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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

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Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck, Brian over there, there's Jerry over here,

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Speaker 1: uh lurking around like a bit of a ghoul because

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Speaker 1: it is the Halloween season after all. Uh, and this

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Speaker 1: is stuff you should that's right spooky which trials Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is. It's really nice to like have stuff like

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Speaker 1: this that you can be removed from by a few

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Speaker 1: hundred years, and you know, it just kind of evokes

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Speaker 1: that Halloween spirit or whatever. But Chuck, I have found,

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Speaker 1: just in recently researching this, if you put yourself into

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Speaker 1: the position that people who are like walking to the

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Speaker 1: gallows and like think about how nuts all this was,

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Speaker 1: it is exponentially scarier on a much more existential level.

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Speaker 1: It goes beyond like Halloween spooky too. This is a

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Speaker 1: genuinely frightening event in the history of America. No kidding,

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Speaker 1: I mean like it was messed up in every way,

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Speaker 1: shape or form. So I take it you never read

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Speaker 1: The Crucible. I did read the Crucible, but I read

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Speaker 1: it and didn't do it. No, it really didn't, because

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if it was me. Maybe

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Speaker 1: I wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared to accept it on

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Speaker 1: that level, who knows, But no, it was it was

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Speaker 1: like imagining myself in the shoes of the people who

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Speaker 1: were going to die. Um, that got me researching. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that's dark, no, uh no, no shade though on Arthur Miller,

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Speaker 1: he was great and his play was great, and it

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Speaker 1: was very timely for the time. Yeah. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's been so many kind of movie adaptations and TV

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Speaker 1: movie adaptations about this time, and I'm still waiting first

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Speaker 1: sort of the one great one that's not the Crucible. Well.

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Speaker 1: I think part of the reason why there hasn't been

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Speaker 1: that great one yet is because historians are still like

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Speaker 1: actively competing explaining just what exactly happened in Salem. It's

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Speaker 1: such an anomaly even among like Puritans, even among people

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Speaker 1: who believe there was such a thing as witchcraft and

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Speaker 1: even executed witches. This was a genuine anomaly, at least

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Speaker 1: as far as American history goes. And I think because

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Speaker 1: they don't understand it fully, it's difficult to really get

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Speaker 1: the point across as well. You know, I don't know, man,

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Speaker 1: I think you can make a great movie like look

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Speaker 1: at the Witch that that danced around it, so well,

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Speaker 1: like you just need a movie like that. But based

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Speaker 1: on this, well, why don't we just say the Witch

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Speaker 1: then as the is all we need? Well because it

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Speaker 1: wasn't about the Salem witch Trials, but I mean it

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Speaker 1: was so analogous to it and took place in at

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Speaker 1: the same time, you know, I mean, just pretend like

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Speaker 1: there's a trial scene that they cut it they cut out,

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Speaker 1: and there actually a lot of other people they drag.

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Speaker 1: They dragged the father into work basically and and excommunicate them.

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Speaker 1: So there is almost like a witch trial scene right there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true, the which is the Salem witch trial movie

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Speaker 1: We've always needed, That's right. So I'm glad we we

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Speaker 1: resolved that. You must feel very satisfied. Now, yeah, completely disagree,

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Speaker 1: but I'm just moving on. So, um, everybody knows about

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Speaker 1: the Salem witch Trials, right, but I think because you know,

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Speaker 1: we learned about it in American history, you hear about

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Speaker 1: it as Halloween stories all of that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: But like I said, I mean, we really genuinely don't

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Speaker 1: understand what happened. And that's despite the fact that it

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Speaker 1: is really well documented because a lot of the stuff

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Speaker 1: took place in the courts, and they wrote a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff down. But we only have like official primary

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Speaker 1: documents that were written by people who were aware that

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Speaker 1: these were public documents, rather than say a trove of

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Speaker 1: private journals and letters. The Puritans didn't do that that much,

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Speaker 1: and so we don't have like kind of the underneath

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Speaker 1: the official line explanation for what happened. Well, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: if if people are confused by what we mean there,

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Speaker 1: you know, there were other witch trials in other places

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Speaker 1: in the Young America, there were other witch trials in

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Speaker 1: centuries previous in other countries, and there were mild panics

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Speaker 1: and stuff. But Salem like collectively lost their mind for

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Speaker 1: a short period of time. And that's what people still

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Speaker 1: don't get there, like why why did that happen only

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Speaker 1: there to to this scope and this degree? Uh? And

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Speaker 1: you know, people have looked at various biological reasons and

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Speaker 1: things like that, but I don't know. I think it

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Speaker 1: was just sort of one of those weird things that

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Speaker 1: could only happen like at one place in one time. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And there was actually a guy who wrote a book

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Speaker 1: in two named John Demos, and he said, not only

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Speaker 1: can it happen like under these very specific circumstances, here

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Speaker 1: are the circumstances that could happen in And he his

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Speaker 1: book wasn't just about Salem. It mentioned Salem, but it

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Speaker 1: was about like witchcraft trials and panics and accusations in

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Speaker 1: New England in general. And he basically said that when

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Speaker 1: a town starts out really small and it's like a

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Speaker 1: colonial town, they're living like on the razor's edge of existence.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them don't really know each other. They're dying,

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Speaker 1: so there's a big population turnover as newcomers come in

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Speaker 1: and there's just not enough familiarity to say I think

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Speaker 1: you're a witch to accuse your neighbor or something like that.

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Speaker 1: But then after they settle in a little while and

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Speaker 1: maybe there's like some boredom and everybody gets to know

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Speaker 1: each other and you have grudges, but you're still living

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Speaker 1: in a really small area, that's when the witchcraft accusations

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Speaker 1: can really take place. And Salem seems to have kind

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Speaker 1: of followed that pattern to that these witch witchcraft accusations

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Speaker 1: like really took hold at a time where the colony

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Speaker 1: was under tons of stress. People knew each other, had

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Speaker 1: had deck aids, long rivalries and lane disputes, and they

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Speaker 1: lived still in a very small little village, and they

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Speaker 1: were basically crawling all over one another and saw one another,

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Speaker 1: and you could not get away from people you didn't like. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is especially true in Salem. That was Salem Village,

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Speaker 1: in Salem Town, And like you said, they were stacked

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Speaker 1: on each other and there were a lot of uh like, hey,

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Speaker 1: your cow can't graze over this imaginary line because that's

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Speaker 1: my land and you're not even allowed to build a

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Speaker 1: fence over there, like kind of common land disputes that

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Speaker 1: have happened throughout history. But in Salem they were just

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Speaker 1: they were. They were described as a very quarrelsome people.

