassing the room, occasionally chatting with people,

419
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Speaker 1: occasionally breaking out in new convulsions, occasionally screaming that they've

420
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Speaker 1: just been bitten or pinched again. UM. You get a

421
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Speaker 1: sense that the court reporters couldn't hear a lot of

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Speaker 1: the time UM center and are having trouble keeping writing

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Speaker 1: things down because either they can't hear or events are

424
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Speaker 1: proceeding so quickly, and often will then resort to simply

425
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Speaker 1: summarizing what was heard, as opposed to trying to write

426
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Speaker 1: the actual words down. So I think that the short

427
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:48,639
Speaker 1: answer is it's dark. There's a sense of smudge, darkness.

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Speaker 1: It's very dark in that meeting house. It's very um,

429
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:55,359
Speaker 1: it's it's very very sort of crackling lye UM fright

430
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 1: frightful of the can I stopped them all of a sentence? Um,

431
00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: it's crowd thing with fear. The former minister who comes

432
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: back talks about how the hair you can see the

433
00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:05,520
Speaker 1: hair is rising on the backs of next with people

434
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:07,240
Speaker 1: who are just you know, they're in the presence of

435
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:11,359
Speaker 1: the supernatural. It's terrifying. It's a charged place, completely ready,

436
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,679
Speaker 1: completely Obviously. The examinations UM involved bringing people in for

437
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:19,560
Speaker 1: the first time, especially that first day Sarah Good, Sarah Osbourne, Tituba,

438
00:22:20,280 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 1: and as we go along, the accused begin to make confessions.

439
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 1: Why were these confessions so important to the witch trials?

440
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: The confessions are hugely helpful because the confessions, as confessions

441
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 1: will UM tend to coincide, so they coalesce around UM.

442
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: A very similar and familiar story. It's not. UM. It's

443
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: very clear that when people are put into prison having

444
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:47,960
Speaker 1: denied all charges of witchcraft, and then come out UM,

445
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,440
Speaker 1: they tell a more and more grandiose story. And you

446
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:53,119
Speaker 1: can see this happening with people who are examined several times.

447
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:55,160
Speaker 1: The at first perhaps they had been in the service

448
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:56,760
Speaker 1: of the devil for a year, and then when they

449
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:58,520
Speaker 1: the second time they were deposed, they've been in the

450
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,360
Speaker 1: service of the devil for six years, and so has

451
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:02,160
Speaker 1: their sister in law. And then the third time they've

452
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: also been to a Satanic meeting where the bread was read,

453
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:06,359
Speaker 1: and by the fourth time the bread is even redder.

454
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,679
Speaker 1: So there's this snowballing sense of detail and of involvement

455
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,919
Speaker 1: with people. UM. The answer to your question really is

456
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 1: when you when you get toward and over the sale

457
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: and witchcraft of ultimately will will migrate to and over,

458
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:22,240
Speaker 1: and by that time all the imagery has really changed.

459
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: It's less about the enchanted hey and the Satanic cat,

460
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: and it's more about this um, this diabolical meeting to

461
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,120
Speaker 1: which people have flown from all over New England, and

462
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: there most of the testimony is utterly on point. It's

463
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,480
Speaker 1: extremely as if everyone compared notes while in prison, everyone has,

464
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: everyone talks about precisely the same sound to call the

465
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:43,680
Speaker 1: people to the field. They talk about the same person

466
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:47,880
Speaker 1: presiding over this, this this dark sabbath um. They mentioned,

467
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 1: you know, exactly the same guest list of who was there.

468
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: Every detail corroborates each detail. And that's obviously because they're

469
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:57,400
Speaker 1: being told either by their friends in prison or their

470
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 1: family who think they're guilty, or the ministers in hard

471
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: what to say. Why weren't their doubts about spectral evidence.

472
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: It seems looking back that that should be easy to dismiss.

