WEBVTT - S1 – 10: Pen and Paper 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:13.600 When Governor William Phipps arrived in Boston Harbor on September, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.319 he discovered a fire. Not a real fire, mind you, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.960 but a metaphorical one that threatened to burn his colony 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.600 to the ground. Nonetheless, yes he knew that there had 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.880 been sparks, and yes he knew that there was plenty 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:31.920 of kindling, but somehow I doubt he expected it to 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.040 burn as hot and deadly as it had. He had 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.080 left Massachusetts in early August for a trip up the 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.200 coast to visit the main frontier. He was gone until 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.120 September two, when he returned to take a few meetings 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.960 in Boston before heading up again on September for another 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:53.159 eleven days. Then, I know what you're thinking. With Salem 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.960 and the surrounding area consumed with accusations of witchcraft, accusations 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.360 that were maturing into convictions and executions, what in the 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:10.240 world could have been more important land, specifically his land. Remember, 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.520 before being knighted by the King of England for his 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.440 treasure hunting expedition, and before moving to Boston to rub 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.280 shoulders with the wealthy merchants, Phipps had been a shipbuilder 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.720 from Maine. So while every single person in the colony 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:25.399 had a bit of skin in the game when it 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:27.880 came to the conflict with the Native Americans and their 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.360 French allies to the north. All of those battles were 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.679 personal for Phipps. During part of his trip, he was 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.839 up in Pemmaquad, near modern day Bristol, Maine, to oversee 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:42.520 a huge shipment of masts to be sent back to 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.840 England for the Royal Navy's shipwrights, but he used his 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.640 time there to set his militia forces loose on the 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.680 local Native Americans in retaliation for their recent raids on 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:57.840 colonial lands. He also oversaw the construction of Fort William Henry, 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.320 a military base with stone walls measuring twenty nine feet 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.800 high and six ft thick, with twenty eight gun ports 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.800 facing the Atlantic Ocean. It was something that could have 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.160 easily been built without his supervision, but it just happened 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.480 to be located near his old home village, where friends 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:20.120 and relatives still struggled to keep a foothold in hostile territory. Phipps, 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.320 always one to chase after self interest, was using his 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.920 position as leader of the colony to secure his own 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.120 property and increase his own fortunes. Back in Boston, though, 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.760 he discovered a world that had gotten out of hand, 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.959 endless examinations, an ongoing Oyer and Terminer trial, and more 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.080 than a dozen executions. And as that storm continued to 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:49.639 swirl and captured debris, a pattern was forming. By connecting 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.919 the dots, most people could predict who would be accused 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.240 of witchcraft and who wouldn't. If you had a relative 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.640 accused of being a witch, either a contemporary or in 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.720 the past, you were a good candidate for accusations. If 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.840 you had been in contact with the French and Native Americans, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.840 you were even more of a target. And if you 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.200 defended someone who was already accused, you were likely to 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.560 draw the spotlight on yourself. So when Phipps returned home, 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.240 it was to a personal emergency. Word had begun to 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.399 spread about a woman who had ties to a former accused, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.919 which who kept a Native American slave in her house, 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.680 and who helped at least one already jailed, which escaped 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.440 to freedom. Under most circumstances, that would have meant that 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.120 a warrant would be quickly drawn up and the woman 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.240 would be arrested. But that's where it got tricky, because 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.480 this new suspect hit a bit too close to home, 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:52.080 literally and figuratively for phipps own good. This suspect, you see, 0:03:53.440 --> 0:04:26.760 was his own wife. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.720 Family troubles weren't the only challenges that Phipps was facing. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:38.279 In fact, one of the main reasons he might have 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.040 been spending so much time away from Boston in the 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.880 early days of his governorship is because the work was 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:49.279 just too difficult, and that wasn't entirely his fault. Remember, 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.400 the Massachusetts Bay Colony had their original charter taken away 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.680 from them by the new English king. In the decades 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.560 that they had relied on that charter, a whole catalog 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.599 of home grown laws had sprung up around it that 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.040 were mostly unique to the colony. But when the Crown 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.719 issued a new charter, it came with specific instructions to 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.080 set up a brand new framework that aligned with English law. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.960 I imagine that was fine for a lot of topics, 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.800 but Phipps had a particular rock in his shoe from 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.720 the start the witchcraft trials in Salem because they were 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:28.440 touching on something very sensitive and at first blush incredibly boring. 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:34.080 Forfeiture of property. So buckle up, We're about to get 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:39.479 legal for a moment. Oh boy. Under English law, if 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.080 you were convicted of a felony, say witchcraft, for example, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.480 the consequences had roots in the old feudal system of 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.400 land ownership. Your land and other personal property would be 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.159 taken away and given to the Crown, who could then 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.680 keep it for themselves or redistribute it to others. In 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.680 Massachusetts in the years leading up to the beginning of 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.800 the witch Craft trials, though, that practice had gone away 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.680 until the new Charter. That is because if Phipps was 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.800 going to realign the colonies laws with the Crowns laws, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.960 that meant bringing back forfeiture. As you can imagine, some 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.280 people were opposed to this, namely the people who stood 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.560 to have their property taken away, and those who supported it, well, 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.840 they were the ones who were about to benefit from it. 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:29.279 Let me give you a couple of examples. Sheriff George 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.000 Corwin was the man presiding over the executions, transporting the 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.600 convicted witches to the gallows and carrying out their sentences. 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.360 But he was more than a hangman. He was an 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.080 officer of the crown with a full authority of the 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:46.920 government behind him, and apparently he was a bit greedy. 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.080 The day after Giles Corey was pressed to death, it 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.919 was George Corwin who went to the Corey household and 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.680 seized his property. Now, some people look at the seizure 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:58.840 as a way to earn back the money it costs 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.880 to house and feed Giles and Martha in jail for 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.480 all those months. It certainly makes sense, but George Corwin 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.960 did other things that cast doubt on that theory. For example, 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.600 he and his deputies wrote out to the farms of 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.520 John and Elizabeth Procter, the Wardwells, and the Jacob's family. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.320 At each stop he confiscated their goods and property and 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.440 carted it off. He even did this to the sizeable 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.680 estate of Mary and Philip English, one of the richest 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:32.440 couples in the colony, at the Proctor's tavern. Corwin was ruthless. 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.840 They hadn't even been connected yet before he arrived to 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.200 take everything away. He took their cattle, selling some at 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.440 a discount to make a quick sale while butchering the rest. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.720 He dumped out their beer and soup supplies and carted 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:49.080 off with the pots and barrels. He took everything. It 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.320 didn't matter that John and Elizabeth's young children still lived there. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.600 As Robert Caliph wrote, they were left to the mercy 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.200 of the wilderness. There's also a vidence that Sheriff Corwin 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.320 took money in exchange for leaving property alone. If you recall, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.960 Bridget Bishop was the first person to be formerly executed, 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.520 and her stepson Edward, along with his wife Sarah, were 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.800 also in jail. When Corwin wrote out to their tavern 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.280 in Salem Town and began to load up his cart 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:22.200 with everything he could find. Edward's son Samuel, showed up 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.800 and offered to pay the sheriff ten pounds to leave 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.000 it all behind. It was the equivalent of thousands of 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.160 dollars in modern American currency, and Sheriff Corwin should probably 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:36.200 had handed it over to the crown and walked away. Instead, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.280 he wrote Samuel a receipt that simply read a valuable 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.640 sum of money. If that wasn't the perfect set up 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:48.480 for embezzlement, I'm not sure what is. The seizure of 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:51.559 property didn't happen all the time, though, then that's because 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.240 of how property laws worked In English law men could 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.600 own property, as could single women. But once