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Speaker 1: They were. They fought and argued a lot, kind of

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Speaker 1: more so than it seems like even other Puritans and

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Speaker 1: other parts of the country. Yeah, and the Puritans in

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Speaker 1: general were deeply litigious. They took each other to court

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Speaker 1: at the drop of a hat, at the drop of

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Speaker 1: a hat with a belt buckle on it. Um. But

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Speaker 1: they they they had like the way that they supported

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Speaker 1: that um, that kind of litigiousness was to say most

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Speaker 1: of the courts would be like, you need to go

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Speaker 1: handle this privately, and then this kind of secondary mediation

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Speaker 1: kind of thing would come in and there being negotiations

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Speaker 1: and then the dispute would be resolved. But the first

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Speaker 1: thing that they would do is drag one another into court.

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Speaker 1: That was how they would get one another's attention. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And so this is sort of the backdrop of what's

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Speaker 1: going on in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and particularly in

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Speaker 1: Salem Village in Salem Town, which I think I think

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Speaker 1: Salem Village today is dan verse and then Salem Town

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Speaker 1: is Salem that's right, still around and still has spooky connotations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And dan Versus where the Um the State Asylum was located.

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Speaker 1: That was the setting for one of the greatest horror

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Speaker 1: films of all time, Session nine. Oh that's right, man,

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Speaker 1: that's a movie I don't even know if I want

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Speaker 1: to see again. It's so good. I saw it a

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Speaker 1: year or two ago and it's still just as good.

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Speaker 1: It's great. Um. All right, So the Puritans were in control.

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Speaker 1: I guess the back backdrop of this was they were

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Speaker 1: full on, you know, human holocausts in Europe in the

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Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with their witch crazes and things

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Speaker 1: got really out of hand over there. But by the

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Speaker 1: time folks got to be here, they were mainly just

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Speaker 1: arguing a lot. And there were you know, there was

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Speaker 1: a small witch panic in Connecticut. Uh, not small if

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Speaker 1: you were one of the people accused, but it didn't

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Speaker 1: quite get out of hand, um, certainly in that like

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Speaker 1: it did in Europe in centuries previous. And I saw

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Speaker 1: an explanation, Um, I want to give a shout out

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Speaker 1: to a couple of sites. But when I got a

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Speaker 1: lot of info from is called the historic present, and um,

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Speaker 1: they were pointing out that like for the most part, yes,

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Speaker 1: people generally agreed that there were such things as witches, um,

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Speaker 1: And yes you would accuse your neighbor of witchcraft, but

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Speaker 1: it was kind of like it was a way of

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Speaker 1: like getting your neighbor's attention, like a serious about this

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Speaker 1: and publicly accusing you being a witch. Let's talk about

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Speaker 1: your cow grazing on on my land, you know. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that was another thing that made Salem so anomalous.

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Speaker 1: Is it just kept going and going through these steps

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Speaker 1: of like the court in trial and then finally executions

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Speaker 1: and and it. It just got out of hand basically, right.

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Speaker 1: So the Puritans are in control in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

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Speaker 1: They've got an iron fist on on ruling. They don't

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Speaker 1: like basically anybody who is not a Puritan. It seems

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Speaker 1: like most of the Puritans didn't even like each other.

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Speaker 1: But they certainly didn't like Quakers, they didn't like Catholics,

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Speaker 1: and they did all they could to really establish themselves

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Speaker 1: as the ones in charge and did so well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it depends on who you're talking about. Though. There were

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Speaker 1: some Puritans who were deeply conservative religious leaders like Increased

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Speaker 1: mather Um, who wanted to just completely secure Puritan control.

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Speaker 1: But there was also like a real um read through

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Speaker 1: the Puritan leadership that was willing to like give like

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Speaker 1: voting rights and and um the ability to be elected

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Speaker 1: into office to non Puritans who lived in in town um.

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Speaker 1: And they had kind of a proto democracy in a

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Speaker 1: lot of ways. So it's like the Puritans in general, Yes,

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Speaker 1: we're deeply intolerant of Quakers and Catholics, and they actually

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Speaker 1: tortured Quakers um who were unrepentant UM, but they also

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Speaker 1: did have they weren't just like this the band of

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Speaker 1: like theocratic thugs that that they're often painted as. There's

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Speaker 1: just more nuance to it than that. But yes, there

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Speaker 1: were plenty who were like, no, we just need total

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Speaker 1: puritanical control over over this whole colony. Yeah, and you know,

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Speaker 1: as we'll see once the witch trials were conducted. You know,

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Speaker 1: I said that Salem collectively lost their mind sort of

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Speaker 1: true in a way, and that a lot of people

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Speaker 1: in power and the decision makers did. But there were

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Speaker 1: still people even while it was going on. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: like hundred percent of the town was behind this. There

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Speaker 1: are a lot of people and I guess they were

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Speaker 1: probably some of those reasonable people you know that you

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Speaker 1: were talking about that were like, you know what we're doing?

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Speaker 1: Is it right? I don't think they really spoke up

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Speaker 1: to vocally, but they were like, what is going on here?

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Speaker 1: This is getting out of handing kind of crazy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was such a dangerous situation where it

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Speaker 1: was one of those kind of fascist situations where people

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Speaker 1: who did dare to speak out against this and say

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Speaker 1: this is crazy, this is wrong, or even to like

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Speaker 1: testify on behalf of somebody who was accused, you were

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Speaker 1: putting your own life at risk. Like there's a possibility

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Speaker 1: you would be accused of witchcraft and then tried and

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Speaker 1: then executed. It was that kind of a situation, even

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Speaker 1: with people on the outside being knowing that this is wrong,

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Speaker 1: it was just such a inevitable machine that it was

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Speaker 1: like people just stayed out of its way for a

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Speaker 1: little while. All Right, I think that is a healthy preamble. Okay,

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Speaker 1: the foundation is laid. I think we should take a break, okay,

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Speaker 1: and come back talk about those mother boys right after this.