473
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 1: I think the easy answer is. I think that the

474
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: simplest answer is this cotton Mother says god Mother is

475
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: is called on several times to a pine about the

476
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: legitimacy of including spectral evidence in the courtroom, and he

477
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:23,920
Speaker 1: always is a little bit ambivalent, and he's always sort

478
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. But

479
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 1: the bottom line is this special evidence should really not

480
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 1: be taken at face value. However, when there are physical

481
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: manifestations of evil or physical manifestations of harm, then you

482
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: must believe the evidence. So what you have are these

483
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: girls who are claiming or whoever is claiming that they

484
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: have been bitten, pierced, pricked, whatever, burnt um, and who

485
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: have the wounds to show it. So in the courtroom

486
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 1: you have a girl who's suddenly bleeding from the mouth,

487
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 1: or a girl who can show the mouth mark, the

488
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 1: the bite marks up and down her arms. That's really

489
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: hard to deny. And moreover, you have um, really ear

490
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: piercing screeches. You see these girls assuming postures that I

491
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: think most of us would be would find terrifying. So

492
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: in the presence of those convulsing girls, I think it

493
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: was very hard to say witchcraft wasn't being practiced and

494
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: to fail to subscribe to the evidence you felt. I mean,

495
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 1: it's very much an Emperor's new close situation. Everyone else

496
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: is saying, oh, I see the moth flying around the room,

497
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: which is clearly as the specter of one of the accused,

498
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:27,399
Speaker 1: and you think, I don't really see it, But I

499
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 1: guess everyone, I guess I must. Maybe that piece of

500
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: lint in the air, maybe that's the moth. I mean,

501
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,359
Speaker 1: I think it's very hard to be the dissenting voice

502
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 1: and say I don't see what everyone else claims to see, um,

503
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: and what's actually interesting is that when the first three UM,

504
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: when the first three women are brought in UM, there

505
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: isn't a hint of spectral evidence until Tittiba starts telling

506
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: her elaborate and kaleidoscopic tail. Well, when Tittipa starts to talk,

507
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: she brings in brand new elements, a lot of it.

508
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: I think hearkens back to what we talked about earlier

509
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 1: with the animals. You know, there's a strong UM subtext

510
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: of birds and creatures, and you know the dark Man

511
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: falls into that because at some point I think he's

512
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: described as as more like a hairy beast who walks

513
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:15,719
Speaker 1: on two legs UM as one of his many descriptions. UM.

514
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: Why why do you think for her in particular, UM,

515
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: the animalistic qualities were so important. You know, we know

516
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 1: so little about titte but that it's very hard to

517
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: say where that comes from. It has been hinted at.

518
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: It's possible that she was fed some lines. Remember that

519
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: she's the only person of those three, the only woman

520
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 1: of those three who's a slave, UM, which and we

521
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: probably lived in fear of what she had to of

522
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 1: reporting back to Samuel Parris, in whose household she lives.

523
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 1: She's clearly been with the family for years. She clearly

524
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: loves the children. She lives in close quarters. She probably

525
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,720
Speaker 1: slept in the same beds as they. Um, she may

526
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,479
Speaker 1: have been told a tale. She may also have been

527
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: a tale teller. I mean, there may have been a

528
00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: great you know, she might have been sitting around the

529
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: kitchen showing peas and telling great story reas. We really,

530
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: we really have no idea where that comes from. Um,

531
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:06,240
Speaker 1: we do know that she was that someone goes to

532
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: see her in prison before she is interrogated. So it's

533
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,119
Speaker 1: very possible that she was, you know, that there was

534
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 1: some discussion of what she was going to say it

535
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: indeed it indeed is she who mentions the she's got

536
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: yellow birds, she's got red cats, she's got a black hog.

537
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 1: It's very colorful stuff. And yes, the furry creature with

538
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: the wings and the long nose who sits by the fireplace,

539
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: I mean it's and and as soon as she says this,

540
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 1: things take off at a gallop. I mean the very day, um,

541
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: that she testifies, men begin to see two laborers on

542
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: their way home see this unearthly creature by the side

543
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: of the road and the moonlight who suddenly transmogrifies into

544
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 1: three women, and the next day two men will have

545
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: visits from spectral balls of you know, fire in their beds.