a woman 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.000 married a man, all of her assets became his property, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.880 not hers. Many of the women who were accused and 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.440 convicted never experienced the loss of their property because it 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.280 didn't legally belong to them, but there were a number 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.280 of them that did. Here's Jane Kaminsky, professor of history 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:20.520 at Harvard University. Another scholar, Carol Carlson out of University 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:25.640 of Michigan, found that a significant number of suspects in 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:30.319 New England witchcraft cases were women who had unusually direct 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.200 lines to property holding, either because they didn't have living husbands, 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.880 or they didn't have sons, or they didn't have brothers. 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:44.000 Some unusually direct relationship to property and land. When we 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.520 do see it, it's because the husband was also convicted, 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.040 or the woman was a widow who took possession of 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.600 her husband's assets after he passed away. And Sheriff Corwin 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.400 knew these rules all too well. In fact, after George 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.800 Jacobs had been arrested, Corwin paid his wife a visit 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.640 and took her wedding ring, which by English law belonged 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:08.480 to George and not her. This is a lot of 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.160 legal stuff, I know, but it was an attack on 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.400 the foundation of society inside the colony. There these people 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.520 were second or third generation settlers whose ancestors had brought 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.400 everything with them and then handed it down to support 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.320 the next generation in the new world. That's why the 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:29.200 colony did away with the forfeiture laws in the first place. Now, though, 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.880 that was all changing, and this was the mess that 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.400 Phipps discovered when he returned from Maine. People were having 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.479 their land and property ripped out of their hands seemingly 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.880 left and right, and the community was beginning to rumble 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:48.440 with discontent, and so word was spreading about it. So 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.760 Phipps did something to stop it all. No, not the 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.120 seizure of property, but the spreading of the news. He 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.400 declared an embargo on the public writing about the trials 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:02.400 in their entirety, for bidding anyone from publishing news or 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:07.280 information about what was happening. Phipps, the rough spoken gold 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.440 digger who preferred victory lapse to actually doing work, declared 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:16.040 the press to be illegitimate and shut it down. But 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:24.720 as everyone knows, you can't stop the signal. Local news 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.640 is a lot like water. You can seal your house, 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.440 but it's still going to find a way inside. Eventually, 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.320 Phips might have placed a ban on writing about the 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.600 events in Salem, but that didn't mean it was going 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.000 to work. And ironically, one of the biggest works on 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.240 the witchcraft trials was being written at that very moment 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:48.400 by his good friend Cotton Mother. Months earlier, in June, 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.400 a bunch of the local clergy had gathered together to 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.400 write a document that was meant to urge Stowton, Hawthorne 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.520 and the other magistrates to exercise caution in the coming trials. 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.760 They used Christie in scripture to build their case and 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.840 then gave the actual writing over to cotton Mother because 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.120 he was the popular favorite. When it was completed, they 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:13.960 titled the work The Return of Several Ministers. Stoughton misread it, though, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.880 Where the collection of ministers meant to offer the theology 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.680 behind their warnings, Stoughton saw theology that backed up his 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.760 own agenda, and of course it didn't help the Cotton 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.520 Mather was a bit of a people pleaser, so it 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.079 was easy to misinterpret his soft, flowery language. The end 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.959 result was that rather than feel scolded by the ministers, 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.880 the judges all felt as if Mather was on their side, 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.600 so as the Oyer and termin or trial and all 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.120 of the fallout around it began to turn into a 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.719 sort of pr nightmare. The judges decided to work with 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:52.280 Mather on writing a book in their defense. On September 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.480 twenty two, just one day after the most recent group 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.800 of executions, Cotton Mather was invited over to the home 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.520 of Judge Samuel's Will to discuss the project. Also in 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.800 attendance were Samuel's brother Stephen, who worked as the clerk 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.520 