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Speaker 1: I concur stuff you should stuff you shouldn't, you should know. Okay, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: so you want to talk some mothers. That's the Beaver.

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Speaker 1: He's still around, I believe by the way, he still

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Speaker 1: looks like he's one of those guys that stayed the same. Huh. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it doesn't help that he dresses the same

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Speaker 1: still too, But you can recognize him even in a

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Speaker 1: tux I'm guessing. So you can't talk about out the

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Speaker 1: Salem witch trials without talking about the Mathers. I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about the elder mother whose name was Increase of these

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Speaker 1: Puritan names, and uh, the younger mother, Cotton Mather. He

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Speaker 1: was the son son of a mother, so Increased Mother.

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Speaker 1: He was, like you said, he was sort of the

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Speaker 1: staunch Puritan who was in a position of power. He

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Speaker 1: was working to establish a charter that would, you know,

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Speaker 1: basically give the Puritans all the power. He was also

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Speaker 1: a believer, and you know, because I mentioned that the

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Speaker 1: European witch trials like this is sort of the background

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Speaker 1: that allowed people like Increased Mother and Cotton Mother to

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Speaker 1: really legitimately believe that demons were real and Satan could

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Speaker 1: overtake and possess someone, and that there were real witches.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that was just generally the puritanical worldview, but

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Speaker 1: some people were much more preoccupied with it than others.

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Speaker 1: And the Mathers were both deeply preoccupied with this kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, and Increase other gets a lot of the

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Speaker 1: blame for this, and and rightfully so, but there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of lesser known people who actually were way more

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Speaker 1: villainous during this and really took advantage of this crazy situation.

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Speaker 1: And and really I just didn't didn't care about the

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Speaker 1: lives of innocent people. But he was. He was not good,

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Speaker 1: and that he helped fan the flames of this initially

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Speaker 1: big time. That's right, Um, so should we I mean

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll get a little bit more into the matters

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Speaker 1: as we go. Uh. Cotton was certainly one of the

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Speaker 1: villains of the trials, and they were both writing books

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Speaker 1: about supernatural things. So this was all sort of the

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Speaker 1: foundation that was laid when the first two people, uh

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Speaker 1: were accused in what January of Yeah, So to to start,

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Speaker 1: there were two girls ages nine eleven. There was Betty Paris,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Paris was her name, and Abigail Williams. And they

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Speaker 1: basically started barking and convulsing and just behaving really bizarrely

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Speaker 1: and strangely and would not stop. And so Samuel Paris,

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Speaker 1: who was the head of the Salem Village church it

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Speaker 1: was actually pretty divisive figure apparently, UM, he brought in

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Speaker 1: a doctor and the doctor proclaimed this to be bewitchment,

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Speaker 1: that these girls were bewitched. And that's ultimately what kicked

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Speaker 1: the whole thing off. And a lot of people have

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Speaker 1: tried to figure out like what initially started that because

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Speaker 1: just about everybody who has a theory about this um

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Speaker 1: immediately converts to mass hysteria. But you still have that

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Speaker 1: first that first case of Abigail Williams and or Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: Paris to to explain, and apparently it was like really

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Speaker 1: prolonged stuff. They were vomiting, they were doing stuff beyond

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Speaker 1: just like behaving weirdly. They were they seemed to be

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Speaker 1: physically afflicted. And that's another thing too that I think

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Speaker 1: your theories that say like it was just a hoax

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Speaker 1: that these girls perpetrated, that doesn't understand like just how

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Speaker 1: long these girls carried out this stuff, And I think

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Speaker 1: it kind of ignores the fact that there are also

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Speaker 1: like the Puritans weren't dumb people. They were deeply religious,

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Speaker 1: they believed in witches and Satan having you know, a

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Speaker 1: hand on things here on earth. But they also were

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Speaker 1: very smart, very practical, and they would have seen right

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Speaker 1: through a couple of girls just planning a hoax or

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Speaker 1: carrying out a hoax. So there has to be something

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Speaker 1: there at the beginning that no one has ever fully

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Speaker 1: explained that kicked this whole thing off. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's hard not to become a little obsessed with some

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Speaker 1: sort of biological route I know or got poisoning has

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Speaker 1: been mentioned. I saw encephalitis. Oh, I saw that one too.

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Speaker 1: That was interesting. Yeah, and just some other like possible

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Speaker 1: reasons of like maybe something physically was wrong with them,

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Speaker 1: while they also happened to be goofing around with folk

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Speaker 1: magic and stuff like that. Not not a good combination

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Speaker 1: to like get sick while you're being a kid and

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Speaker 1: playing around was essentially what they were doing. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you if you think about the fact

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Speaker 1: that the the adults were like, okay, this is this

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Speaker 1: is significant enough that we're going to start looking around

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Speaker 1: for the witches, and the girl started accusing people too, Um,

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Speaker 1: it does seem like there was something going on with

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Speaker 1: at least one of them. And then yes, it started

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Speaker 1: to spread, probably through mass hysteria to other girls in

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Speaker 1: the village. It kind of makes when I when I

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Speaker 1: read the sort of timeline account, I feel like if

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Speaker 1: that original doctor hadn't said the word, which it could

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Speaker 1: have gone in a completely different direction. Yeah, he should

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Speaker 1: have just been like, it's um anti N M D

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Speaker 1: A R and cephalitis and dummies an autoimmune disease that

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Speaker 1: will only begin to grasp in thees and everyone would

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Speaker 1: say you're a witch, right, he just see some crazy words, doc,

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Speaker 1: So uh, the doctor has has breathed the word, which um,

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Speaker 1: the girls are like, um, They're like, hey, what's going

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Speaker 1: on with you, and they said, uh, you know, it's Tituba.

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Speaker 1: It is my father's slave to Tuba, and it's her

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Speaker 1: fault and she's a witch. And so they, like you said,

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Speaker 1: they started accusing, and they started with her. They started

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Speaker 1: with her, and then they very quickly moved on to

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Speaker 1: Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. And by doing that, by

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Speaker 1: accusing those two women are actually uh with Titchuba as well,

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Speaker 1: all three of them. Is it. I've always heard Tichuba,

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Speaker 1: but I've heard I think I've heard Tituba before too,

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Speaker 1: So I don't know that sounds Tchuba sounds more right, Okay.