546
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: Who turned clearly were some of the defendants. So immediately

547
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: there's this sense that everyone, um, the spectral world begins

548
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: to manifest for everyone. You mentioned the jails earlier, this

549
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 1: idea that going into the jail, a lot of them

550
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:05,719
Speaker 1: their descriptions would magnify when they came out. What were

551
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: the conditions in the jail? What do you think that

552
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: was a motivation for them? The conditions in the jail

553
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: were really deplorable. Um. New England jails had not been

554
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: built for long term stays. Um. This was a culture

555
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: that essentially dealt with malefactors quickly and effectively. No one

556
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: was really meant to live in a jail the way

557
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: these people ended up staying in these jails. Um, Nor

558
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: were the jails built for this. Many people think there

559
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: were sixty people in jail by May and a hundred

560
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: and twenty or so by the fall. Um. The Salem

561
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,959
Speaker 1: jail is described as a suburb of Hell, and from

562
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: the Boston jail was described as a grave for the living.

563
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: So I think there you have it between the two

564
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: of their tiny spaces, um unventilated. An earlier prisoner had

565
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,479
Speaker 1: talked about the fact that he couldn't breathe for the

566
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: pestiferous stink, as he puts it, um, the air is

567
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: fitted their armies of life. And to add insult to injury, UM.

568
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: In colonial New England, you paid for your keep in jail.

569
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: So you paid for your straw, you paid for your food,

570
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: and you paid for your shackles. And in fact we

571
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: have jail keepers accountings. One of the surviving documents is

572
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: the jail keeper's accounting of how much people were in

573
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: debt to him for the shackles to which they are,

574
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: which by which they are attached to the walls. And

575
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: the shackles were important for a which because of it,

576
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: which had no use of her arms, she couldn't work

577
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: her she couldn't work her magic, she couldn't work her

578
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: her powers were limited. So UM. It seems that these

579
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: people were shackled fairly effectively, and Richard Traska suggested that

580
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: they were. That they were shackled in a way that

581
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: where the shackles couldn't be removed except by a blacksmith,

582
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,719
Speaker 1: So these were not removable irons. One of the things

583
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: that I've noticed is that a lot of the witches

584
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: who confess in these trials are allowed to live. Why

585
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: is that when you confess, you generally confessed UM in

586
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: a way where you accused others, so you're very useful

587
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: to the prosecution. Also, the point of confession was that

588
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: you could then somehow UM pushed the narrative forward in

589
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: some way, so you're re entering UM. You're you're serving

590
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: the business of the court beautifully if you do that. UM.

591
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: It is unclear what was going to happen to the confessors, however,

592
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: it's not but they many of them thought they were

593
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 1: going to ultimately going ultimately to be executed. But they

594
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: were certainly being used by the prosecution for what they

595
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: could then relate. UM. There's a certain point here in

596
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: the summer, not been fairly early on, where it's very

597
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: clear that it was smarter to accuse than to let

598
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: yourself be accused. And there's a rash of confession and

599
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: an accusation at this point, which almost seems as if

600
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: people were trying to just get ahead of the game.

601
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: And the interesting the upsetting part I think there is

602
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: often that some of those people are pointing fingers at

603
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: their own family members and often in laws or daughters

604
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: in law. Things like that tell me about Georgie Burrows.

605
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: He seems to have such a powerful narrative arc. Burrows

606
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 1: is someone for whom you know when you live you

607
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: live in Hope, the documentation will surface one day. Burrows

608
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 1: is sort of the Great White Hope in that respect.

609
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: Burrows is the ex minister Um who leaves the community

610
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: on bad terms and is as much a hero in

611
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: his commune in his new community in today's southern Maine

612
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: as he had been a persona on grata in Salem.

613
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: He was clearly a very um, stubborn and difficult man,

614
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: and possibly an abusive husband with when he was in Salem.

615
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:15,720
Speaker 1: Um stories of how he had mistreated his wives will

616
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: trail him even when he when he moves to Maine.