of the court for the trial, as well as William Stowton, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:13.000 John Hawthorne, and senior Salem town minister John Higginson, whose 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:17.440 son was now one of the judges. Their purpose to 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:22.120 defend themselves from accusations of mishandling the trials. They would 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.880 provide Mather with all the court documents he would need 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.480 to mount their defense, covering the challenges faced by the court, 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.840 as well as the multitude of suspects and descriptions of 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.280 the supernatural evidence that they had to sift through. Here's 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:40.079 historian Maryland k Roach. He at this point still assumes 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.040 that they had been proceeding correctly, and maybe he thinks 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.240 he needs to make more excuses for how things had gone. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.720 So it kind of supports the view that they had 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:55.800 proceeded as best they could. It did nothing for his 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.000 reputation thereafter, and it kind of ties him with that, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.120 even though he did say at the beginning, you shouldn't 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.000 really use spectral evidence, and he had a lot of 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.160 all the good things that he did, But that wasn't 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.760 very unfortunate when all of the book is a good 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.200 source of what people were saying in views of the trials, 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.040 and there's some anecdotes and they aren't in the existing papers. 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.680 By early October, Cotton Mather was working furiously on the book. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.720 He began by grabbing the text from a series of 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.240 sermons he had given over the summer on the topic 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:32.320 of supernatural and spiritual matters. The most popular of them 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:35.160 had been a sermon he called a Discourse of the 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.800 Wonders of the Invisible World, so popular that he pulled 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:43.120 the new book's title right from it. As he finished 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.360 each chapter, he would rush it off to the printer 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.440 to be typeset, not wanting to waste any time. Interwoven 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:53.000 within the republished sermons were arguments in support of the 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.520 judges and their trial. He even used quotes from actual 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.000 court records, words spoken by the judges and the accused 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.600 is alike to support his arguments. Of course, he also 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.640 skipped all the quotes that countered his points, but who 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.840 among the common folk would know that right? It was 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:16.400 looking back an unapologetic work of propaganda. His main argument 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.760 was essentially this, there was a military government within the 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.760 forces of the Devil. He even compared their ranks to 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.960 the French cavalry, and these military like forces desired to 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.600 overrun the colony and the Church. Not one to shy 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.520 away from dramatic language, Mather declared that the Devil in 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:40.040 Great Wrath has made a prodigious descent on our poor 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.880 New England. His biggest piece of evidence that this conflict 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.960 was taking place was the spectral evidence. You know, the 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.360 stories of an accused which visiting one of the afflicted 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.280 in their homes at night, hovering above their beds and 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.800 tormenting them. Visions of Martha Corey demanding that someone signed 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:03.160 the Devil's book, or tales of the spectral version of 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:08.560 a witch physically attacking an innocent victim. Mather's argument was simple, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.320 how can we even note to go looking for other 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.560 pieces of evidence if we dismissed the spectral tales. These 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.520 supernatural stories, according to Mather, help them to notice the 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.880 people who deserve more investigation. In other words, the ends 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.840 entirely justified the means, so please, let's not attack the means, 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:34.880 however unusual and unfair they might appear. What's interesting to note, though, 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.400 is that for as much as Cotton Mather had essentially 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.000 become the pr director for the witch trials in Salem, 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.600 he was out of step with the majority of clergy 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.720 in Massachusetts. Sure, he was a well respected religious leader 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.120 working hard to make sure the Puritan mission was represented 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:54.000 in the new government, but on this matter he was 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.600 in the minority. So it shouldn't come as a surprise 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.320 that he was opposed by other vocal ministers. While Cotton 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:05.240 Mather was discussing the correct way to navigate spectral evidence 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.000 within the court, other religious leaders were building a case 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.399 to oppose him, and they were led by someone that 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:22.240 Cotton thought he could trust, his father, Increase Mather. We 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.800 need to pause for a second and play catch up. 