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Speaker 1: So so by accusing those three women, they were following

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Speaker 1: um Abigail and Elizabeth were following like a well established

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Speaker 1: tradition of focusing on older women on the margins of

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Speaker 1: society as witches. Right, Titchuba was easy to accuse me

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Speaker 1: because she was a foreigner. She was brought to um

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Speaker 1: the colony as a slave, and she worked as a

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Speaker 1: slave in the Paris's house. Um, so who knows what

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Speaker 1: she was into before you know, she came over to Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: I guess was the thinking of the Puritans. But then

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Speaker 1: also Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. They were like older

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Speaker 1: women who were poor, um, lived on the fringes of society,

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Speaker 1: and like that is who you accused of being a witch. Typically.

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Speaker 1: So at first, this which panic kind of followed the

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Speaker 1: standard which accusations that had been um, you know, spread

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Speaker 1: around New England before. But but what made it different

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Speaker 1: is that it just started to pick up steam more

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Speaker 1: and more because more and more girls and people around

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Speaker 1: them the colony or around the village I'm sorry, started

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Speaker 1: to suffer bewitchment and started accusing one another of of

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Speaker 1: bewitching them. Yeah, if you were a person, for sure,

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Speaker 1: a woman, but um, a man or a woman who

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Speaker 1: like you said, was about middle aged, and you know

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Speaker 1: you were over there kind of doing your own thing

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Speaker 1: a little bit and maybe just kept to yourself. Maybe

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Speaker 1: you didn't like hanging out in the village as much

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Speaker 1: as the rest of the villagers did. Uh, you marched

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Speaker 1: to the beat of your own drum. You had a

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Speaker 1: target on your back basically right. Yeah. And also apparently

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Speaker 1: one of the things that they were well known for,

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Speaker 1: these people who were accused of which is would be

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Speaker 1: like like they needed things from their neighbors, so they

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Speaker 1: would extract them by threatening to curse them, so they

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Speaker 1: would actually use like witchy threats. Um. They were probably

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Speaker 1: also into folk magic, so there was like, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: just completely baseless other than the fact that like which

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Speaker 1: is in that kind of puritanical conception don't exist. But

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just totally out of the blue like these

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Speaker 1: they they still like if you a modern person saw

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Speaker 1: the person that they were originally that they traditionally accused

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Speaker 1: of being, which is you'd be like, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: a real life which there's one right there, it would

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Speaker 1: fit the bill. Are you You know what I'm saying, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for sure. So you know, these accusations start flying around,

359
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:10,760
Speaker 1: they start mounting, the jails start filling up. The conditions

360
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Speaker 1: in the jail were not good. It got so crazy

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Speaker 1: early on. And this is sort of the first part,

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Speaker 1: This before the like trials and hangings and everything. This

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Speaker 1: is when you were just like jailed and shackled and

364
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Speaker 1: then charged for your shackles I guess like a rental fee. Uh.

365
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Speaker 1: But they arrested a four year old named Dorothy good

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Speaker 1: Um and she was eventually released. But a four year old, like,

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Speaker 1: it's crazy me as a father having gone through life

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Speaker 1: with a four year old that you could accuse a

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Speaker 1: four year old of being anything other than a four

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Speaker 1: year old, right exactly, But she wasn't. She was held

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Speaker 1: for months. I think she was arrested in March and

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Speaker 1: released in May, and like this wasn't like a pleasant December.

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Speaker 1: Just oh my goodness. Okay, so she was there for

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Speaker 1: almost a year, just under a year. For the intense

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Speaker 1: and purposes of exagger rating just how bad this was,

376
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Speaker 1: she was in there for basically a year, Okay, Yeah,

377
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Speaker 1: Sarah Ozgar died in jail. She died in jail. Yeah,

378
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Speaker 1: this is the thing. Like these jails were like dirt floors.

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Speaker 1: You were chained, like you're saying, like it was just

380
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 1: it was a place where like a life could just

381
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,280
Speaker 1: be lost way too easily. So to keep a four

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Speaker 1: year old in there for almost years just horrible. There

383
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 1: was a woman who gave birth in jail and they

384
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Speaker 1: just left her infant daughter in there with her, so

385
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Speaker 1: the infants didn't survive. She died in jail. Um just

386
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: from being born in jail. Somebody who was accused of

387
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:38,200
Speaker 1: being witches And this was before the trials had even started. Chuck,

388
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,360
Speaker 1: Like this was just the initial phase of the panic,

389
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 1: which was accusation, accusation, accusation, and then suddenly the jails

390
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 1: were overflowing with more than a hundred people, um who

391
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: were accused of being witches, and the court was totally

392
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 1: backed up. When increased, Mather and the new governor that

393
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Speaker 1: he was coming back with, William Phipps, Uh he'd gotten appointed,

394
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 1: Um showed back up in in Salem and we're like,

395
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 1: what is going on here? And they had a choice, Chuck.

396
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,920
Speaker 1: They could have been like, have you all lost your mind?

397
00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Stop this right now, let all

398
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:16,920
Speaker 1: these people out. They didn't go that route. They went

399
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,639
Speaker 1: the exact opposite route. They at that moment when they

400
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 1: decided which way to go, they chose incorrectly. Basically yeah. Um.

401
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,240
Speaker 1: And it was also a pretty bad time. It was

402
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: kind of an uh, what's the word conflagration? Man, you

403
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: nailed it, And it sounded so confident confident. Uh. It

404
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,679
Speaker 1: was a conflagration of a bunch of things happening politically

405
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: and legally. It was a very bad time because by

406
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,639
Speaker 1: the time the trials rolled around, they eventually got this

407
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 1: new charter, but previous to that, they were uh, the

408
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: charter of the colony was temporarily suspended, and a new

409
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: charter did arrive in May of uh in the hands

410
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: of the Elder Mather, but it was brand new and

411
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 1: the court didn't create laws. They didn't have time to

412
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: create any new laws. That is so they basically said,

413
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: all right, we need to we got all these people

414
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 1: in jail. We need to quickly establish a special court

415
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,639
Speaker 1: for this, and we'll call it the Court of Oyer

416
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 1: and Terminer to hear and determine, and we're going to

417
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: get this these people out of jail or kill them.