617
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: And he's a person who to whom Um, one of

618
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: the earliest Um girls will make mention as the ring

619
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: master here, as the ringleader of the entire um, of

620
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 1: the of the of all the witchcraft Um. He fits

621
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: the role in the sense that he's a He's clearly

622
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: a figure of some authority. He's clearly a very learned man,

623
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: and he's powerful, so he is the he's called a

624
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: wizard at the time, which is with two z's, which

625
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: I always find very charming. UM. But it's interesting that

626
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: in this epidemic, which is so much being um propagated

627
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: by women, a man acquires the you know, takes the

628
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: central role all the same. UM. And it's Burrows who um,

629
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: who's the one suspect for whom we really in a

630
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: way can't account many. In many of these cases we

631
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: can see why people were accute. We can find long

632
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: term family feuds. Many of the women who were accused

633
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 1: UM had been accused years earlier, so the charges just

634
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: resurface slightly um cooked slightly cooked a little bit better. UM.

635
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: With Burrows, there's this terrific um vexed history with the community.

636
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: There seems to be a certain amount of getting back

637
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: at him by women who may have been friends with

638
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 1: his ex wife, with his dead wives. In the case

639
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: of Burrows, people mentioned ghosts of the dead wives, which

640
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: no one really talks about ghosts, and no one really

641
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: differentiates specters from ghosts, so it's a little bit hard

642
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: to figure out how the two are related. UM. But

643
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: he's clearly someone whom everyone lives in fear, including the authorities.

644
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 1: Even when Cotton Mather will write up his choice cases

645
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: of witchcraft later, he will refer to the other suspects

646
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: by name, but he will refer to Burrows with only

647
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: with the initial be. It's as if he can't even

648
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 1: name his use the full name. So there's clearly something.

649
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: He's also a Harvard man. I mean, there's just he's

650
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: one of them. So it's an interesting case of um,

651
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: the ministers having to prosecute one of their own, clearly

652
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: odd man out, but someone with a very similar background

653
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: is theirs. Yet. Emerson Baker in our interview talked about

654
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: how all of the magistrates involved in the trial were.

655
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: They were men who thought that they would probably go

656
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: into ministry at some point, you know that they were.

657
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: They were all very deeply devout and and I think,

658
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: in his words he said, probably wrestled for the rest

659
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: of their lives with with um questions of doubt as

660
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: to why they didn't go into ministry. Here they were,

661
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 1: you know, forced to be wealthy businessmen and military leaders

662
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: of the community. Um, do you think that there was

663
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: something there where they viewed Burrows? I mean, he was

664
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: from what I can tell top of his class in Harvard,

665
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: or or at the near the top, and he was

666
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: a smart man UM. And do you think maybe these

667
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: ministerial wannabes in the magistrates viewed him with a little

668
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: bit of jealousy. It's conjectural, but I think it's something

669
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: a little bit different. I think with Burrows. Burrows goes

670
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: to Maine UM and protects his parishioners in a very

671
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: small community against a hideous and very savage Indian assault.

672
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: And he's forced to do that because the Massachusetts authorities

673
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: have essentially cut off UM there. They stopped protecting those

674
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: communities because they don't have the funds to do it,

675
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: and they're trying to cut back. And I feel as

676
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: if they might have been a piece of residual guilt

677
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: there for having left those communities unprotected. Um. Burrows would

678
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: have had every reason, would have had every reason to

679
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: chastise them for UM kind of cutting off those settlers

680
00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: who are really at the very forefront of the really

681
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: at the edge of the frontier there and are getting

682
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: no protection. And he'll write. The one document we have

683
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 1: of his, which is really extraordinary, is an account of

684
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,919
Speaker 1: an Indian raid on the community where he's um, where

685
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: he's protecting his parishioners inside a barricade, and you know,

686
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: he writes of it in biblical terms. It's an astonishing

687
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: document in which he proves to be a very courageous

688
00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,920
Speaker 1: and ingenious man. And the other interesting thing about Burrows

689
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: is that he's really he's very strong, and he's very canny,

690
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: and a lot of the testimony against him will be

691
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: testimony to about his somehow magical strength. How did he

692
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 1: lift that barrel? How did he fire that very long musket?