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.119 Over the last ten episodes, I've told you about a 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.440 lot of arrests and examinations, about the evidence presented and 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.880 the trials that judged them. Each of them are slightly 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.919 different from the last, and no two cases follow the 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.399 same path. So I want to try and illustrate something 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.359 for you. To convict a person on the charge of 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.879 witchcraft in Salem, in just like our court system today, 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.480 you had to prove that the person was guilty. Obviously, 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.280 someone had to begin the process by accusing someone else 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.880 and calling them a witch. If the accusation was serious enough, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:06.040 they would be arrested and brought in for examination. And 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.080 that's where things got tricky. We can look back after 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:15.400 three twenty six years and understand why the magistrates were 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.760 being asked to believe supernatural stories and take them as proof. 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:24.119 So they administered tests, some of which we've covered already. 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.119 They might have the person's body searched for, which is 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:31.480 marks those unnatural teats used to suckle the devil's minions. 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.520 They might listen to the stories of the afflicted, who 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.479 would describe being attacked by the person's spectral form. They 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.800 would also rely on something called the touch test, where 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.560 the accused, which would be brought into the same room 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.280 as one of the afflicted girls during one of her 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.080 fits and instructed to touch her. If the touch of 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.920 the accused stopped the seizure, then they were truly a witch. 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.159 But I think you can see the problem with something 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.320 like that. If the afflicted person had simply made up 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.280 the stories to hurt another person, they can just as 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:07.880 easily fake the seizure and then stop when the accused 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.840 person touches them, And since it's all happening in a courtroom, 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:17.000 the judges would accept it as perfectly legitimate evidence. After that, 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.919 the trial would go one of two ways. Either the 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:23.000 accused which would deny all of the charges and put 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.320 up a legal fight, or they would cave in, admit 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.800 to being a witch and then name a bunch of 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.280 other people in an effort to save themselves. Those new 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.680 accused people would be arrested and the process would start 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.760 all over again. So as Cotton Mather was publishing his 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.800 book of justification for that broken system, his father was 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.879 working on something of his own. Increase. Mather was the 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.520 man who traveled to England with Sir William Phipps to 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.320 bring back the new Charter. He had the ear of 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:56.160 the governor, decades of experience, and a lot more wisdom 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.560 and patience than his son Cotton, and he used all 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.520 of that to craft his own book. It was called 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:09.680 Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits, personating men, witchcrafts, infallible 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.000 proofs of guilt in such as are accused with that crime. 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.040 That's a mouthful, I know, which is why most historians 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:21.000 today just call it Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits. 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.600 And the book directly attacked the Court's view of spectral 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:30.040 evidence and therefore his son's support of it. Increase Mather 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:34.080 wrote about how the touch test was flawed. The afflicted person, 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.240 the one having the seizure or the fit, should be blindfolded, 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.119 so that the anonymous touch alone would be the test. 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.639 He cited an event in and Over on September seven 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.320 where a group touched test was carried out, although in 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.919 that one they blindfolded the accused, not the afflicted. It was, 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:55.880 according to him, a flawed measure of guilt. Then there 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.000 was the basic notion that the Court was literally accusing 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:03.119 people of supernaw natural crimes by using supernatural tests to 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.400 judge them. It was hypocritical and wrong and easily manipulated 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:11.320 by those in power. According to Increase Mather, these tests 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.520 were invented by the devil so that innocent persons might 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:21.320 be condemned and some notorious witches escape. His last attack 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.639 on the views of the court was regarding confession. If 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.200 an accused witch nodded her head and declared, yes, I 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.080 am in fact a witch, and then named a dozen 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.960 others to make herself valuable and ward off her execution, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.040 the court would go and arrest all of those new people. 