418
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: So they're no longer in jail, but they're getting out

419
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: one way or another. Right So there there ed helps

420
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:34,679
Speaker 1: us out with us. We should say we failed to

421
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: mention so far. But he he points out that Um

422
00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: William Phipps, the new governor, possibly went along with this

423
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: idea of creating a new court to get rid of

424
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 1: this backlog of witchcraft accusations, to get these people out

425
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,280
Speaker 1: of jail, to get this over and done with. And

426
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: that may have happened, actually, but he Um was very

427
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: much focused on dealing with the the constant threat that

428
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: the colonists lived under being attacked by Native Americans. King

429
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: Philip's war, King Philip being the guy that punks Tawny

430
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: phil was named after that I got way way wrong

431
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: in our Groundhog episode. Um that had just ended. There

432
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: was another war that included the French and the Native

433
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 1: Americans to the north, sweeping down all the way into

434
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: Massachusetts and staging rads. So they've lived under the constant

435
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: threat of death, which definitely didn't help their mindset during

436
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: the Witchcraft panic. But that's what Phipps was was worried about.

437
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: That's what he was working on. So he threw the

438
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: the um the job of seeing seeing this this court

439
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: through to his lieutenant governor, a guy named um what

440
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: was his name, William What william Ston Williams Stoughton I mentioned,

441
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: like some of the lesser known people who were actually villains,

442
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: this guy was a bad, bad man and he made

443
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 1: a decision that changed the course of everything. I think

444
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: Phipps's initial idea that this would have just moved the

445
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,880
Speaker 1: backlogs out and freed everybody from jail would have come

446
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,880
Speaker 1: true had it not been for Stoughton and Stowton's radical

447
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: decision to include what's called spectral evidence that changed everything,

448
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: and that that is what led to people being executed. Yeah,

449
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: so before we get into spectral evidence, I just want

450
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: to point out that William Stoughton was such a bad

451
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 1: guy they named a town after him, and they named

452
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: a college dorm at Harvard after him. I believe, well

453
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: Increase Mather was the Harvard president for a while too,

454
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,919
Speaker 1: so Stoton went to Harvard, but I think it's still

455
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: one of the dorms is still Stowton. And uh, I

456
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,120
Speaker 1: think Stoton mass is most well known now for having

457
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: an idea. Uh So yeah, spectral evidence. Let's talk about

458
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 1: this because this changed everything. Um, there were different kinds

459
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: of evidence that would be accepted in these courts. Uh.

460
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: One was the spectral, which we'll talk about. One was confession,

461
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: um two eyewitness testimonies. Uh. And then there were we

462
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: won't get really into all the tests, but there are

463
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: all kinds of different tests, including the you know, does

464
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: she float? Can she swim? Uh? From Monty Python, the

465
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: Holy Grail. I think they were still doing some of that.

466
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: That was the witch's teat, which was it's basically, if

467
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:23,719
Speaker 1: they found a mole on a woman, they would call

468
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: it a witch's teat, which was uh supposedly a third

469
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: nipple used to feed her animal familiar. That's what my

470
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: dad always told me my moles were when I was

471
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:37,239
Speaker 1: growing witches. He was dead serious too. So there were

472
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,880
Speaker 1: certain tests and all, but spectral evidence was the big

473
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: one because this was basically you could kind of make

474
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,440
Speaker 1: up anything, and and you could be in court and say,

475
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:50,120
Speaker 1: as an accuser and say, this person is being uh

476
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: has been uh possessed or or their possessor is in

477
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: the courtroom right now, your honor, the this ghost, this

478
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: specter is sitting on your lap right now. You just

479
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: can't see it, and it's and it would freak people out.

480
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: There was nothing you could really say to defend it

481
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: because it was made up to begin with, uh and

482
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: supposedly Cotton Mather said it should be used more sparingly,

483
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: like at the end of the day he was like,

484
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: it's it's enough to indict, but not to convict. Was

485
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: that cotton or increase that was cotton supposedly. And then

486
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: in the end I think they verified that nobody was

487
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 1: convicted solely on the basis of spectral evidence. Okay, well,

488
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: then my my hypothesis is kind of out the window.

489
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: That none of these people would have been executed without it.

490
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 1: Well it was you know, if if you need two

491
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: out of three things and that's one of them, then

492
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: you're right. You know. One of the other things that

493
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: one of the more practical problems that spectral evidence presented

494
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: for somebody accused of witchcraft was that it destroyed any

495
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: alibi you had, Like your your neighbor could be like, well, no,

496
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 1: couldn't have been bewitching this person. He was out working

497
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: with me in the fields all day. They could say no, no,

498
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: it was a spirit. He sent his spirit to bewitch

499
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,720
Speaker 1: this poor person who's accusing him, and then boop, there

500
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: goes your alibi. So there you like it was like

501
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: you said, you just can't defend yourself against that kind

502
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: of thing. Um. And that was like the level of

503
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: stuff that they were. That they were, that was how

504
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: they were accusing people. There was one guy I read about,

505
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: Philip English who who will come up again later. Um,

506
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: he was accused of witchcraft by somebody who said that, uh,

507
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: they got a nosebleed while they were discussing a lawsuit

508
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: they had against Philip English with somebody else, so that

509
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: it must be that Philip English had bewitched that Like

510
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: this was the kind of accusations that they were making

511
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: against one another, and they were holding up in court.

512
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,959
Speaker 1: That is something that you cannot look past. It's so

513
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: easy to look back three years and be like, yeah,

514
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 1: this whole collective group lost their mind. No, there were

515
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: plenty of people who did lose their mind, but the

516
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: people who were supposed to be in charge, the people

517
00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: who were in a position to put a stop to this,

518
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: actually allowed it, in some cases fan the flames of

519
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: it even further. That was the true breakdown at the

520
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: Salem Witchcraft trials. The grown ups did not step in

521
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 1: in in halt it before it got out of hand. Yeah.

522
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: Another thing that someone might do if you had a

523
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: pet that you really liked, not good, Um, they could

524
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: say that, well, no, no, no, they have an animal familiar. Uh.