693
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: How is it possible that he heard that conversation from

694
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: that distance? How did he get to be two places

695
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: at once? So, in other words, the kind of things

696
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: that you might have admired in someone who was with

697
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: whom you were on good terms, um, which are suddenly

698
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: suspect when you've fallen out with that person. There's a

699
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 1: point in which Burrows and Martha Carrier are referred to

700
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 1: as the King and Queen of Hell. What was the

701
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: significance of that label for them? That's an expression of

702
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 1: Cotton Mathers. I think he kind of makes that up,

703
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:46,800
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I don't think there's a

704
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 1: king and Queen of Hell. Um, I don't know. I

705
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: think that was just, you know, Mother trying to make

706
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: the whole thing a little bit more dramatic. It's not

707
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 1: in the typical cosmology. I haven't foreseen that anywhere else,

708
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: and no one else really pick upon it. I think

709
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 1: it's just mad. They're trying to make a good story.

710
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: He's a really good writer. He really goes to um

711
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: great lengths to paint Martha Carrier in the most wretched terms.

712
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: And you know hen mother would have been at the trials,

713
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:17,399
Speaker 1: and he bases his portraits there loosely on the testimony.

714
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 1: If you look at it, you see he's taken some

715
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,240
Speaker 1: liberties with the testimony. He's left out a great number

716
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: of things. He's left out things that were to people's credit. Um,

717
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: he's injected things that didn't that weren't actually in the testimony,

718
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: and my senses that would for whatever reason, Martha Carrier

719
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: rubbed him the wrong way, and that's why she gets

720
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: promoted to Queen of Hell. Burrows is able to recite

721
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: the full Lord's Prayer. And this was significant, right, very significant.

722
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: I was understood that which could not recite the Lord's

723
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: prayer Um Burrows on the gallows is apparently a tremendously

724
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: moving and and troubling site, because he is, in fact

725
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: a man of great presence, and he clearly knows how

726
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:58,959
Speaker 1: to speak, and he delivered he's delivered sermons that many

727
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:01,120
Speaker 1: of these people have heard. And here he is, in

728
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: that same it sounds deep voice, um reciting the Lord's prayer.

729
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,719
Speaker 1: So here he is um doing something that which was understood,

730
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 1: which would be proof in fact that you were not

731
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: a witch. And the crowd apparently at that moment, has

732
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 1: a moment of doubt and begins to surge toward him

733
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: as if to um somehow bring the proceeding to an end,

734
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: bringing the hanging to an end, and they're pushed back

735
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,439
Speaker 1: by the authorities, which does indicate that it's the upper

736
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 1: echelon really that has that's holding the the animus for

737
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,879
Speaker 1: for Burroughs in some way. Um, that's one of those

738
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 1: moments where you begin to see hesitation building and then

739
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: it's tamped down again and where it will remain until

740
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: the fall, isn't it? At Burrow's execution that Mather Mather's

741
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: present cotton mother and and turns and speaks to the

742
00:37:43,920 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: crowd and kind of explains how this is a good thing. Right,

743
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: we think it's Cotton Mother. It's a little bit unclear.

744
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: Pretty sure it's Cotton Mother, And yes he explains that

745
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: there on again that there this is God's work. Um,

746
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:59,280
Speaker 1: con Mother's got a tremendously good argument, not at that moment,

747
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,759
Speaker 1: but just general really for why UM one should let

748
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: this run its course and I one should subscribe to it,

749
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: which is that, Um, it's further proof that New Englanders

750
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: are the chosen people. God would not have let um

751
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: the devil. The devil would show up where he's hated

752
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: the most. So this is proof that not only that

753
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: the Second Coming is at hand, but that UM, New

754
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: England is special and it has this special mission and

755
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 1: that is why it's repelling these invaders. Moving to after

756
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:27,719
Speaker 1: it's all over, UM, I think taking some of that

757
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: element with us to that idea that we have this

758
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 1: vision for the puritan New England culture that needs to

759
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: be preserved. We start to see dissent about the trial, UM,

760
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 1: things like Governor Phipps prohibiting the printing and the publication

761
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: of stories about it, and obviously Cotton now there is

762
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: writing about it. Afterwards, UM, what does it tell us

763
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,359
Speaker 1: about the trial aftermath that these authorities are they're sort

764
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 1: of suppressing what has happened. Well, it would seem to

765
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: indicate that there was there seems to be an admission

766
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: of guilt in that doesn't there. Um, it should be

767
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: said that yes, Phipps um stops anyone from publishing anything