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.879 Increase Mather, however, pointed out how ludicrous that notion was. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.879 If someone had given themselves up to the devil, the 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.800 legendary father of lies, then how can we possibly trust 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.400 a single word that came out of their mouth? If 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.479 they identify a dozen other witches, why in the world 0:21:56.560 --> 0:22:01.360 should anyone believe them? It was, according to him, him insanity. 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.440 On October three, a group of ministers gathered at Harvard 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.800 to read Increase Mather's new book out loud. Increase wasn't there, 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.679 but his son Cotton was, and I can't help but 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:18.080 imagine that it was just a little bit awkward for him. 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:21.120 Another of the ministers there was Samuel Willard, who we've 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.679 heard a lot about so far. Not only was he 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.320 the minister of the church where Captain John Alden and 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:30.159 Mary and Philip English attended, he had also increasingly become 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.080 more and more opposed to the direction and methods of 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.960 the trial. As a sign of support, Willard wrote an 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:41.280 introductory essay for increase Mather's book. All of the ministers 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:43.960 there at Harvard that day signed their names to the 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:47.840 essay to show their agreement. All of them, that is, 0:22:48.840 --> 0:23:01.600 except Cotton Mother. Increase Mather wasn't alone in his descent. 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:04.800 Despite the muzzle that Governor Phipps tried to put on 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:07.600 the press, more and more people began to speak out 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:11.560 about the trials. Yes, some people still believe the witchcraft 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.439 was a disease threatening to destroy the Puritan mission, but 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:18.119 there was a growing majority who felt that the real 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:23.360 disease was actually the trial. Some of the more outspoken 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:28.080 voices came from wealthy Boston businessmen. They circulated statements and 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:31.600 letters in an attempt to sway public opinion, and chief 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.760 among them was a young man named Thomas Brattle, a 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.480 member of Samuel Willard's Third Church of Boston and part 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:42.560 of a well established Boston family. And this guy was smart. 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:46.000 Four years prior to the Sale and witch trials, he 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.080 and Judge Samuel Sewell had traveled together on a one 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:52.439 year tour of England. They were marginal players in the 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:56.480 process to restore the old Massachusetts Colony charter, but Brattle 0:23:56.600 --> 0:23:59.480 also had a deep interest in the scientific community that 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:03.760 was growing back in London. Brattle had a passionate interest 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.680 in a lot of areas of science, including mathematics, architecture, 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:11.000 and astronomy. While he and Sewell were in London, he 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:14.640 dragged his friend to all sorts of enlightening events and locations. 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:18.679 They attended concerts together, visited the Royal Navy rope yards 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:21.560 to see the trade in action, and even went swimming 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:25.359 in the Thames. And from everything I've read, Brattle would 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:29.200 have been an avid Instagram user today. He absolutely loved 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:32.880 to make detailed architectural surveys of the buildings he visited, 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:37.359 spending hours measuring them and recording accurate drawings to share 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.439 with his friends back home. There's even a story of 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:44.640 Brattle visiting Versailles in France on another trip and pouring 0:24:44.800 --> 0:24:47.520 over the palace there with such attention that one of 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:52.600 the guards accused him of being a spy. Brattle and 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:55.760 Sewell were in London in six eighty nine when King 0:24:55.800 --> 0:24:58.760 William's War was declared by the Crown. They were there 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:02.520 when London received word of the coup that overthrew Massachusetts 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:05.800 governor Androws. They were there as the efforts to restore 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:09.720 their colony to its old Puritan charter were derailed. But 0:25:09.760 --> 0:25:12.520 it was also productive for Brattle. By the time they 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:15.919 sailed home in September of sixty nine, he had been 0:25:15.960 --> 0:25:20.399 awarded entrance to the Royal Society, the most prestigious scientific 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:25.880 community in England. Samuel Sewell wasn't just a quiet observer, though. 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:29.040 He took things in and allowed it to change his mind. 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:31.840 In the weeks leading up to their trip in sixteen 0:25:31.920 --> 0:25:35.119 eighty nine, Sewell recorded in his journal that he watched 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.880 an Irish washerwoman named Goody Glover be carded past him 0:25:38.880 --> 0:25:42.400 in Boston, followed by a crowd of marshals, constables, and 0:25:42.480 --> 0:25:44.919