525
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: It could be anything like take Black Philip from the

526
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: Witch I mean that's taken kind of straight from this

527
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: time period. But if you had a pet that you

528
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: enjoyed hanging out with, they could accuse you of having

529
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: a familiar. If they found, uh a folk magic or

530
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 1: folk tale book in your library, Um, that could be evidence.

531
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: And that was pretty common too. I mean, like I

532
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: didn't have you know, local hospitals to go to to

533
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: to heal themselves or anything that any like you said

534
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: with the nosebleed or whatever, anything bad happened to you,

535
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: if your crop failed or if one of your cows died,

536
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: you could say it was my neighbor and there which

537
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: and they put a hex on me. So they established, okay,

538
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: we can use spectral evidence, and we're going to use

539
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: spectral evidence. And this court of Oyer and Terminer, um, god,

540
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: it was established. I think they held their first trial

541
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: on June two, and they were profoundly efficient at at

542
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: convicting and killing people. Um Bridget Bishop was the first

543
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: person hanged, and she was hanged on June tenth, just

544
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: over a week after the first trials began. Um, and

545
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: that kicked off like this new phase where this this

546
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 1: idea to like clear the the jails of the accused

547
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: was actually now diverting them to the gallows. And for

548
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: being witches, we can't forget that either, like for being

549
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: which is even though which is in this conception don't exist. Yeah,

550
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: and I think it's at efficiency in the speed that

551
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: all this happened was a big part of it, because

552
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: it was the train was moving so fast that once people,

553
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 1: the more level headed people of the town realized what

554
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: was going on, like, wait a minute, we're actually hanging

555
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: people for this um, certain people started to come forward

556
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: and say no, no, no, I'm recanting my confession, or

557
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: let me stand up for someone's good character. But it

558
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: happened so quickly that you know, before you know it,

559
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: there's you know, a couple of dozen people have died. Yeah,

560
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:33,719
Speaker 1: and like people got wrapped up in it too, Like

561
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: there's the case of Giles Corey. I believe man, he

562
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: testified against his wife and then later he recanted it.

563
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: And after he recanted at the purgeon's apparently UM viewed

564
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: perjury so suspiciously that that was enough to get him

565
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,719
Speaker 1: accused of which craft and he ended up paying for

566
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: his life with which we'll talk about a little more later.

567
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: But like, he testified against his wife, and to this

568
00:32:57,480 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 1: day was historians are like, we have no idea why

569
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 1: jil Corey testified against his wife. He didn't seem to

570
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: have a grudge, they seemed to have a fine marriage whatever,

571
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: Like it just doesn't make sense. The only way that

572
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: you can explain that, at least from my perspective, is

573
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: that it was, like you said, just this thing that

574
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: people got whipped up in, and it just happened so

575
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: fast that it was just easy to lose yourself into

576
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: that degree. I mean, the whole thing happened over the

577
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: course of what four to six months. Yeah, I think

578
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: the first things were in January, but yeah, the first

579
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: trials were June two, and they ultimately I think stopped

580
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: the following like winter. So yeah, I mean it was

581
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: not a very long prolonged thing, but it was just

582
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: like this weird orgy of of mind loss and death.

583
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: You know. Oh man, it sounds like some kind of

584
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 1: album after Uh. The other weird thing about this was that, uh,

585
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: the social order was completely knocked out of whack. Um

586
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,479
Speaker 1: the Puritans, if there's one thing they didn't like, it

587
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: was hearing from children about anything. Kids were just they

588
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: were meant to work and to shut up basically and

589
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,720
Speaker 1: do what they were told and kind of like full stop.

590
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 1: And you had a situation here where children, young girls

591
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: were accusing these middle aged men and women of of

592
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: witchery and and it works like people listened to them

593
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: and people were hanged because these kids were speaking up

594
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: at a time when kids were barely allowed to even

595
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: you know, have any agency or speak yeah, which is

596
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: another thing that perplexes his storians because they're like, something happened,

597
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: like there was something that was that this which panic fulfilled.

598
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: Maybe it was to let off steam from being constantly

599
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: afraid of being murdered by a Native American attack. Maybe

600
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: it was um living too close proximity, too far away

601
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:58,799
Speaker 1: from where you called home, like who knows, but there

602
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 1: was something about it was worth turning the social order

603
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: on its head. And that was That was just one example.

604
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: There are other examples of how the social order just

605
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 1: totally broke down. And that wasn't how who some of

606
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:14,240
Speaker 1: the people who were accused and executed were, because it

607
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 1: wasn't just the marginal women who were your prototypical witches

608
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 1: a living you know, on the outskirts of society who

609
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: were accused. That was just at first, it started to

610
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: become extended to really surprising people like Rebecca Nurse was

611
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 1: maybe one of the most upstanding Puritan women that town,

612
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: the colony had to offer, and she was accused, tried,

613
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: and executed as a witch. And that I think really

614
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: kind of opened a lot of people's eyes in two ways.

615
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: One I was like, what is going on here? This

616
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: could not be the case. And then to other people

617
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 1: is like, if Rebecca Nurse could be a witch, than

618
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: anybody could be a witch. And I think that was

619
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: kind of the thread that the witch trial followed. But

620
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,440
Speaker 1: it also is a like a really good explainer about

621
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: how just completely the society broke down for these handful

622
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: of months that anybody was was at risk of being

623
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 1: murdered by their fellow townspeople for being a witch, no

624
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: matter what kind of background you had. I'm picturing a

625
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,320
Speaker 1: I'm picturing a Puritan, like the only Puritan that actually

626
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: went on vacation that summer. And they come back, you know,

627
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: they leave in early June, they come back in in

628
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: late September, and they're like, so, what's been going on everybody? Right,

629
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: And then they get the sight of what's going on,

630
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 1: they dropped their mickey mouse ears to the ground. Oh boy.

631
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's take another break and we'll come

632
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: back and talk about sort of the finality of this,

633
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: how it ended, and a little bit more about Giles

634
00:36:50,160 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: Corey's crazy, crazy story. Right after this stuff you should

635
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: stuff you shouldn't, you should know, all right, So in

636
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: the end, um I don't think that the final final number.

637
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: I've seen twenty two. I've seen UM nineteen people were hanged.