768
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 1: about Whitchcraft, unless of course his last name or Mather,

769
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,399
Speaker 1: because two mother books are published after the prohibition, after

770
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 1: he shuts down the presses. Um, there's deafening silence all around,

771
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,360
Speaker 1: and it's almost it's almost a conspiracy. And when you

772
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: look at when you begin to look at the record, UM,

773
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: the diaries have been purged from those years. That meant

774
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:31,399
Speaker 1: the Congregations Book, as you know, um paris pulls out

775
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: those entries for those months, so that we don't have

776
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: those entries. The court records are missing. Even Samuel Willard,

777
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: who is one of the great Boston ministers, we have

778
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 1: his compendium of sermons, which is an enormous volume, but

779
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:45,600
Speaker 1: missing are the sermons from that summer. UM. So there's

780
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:48,080
Speaker 1: clearly a sense of shock to the system and a

781
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: sense that um of regret, and I think of tremendous

782
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: guilt at what has happened. There seems to be a

783
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 1: realization that no one really articulates until Samuel Sewell, one

784
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: of the judges, finally does. But um, there does seem

785
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:04,320
Speaker 1: to be this um, you know, could we cover this

786
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: up as quickly as possible? Could we make it go away?

787
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: Feeling afterwards? And that's an attitude of the leadership and

788
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: the people involved. Do you feel like the just the

789
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: the normal everyday person echoed to that feeling of yes,

790
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:18,799
Speaker 1: let's move on, let's not talk about it. There's a

791
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: curious um thing if you if you look at the

792
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: reparations requests, which are much later early eighteenth century. In

793
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: the early eighteenth century, it's it's understood that some of

794
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: the people who have lost relatives, um in this misfortunate

795
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: summer should be reimbursed for their you know, for their hardship,

796
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: and their requests for moneies often omit. They can't seem

797
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: to mention the word witchcraft. It's almost like the recent unpleasantness. UM.

798
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: So you even see there that there is a there's

799
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: almost an inability to grapple with the hideousness of the

800
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,879
Speaker 1: entire event. Um. There's also a funny phenomenon and I'm

801
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 1: not sure I can explain it, but very often you

802
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: see widows of people who hanged and widowers marrying after

803
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: after people who had been families of the accused marrying,

804
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 1: and that could be that they had suffered a very

805
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: similar trauma. But it may also be that people were

806
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,160
Speaker 1: not willing to go near them, that they had somehow

807
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: been marginalized in the events. Because you do know that

808
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: the belief in witchcraft continues long after six two. People

809
00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: still believe in witchcraft. They just don't believe that this

810
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: prosecution was legitimate. Um So that since that those people

811
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,839
Speaker 1: bonding together may also indicate that there was that at

812
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 1: every level people just didn't want to talk about this,

813
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: and that if you had somehow been involved in it,

814
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: you were part of a somewhat toxic community. Are you

815
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: there was some taboo attached. Richard trask Um allowed me

816
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: to go into the archives with him, his little room

817
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: full of amazing things, and showed me the I believe

818
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:52,280
Speaker 1: it's the church's notebook, not the minister's notebook. But where

819
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: where Years later, when Reverend Green is minister of the church,

820
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,960
Speaker 1: Um and Putnam, one of the four one of the

821
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: main accusers, wants to become a member. Must she must

822
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: to become a covenant member of the church, and in

823
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:08,359
Speaker 1: a church where so many people in that community had

824
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 1: lost people because of her accusations. And it's a sobering

825
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 1: thing to see his transcription of her confession, and then

826
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: you know her signature underneath that. And um, I can't

827
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 1: remember the date on that confession. I want to say,

828
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: at see quite late. Yeah, it's quite late. And if

829
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 1: you look at that confession and you look back at

830
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: some of the earlier there are there are two earlier confessions.