638
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: Giles Corey, who were going to talk about in a minute,

639
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: was pressed to death via you know, torture. UM. Five

640
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: people died in prison. I think the numbers sort of

641
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: depend on what you count is like like a fallout

642
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 1: death and not a direct death like the one lady

643
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: who couldn't repay like she was eis or. I think

644
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: she just couldn't pay her debt to get out of jail,

645
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: so she died in jail. That's such a sad story. Yeah,

646
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 1: Lydia Dustin. She is she outlived the um the witch

647
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: trials like they had ended a few months before, uh,

648
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: and she had actually been personally exonerated, and yet she

649
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: couldn't pay her um shackle fees, so they just kept

650
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: her in jail and she ended up dying there in

651
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: March of six even though she yeah, for sure, yeah,

652
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 1: because she otherwise would not have been killed or died

653
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 1: had it not been being placed in jail after being

654
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 1: accused of a witch for sure. But they did this

655
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 1: in mass hangings. It wasn't just like one at a time.

656
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: There was a hanging on July nineteen August nineteenth. In September,

657
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 1: after they died, they were stripped and put in a

658
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: big mass grave. Um. Supposedly, there are stories that families

659
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 1: would come and get them out of the mass grave

660
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: at night, buried them in unknown probably on parts of

661
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,879
Speaker 1: their land. And they tried for many years to find

662
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,439
Speaker 1: out exactly where these hangings took place, and they ended

663
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:03,280
Speaker 1: up at a place called Roctor's Ledge, And I don't

664
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a memorial there and people go there

665
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: and basically they treat that as though that is definitely

666
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: the place, But I don't think they have like hard

667
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: heart evidence other than just trying to like take eyewitness

668
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: accounts in place where they were right. Yeah, supposedly there

669
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 1: was a study in two thousand and sixteen that where

670
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: they took those eyewitness accounts, took into account what the

671
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:28,400
Speaker 1: people said they could or couldn't see in like the

672
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: background or whatever, and then plotted them and then figured

673
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 1: out that the most of these points were standing in

674
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: around the same place around um that ledge where they

675
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: think that yes, this happened, yeah, but they never found

676
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:44,759
Speaker 1: like and then underneath the ground they dug and they

677
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 1: found the gallows bowl. Right. No, they never found any

678
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: physical evidence. So whatever. So the story of Giles Corey,

679
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:55,839
Speaker 1: if you know The Crucible you know it. Well, if

680
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: you've seen the movie, you know it. Um. He is

681
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: the man that was pressed to death. Uh, he was crushed. Basically,

682
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 1: pressing is when they would lay you down, they would

683
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: put boards on top of you and then just start

684
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: adding weight over the course of time, more and more weight,

685
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: until you eventually die. UM. I had heard this story

686
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: before because supposedly Giles Corey said more weight because he

687
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: refused to He was standing mute, and he refused to

688
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: to say whether he was guilty or innocent. The one

689
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,120
Speaker 1: thing I didn't know is that Giles Corey was eighty

690
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 1: one years old. Yeah, he was an old guy. He

691
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: was like the old guy from that um Metallica video.

692
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: That's what I always imagined Giles Corey do. It looked like. Man,

693
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 1: what a story. Though. One thing standing mute would do

694
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,839
Speaker 1: would um allow your estate to be passed onto your

695
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: heirs rather than being convicted where that wouldn't happen. But

696
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: I saw that this wasn't the reasoning behind him standing mute,

697
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: because most of his stuff had already been taken and

698
00:40:57,480 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: that he even wrote down that he was standing mute

699
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: to protests the sham proceedings. Yeah. So yeah, and it

700
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,200
Speaker 1: sounds like just the way he's been um kind of

701
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: lionized by history, that that was his motivation for sure.

702
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: But you said something about how most of his stuff

703
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:16,800
Speaker 1: have been taken. There's another villain in all this. Beyond

704
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,359
Speaker 1: Stoughton and the Mathers, Um, there was a guy named

705
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: George Corwin, and he was the sheriff of Essex County,

706
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: which is where um, this which panics took place. Um.

707
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,120
Speaker 1: And he was basically taking advantage of the fact that

708
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: a lot of people were suddenly way more vulnerable than

709
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: they had been the year before, a few months before.

710
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: And so when he would arrest them and take them,

711
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: he would also take possession of their property officially, their stuff,

712
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: their land, all that, and he and his deputies would

713
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: divvy it up. So he had every incentive to arrest

714
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: as many people as possible and throw him in jail.

715
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 1: And he did that, and he took a lot of

716
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: people's land. Uh. And I guess he took Giles Corey's

717
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: land as well. And Giles Corey curse the town and

718
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,399
Speaker 1: the sheriff as he died, and supposedly, UM George core

719
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: Actually shouldn't say supposedly. George Corwin definitely did die less

720
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:10,760
Speaker 1: than three years later at age thirty of a heart attack.

721
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,800
Speaker 1: And there's a local legend that UM every Essex Essex

722
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: County sheriff from Corwin onward. Um either died or resigned

723
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,399
Speaker 1: while in office because of a heart condition. I didn't

724
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,760
Speaker 1: have time to go look through the records of Essex

725
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's but I thought that was a pretty interesting

726
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,879
Speaker 1: local legend. But this dude was in his twenties when

727
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: he was doing this. Yeah, he was in his in

728
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: his middle late twenties, and he was one of the

729
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: worst of the worst. And so there's one more story

730
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 1: about when he died. That guy Philip English that I

731
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 1: mentioned before, UM, who was accused because of the guy

732
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:48,800
Speaker 1: getting the nosebleeding. He was a very very wealthy merchant

733
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:54,360
Speaker 1: in Salem Town and Corwin took his stuff, like his land,

734
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: a lot of his ships. Um just took a lot

735
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:00,120
Speaker 1: of his stuff while Um English was on the run

736
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: evading capture. And when English came back after the Salem

737
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: which trials were over, and found what Corwin had done.