831
00:42:32,920 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: One is from some of the jurors who who who

832
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: are very much regret what has happened. And the other,

833
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: of course, as soll begin to think that Ann Putnam

834
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 1: may be copied from their homework, there's a certain similarity

835
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: of wording. But everyone essentially, I mean, she says she

836
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: was essentially led astray, right. It's a little bit the

837
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:50,600
Speaker 1: devil made me do it kind of excuse, But she

838
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: does indicate that she was. She doesn't address how she

839
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: came up with these spectral images. Um, she simply says

840
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: that she was misguided and deluded. Mm hm. When did

841
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: the last imprison which walk free? I think January I'm

842
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,959
Speaker 1: actually not sure is that true. Titiba comes out in January.

843
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: Tittibo is hard because nobody wants to claim to tob

844
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: You can't leave until you've paid your jail fees, and

845
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 1: no one is willing, it seems, to pay Titibus until later.

846
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,479
Speaker 1: I think she's in jail for a year altogether. Would

847
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 1: that have fallen to the Paris family to pay her

848
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 1: I don't know what the what the law would have

849
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: been for a slave. They certainly didn't want her back um,

850
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: and we have very little sense of where she could

851
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: have gone after that. By the way. I mean, it's

852
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: interesting because she's so completely at the heart of this

853
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: um and therefore would have been very much spoiled. Goods UM.

854
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: But I think most of the wives, most of the

855
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: people who are UM, most of the husbands will actually

856
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:51,680
Speaker 1: petition to get their wives back late in the fall,

857
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: it's harvest season. It's really important that the wives be

858
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: there to help, you know, can the preserves and get

859
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 1: the house in order. And I think most of most

860
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: of those women are released knock Obra November. There's this

861
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,440
Speaker 1: there's this perception that I have of Paris where he

862
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:07,560
Speaker 1: you know, he we all know, he comes into town,

863
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: he's he spends almost a year negotiating his contract. I

864
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: think when he's he's really picky about all of this,

865
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,360
Speaker 1: especially the firewood, and you know, he wants it delivered

866
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: to him instead of him going to pick it up,

867
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 1: and elements like that. To have the witchcraft begin with

868
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: symptoms in his own house and then one of the

869
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: chief accusers be a slave from his house, there must

870
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 1: have been a sense of um, shame and needing to

871
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: make up for to atone for that through through the

872
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 1: months that the trial took place. I would add to

873
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: that by the way that if you take that one

874
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: step further, the girls in the house or the kids

875
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: in the house, would have been under tremendous strain to

876
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: see their father being so badly treated by the community,

877
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 1: and so much it odds with the community would have

878
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 1: put such I mean, it would have been so difficult

879
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: and so embarrassing in so many ways. And there would

880
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:56,799
Speaker 1: have been when you begin to see clearly they're trying

881
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: to say something, when they begin to convolve from twitch

882
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 1: and and complain of of fights and pinches, and you wonder,

883
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:04,760
Speaker 1: you know, the stomping of the foots of the parishion

884
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:06,720
Speaker 1: feet of the parishoners as they came by to complain

885
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: to their minister or other. These continued very acrid negotiations

886
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,879
Speaker 1: that would have taken a toll on the family. Um. Yes,

887
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: Paris goes through a long period where he can't apologize

888
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: for what's happened, and the entire New England ministry essentially

889
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,319
Speaker 1: bears down on him after to essentially say you need

890
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: to apologize, and he delivers those kinds of apologies which

891
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: are basically I'm sorry if I did something that you

892
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 1: think is subjectionable. Um. And they will it will take

893
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: years for them to get him essentially to leave the

894
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: to leave the parish and to issue some kind of

895
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: statement that in some way, um, is reconciliatory. Did those

896
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: come at the same time, leaving and apologizing? Um, it's

897
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: one is one is slow after the other. He's a

898
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: very difficult man, um and it. I don't think it's

899
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: any coincidence that that that these kinds of things break

900
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 1: out in the household. A couple of questions to wrap

901
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:55,799
Speaker 1: things up, you know, we might tend to look back

902
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: at Salem and sort of sneer at them for hunting witches, right, that,

903
00:45:59,160 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 1: you know, believing in the like black cats and which

904
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: is on broomsticks. But are we really any different today

905
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,239
Speaker 1: in other ways? You know, I feel like it takes

906
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 1: a different form. I feel like at the base of

907
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 1: this there are a couple of things which is just

908
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 1: constants in human behavior. I mean, first of all, there's

909
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: this deep seated sense of causality of you know, what,

910
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: what caused that? Why did the roof fly off the

911
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: meeting house? Why did the ox fall sick? Whatever? You know,

912
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 1: why did my computer just freeze? Um? There's got to

913
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: be some reason for this, and very often the reason

914
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: for that involves your neighbor or somebody you know, or

915
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: the person who who was just overly nice to you.

916
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 1: And a lot of these are people who actually paid

917
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: calls on their neighbors and then for some reason the

918
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 1: good wheel gets converted, gets converted to poor with ill will. UM.

919
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 1: So there's that constant sense for um, a victim for

920
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: you know, someone who can lay the blame upon um.

921
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: And I think there's there's an overreaching need to believe

922
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:56,759
Speaker 1: that there's another world out there. I mean, really, there's

923
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: this sense of well, that had to be I did

924
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: everything the same way I did last time, So why

925
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:02,479
Speaker 1: did the computer do this this time? You know, why

926
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:05,759
Speaker 1: did the pothole suddenly appear in the road. Um. So

927
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: there's that searching for some explanation which is not at hand.

928
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: And sometimes religion provides that explanation and sometimes it doesn't.

929
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 1: And obviously in this case, one went directly to religion

930
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 1: for the explanation because it witchcraft more than anything, or

931
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: the super matchment more than anything, will explain everything. I mean,

932
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: you can explain any number of mishaps, you know, lingering, doubts, glinting,

933
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 1: you know, accusations, anything with with the witchcraft accusation, it

934
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: isn't enough to make sense, but you can explain it

935
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: with now. And that's the beauty. That was the beauty

936
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 1: of spectral evidence. It was my word versus yours. And

937
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: I've seen it and you haven't. Um, And yes, it

938
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't have to make sense. So you've written what

939
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: I think is a beautiful retelling of of the story

940
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 1: of Salem. It's one that I highly recommend people read. Um,

941
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 1: you soaked it all in, you spent years on this.

942
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 1: It's almost unfair to ask you this. But if there's

943
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 1: one thing that you feel like you want people to

944
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: know about Salem? What is it? You know? I think

945
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:06,880
Speaker 1: it makes time with what we're just talking about. Somehow,

946
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 1: that sense of our our ability to suspend reason and

947
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: subscribe to a delusion. I just feel as if we

948
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:17,760
Speaker 1: are all of us at all times prone, if not tempted,

949
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: towards that behavior. And it's really important to kind of,

950
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,719
Speaker 1: you know, stop yourself for just a second. There's so

951
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:28,440
Speaker 1: much retailing here of vandwagon jumping here and retailing of

952
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: someone else's narrative um without any original thought. And that

953
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: is how the that is how this goes off the

954
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 1: rail so quickly. Really is that no one is willing

955
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: to raise his hand and say, but wait, have you considered?

956
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:43,320
Speaker 1: Or but wait that doesn't make sense. And when finally

957
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,800
Speaker 1: the first person does do that, it's under it's very dangerous.

958
00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:49,399
Speaker 1: It's Thomas Brattle, and it's extremely dangerous. He can't sign

959
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: his name even too that document. But it's an act

960
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:55,400
Speaker 1: of utter courage. And I guess that would be my

961
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: my takeaway would be how important it is to be

962
00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:00,120
Speaker 1: that person who says, um, you know what, may we

963
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 1: should look at this through a different optic because the

964
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 1: reasoning here just really doesn't hold up. This episode of

965
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: Unobscured was executive produced by Me, Matt Frederick, and Alex Williams,

966
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: with music by Chad Lawson and audio engineering by Alex Williams.

967
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: The Unobscured website has everything you need to get the

968
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: most out of the podcast. There's a resource library of maps, charts,

969
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: and links to Salem document archives online, as well as

970
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: a suggested reading list and a page with all of

971
00:49:55,520 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: our historian biographies. And as always, thanks for supporting this show.

972
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 1: If you love it, head over to Apple podcasts dot

973
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 1: com slash Unobscured and leave a written review and a

974
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 1: star rating. It makes a huge difference for the show's growth,

975
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 1: and as always, thanks for listening. H