738
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: He Um, he tried to get his money back from Corny,

739
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: tried to get his money, his land and ships, all

740
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: that stuff, and Corwin wouldn't give it to him. Well,

741
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: Corwin dies of a heart attack, and um, Philip English

742
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: placed a lean basically on this guy's body and said,

743
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: you're not burying him until I get paid back. The

744
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 1: family was like, we're not listening to you. We're gonna

745
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: go bury him. So Philip English hired a bunch of

746
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 1: guys and they went out and stopped the funeral procession,

747
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 1: took possession of the body and held a hostage until

748
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: Corwin's family paid Philip English back for what Corwin had

749
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 1: taken from, had confiscated from, and then Philip English gave

750
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: them the body to bury. Wow nuts, not a nice guy,

751
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: who Philip English? No, No, okay, yeah, I totally I

752
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: was gonna say I totally sighed with Philip English on

753
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 1: that one. Um. All right, So Corey dies and the

754
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,880
Speaker 1: sort of the the long and short of his death

755
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: was that it was sort of a final straw. And

756
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,560
Speaker 1: this is when Phipps comes back in and says, you

757
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: know what, things are getting really out of hand. Uh, increase.

758
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: Mather says, Yeah, this spectral evidence thing is gotten way

759
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 1: out of hand and it's probably not real. And people

760
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: started to um sort of stand up more and more,

761
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: and it was clear that Governor Phips had to kind

762
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 1: of halt things. Um. He said he did it under

763
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: the context of, you know, this is a contravention of

764
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: English law. We can't do this. I'm dissolving the court

765
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: of Oyer and Terminer and I'm going to create a

766
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: new court where we can't use spectral evidence. And what

767
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: do you know. In January and February there were dozens

768
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 1: of people released. Um. Note grand juries weren't indicting people. Uh,

769
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:55,359
Speaker 1: they were found not guilty. Uh. He pardoned some and

770
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 1: by the end of May that next year, the jails

771
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:02,280
Speaker 1: had no more um quote unquote, which is right, because

772
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: they found when you take away the spectral evidence, what

773
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: you have, for the most part is personal grudges, land disputes,

774
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: land grabs. People just trying to to um take advantage

775
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: of this situation to get back at somebody they don't

776
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: like and haven't liked for a really long time. And

777
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,000
Speaker 1: that was a weird, weird, scary time. It was very scary,

778
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine like living during that time. Actually

779
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: it's not true. I can't imagine it, um, But it

780
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 1: was just basically another example of like a time when

781
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:35,240
Speaker 1: a group of people became fascist together and people died

782
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: as a result. Yeah, and that you know, the term

783
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: witch hunt is still used, um that the Crucible was

784
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: written because of McCarthy ism. It's been thrown around a

785
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: lot in recent years, maybe not as accurately, but it's

786
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:53,799
Speaker 1: still a term for that reason. Um. I've got one

787
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: little nice button to put on the end of this, chuck.

788
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: There was at least one guy who was a judge

789
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,760
Speaker 1: in the Court of vy or in term, named Samuel Sewell,

790
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 1: and within a year or two after the witch trials,

791
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 1: he was standing in front of the Boston Congregation of

792
00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: Puritans having a petition read um by the local reverend there,

793
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: asking for their forgiveness and admitting that this was a huge,

794
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,959
Speaker 1: huge mistake and he regretted participating in it, and would

795
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: they forgive him? Um, And I believe they did. So

796
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 1: the whole thing ended. Well, you got anything else else, man,

797
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 1: If you want to go down a rabbit hole start

798
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: researching the Salem witchcraft trials, you could do a lot

799
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: worse than going to the Historic Present, the New England

800
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: Historical Society and the History of Massachusetts dot org or

801
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: just hit at Grabanowski up, he'll tell you all about it.

802
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, you could do that too. Walk around, they're

803
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: they're they're trying to take your money in all kinds

804
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,880
Speaker 1: of ways. Yeah, Essex County, mass is one of the

805
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: most beautiful places on earth. If you asked me, sure, Um, okay, Well,

806
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for a listener mail,

807
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this cool kid. I like to read

808
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 1: the emails from the cool kids. Hey, guys, my dad

809
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: introduced me to your show when I was barely a teenager,

810
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: and I've been listening ever since. In that time, my

811
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: family has gone through a lot of changes, and my

812
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,240
Speaker 1: dad and I haven't always been on the best terms.

813
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: I wanted to reach out and let you know that

814
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: stuff you should know is the only thing that we

815
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: have consistently been able to talk about when we reconnect

816
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:30,479
Speaker 1: after being a part. We can go months without seeing

817
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: each other and I can just ask if you listen

818
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: to your latest episode to have something to talk about.

819
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,760
Speaker 1: It helped keeps things lighthearted and it's something we feel

820
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 1: like it's just for the two of us. I hope

821
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: we can see you live in Austin soon. Furthermore, this

822
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: is mostly for Chuck. You were so much like my dad,

823
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: it's actually freaky. Sometimes we always make jokes that you

824
00:47:50,520 --> 00:47:52,280
Speaker 1: two would be best friends if you met in real life.

825
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,359
Speaker 1: Your voices even sound a little bit the same. I'll

826
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: be honest. Sometimes it's comforting to listen to y'all when

827
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:00,839
Speaker 1: I miss my dad. Uh, I've been meaning to send

828
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: this email for a while. Just tell you guys how

829
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 1: much you mean to me and my family. Thanks for

830
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:06,360
Speaker 1: being there for us. Also, I don't know if my

831
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: dad listens to the end of the episodes or just

832
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: the factual content. We'll find out, but if he's listening

833
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 1: this far in, tell him I said, hi, warm regards

834
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: c J. Curbo and Uh says, we come to Austin,

835
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: they treat us to dinner at their favorite fried catfish

836
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,439
Speaker 1: seafood restaurant. Nice, very nice. Um, that was very nice,

837
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: c J. What a great email, and thank you very

838
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 1: much for the invite. We probably will be in Austin

839
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 1: again sometime. It was and c J, you should know

840
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: that we cut it out, but I accidentally said fried

841
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: cat food. It was hilarious and Josh got a good

842
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 1: laugh out of it. Yeah, so thanks for that. Yeah,

843
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: you're welcome. If you want to be like c J

844
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,319
Speaker 1: and write a very nice email we want to hear it,

845
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 1: you can send it to us that Stuff podcast at

846
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a

847
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:57,880
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,

848
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

849
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H m hm