WEBVTT - S1 – 7: She Is One Of Us 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.119 The body of Bridget Bishop was left hanging from the 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.600 gallows for days. It was standard practice for the execution 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:20.960 of felons. By leaving the results of their crime out 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.600 in the public for everyone to see, it was thought 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.440 that fewer people would be tempted to follow the same 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:32.000 immoral path. We don't have any records about when Bridget's 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.040 body was cut down or where it was buried, but 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.520 executed criminals were usually buried near the place of death. 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.280 It wasn't respectful or sacred, and that was the point 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.600 in the Puritan mind. People evil enough to do horrible things, 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.879 they didn't deserve a proper burial. Bridget's death might not 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.800 have left a physical trace, but it certainly had a 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.640 social impact. In the two weeks that followed her execution, 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:03.960 reports of a flictions almost stopped entirely. Yes, there were 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.400 a handful of exceptions, but the overall effect was like 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.040 pulling the emergency brake on a speeding car. People took 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.680 notice of how deadly the game had become, but nothing 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.200 lasts forever. However nice it would have been for everything 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.760 to grind to a permanent halt. I think all of 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.200 us are very aware that no such thing was about 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.160 to happen, and one of the few instances where people 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.600 still reported afflictions from a witch. A community even deepens 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.880 its roots into the soil of insanity and chaos, they 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:40.960 find themselves a witch detective. Weeks earlier, when Bray Wilkins 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.880 and his grandson Daniel were sick and witchcraft was suspected, 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.400 Mercy Lewis offered to come and help. She was the 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.080 refugee from Maine that had moved to sale In village 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:56.080 years before along with George Burrows, but in she lived 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.880 and worked in one of the Putnam households, and if 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.840 you remember, it was she who pointed the finger at 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.520 John Willard, the village deputy constable and husband of wilkins granddaughter, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:11.800 as the suspect. So when new afflictions were reported inside 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.919 a Putnam house, Mercy Lewis was called in to offer 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:20.240 her observations. She immediately identified two witches at work, Rebecca 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.079 Nurse and Martha Carrier, and while both of these women 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.080 were already in jail, these new accusations would simply be 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.960 added to their records for when their own trials began. 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.400 But the momentary pause was only localized to Salem far 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.240 to the north. On the day after the execution of 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.160 Bridget Bishop, the French and Wabanaki launched an attack on 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.560 the town of Wells. Garrison and ships in the harbor 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.040 were able to repel the attack, but the enemy managed 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.200 to capture a prisoner, who was then tortured to death 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:58.800 in full view of the defenders. Observant participants in the 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:02.720 Salem situation couldn't help but see the symbolism. They had 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.040 struck a blow against the devil on June tenth, only 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.280 to be hit back the following day. I can imagine 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.360 it was frustrating to the powers that be, but also 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.079 more than frightening to the rest of the community who 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.839 were waiting with bated breath for it all to end. 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.600 But the attack on Wells, along with the subsequent torture 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.720 and murder of that single captive, also sent a powerful 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:32.359 message to the people of Salem that was difficult to ignore. Monsters, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:40.360 it seems, could be found anywhere. This is unobscured. I'm 0:03:40.440 --> 0:04:17.800 Aaron Manky. While Bridget Bishop had been executed for capital crimes, 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.200 she wasn't the first to die. If you remember, it 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:24.479 was Sarah Osborne who passed away first. While waiting in 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.760 jail for her own trial, And even though the community 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.440 slipped into a two week pause in the chaos on 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:36.440 June tenth, that didn't mean more deaths weren't coming. On June, 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.000 a prisoner named Roger tooth Acker died while sitting inside 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.040 the Boston Jail, adding one more name to a list 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.599 that was just beginning to grow. Tooth Acker was Martha 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.560 Carrier's brother in law, but had also worked as a 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.320 folk healer throughout Essex County. If people needed help with 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.680 a sitcow or a mysterious ailment, they would call on 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.640 him to use whatever tools he had at his disposal. 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:05.840 Here's historian Maryland k Roach. Some people did practice a 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.640 lot of folk magic, maybe more in England because they 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.400 weren't all Puritans. Well, they weren't all Purans hereies. They 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.440 were white witches, a blessing witches so called, meaning they 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.719 did only the good magic. But if you have the 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.520 idea that the source of it is really only pretending 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:26.880 to do good for a while, until you're really thoroughly 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:29.839 caught in this clutches, it's not something you should be 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:35.240 fooling around with. Understandably, that gray area between witchcraft and 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.920 Puritan piety was an unsettling place to be for many 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.920 of the people in the area. Roger Toothaker was essentially 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.200 dabbling with magic as far as they were concerned, and 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:49.440 that was the devil's work. Yes, he thought of himself 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.919 to be one of the good guys, but enough people 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:57.480 disagreed that he was arrested, examined, and in jail. By May, 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.880 I have a feeling tooth Acker new it was coming. Though. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.880 Back in February, if you remember from episode one, the 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.360 Paris family's neighbor, Mary Sibley, had baked a witch cake 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.719 to try and cure the first two afflicted girls, but 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:16.279 the results were disastrous. Reverend Paris and his peers viewed 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.840 the use of magic, even white magic meant to help others, 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:26.360 as an invitation to the devil. By May of Roger 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.880 Toothaker found himself in jail, but the long wait for 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.440 his own trial only brought him sickness and death. Like 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:37.040 Sarah Osburne before him, his life was snuffed out by 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.120 the grinding gears of the witch hunt, long before he 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.240 would ever have a chance for freedom and justice. As 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.520 you might expect, people were beginning to have doubts it 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.840 was one thing to throw accusations around the village, but 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:55.119 when those words began to draw real blood and take lives, well, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.640 it felt like a bridge too far for many people. 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.760 Most of that doubt manifested as murmurs and whispers around 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:07.440 the community, but it had official representation too. Immediately after 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.280 the trial and conviction of bridget Bishop, one of the 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.280 nine judges, resigned his post. For anyone concerned about the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.520 trials getting out of hand, Nathaniel salt Install had been 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.360 their source of hope, but he took that pipe dream 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.920 with him when he quit, and the road ahead looked 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.840 a lot less promising As a result. What happened in 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.360 the days to come was a battle of wills between 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.360 those with spiritual authority and those with legal power. Religious 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.480 leaders like Cotton Mather, Samuel Willard, and William Millbourne all 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.040 came forward with concerns for how the trial should be 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.720 handled and laced throughout. All of their arguments were liberal 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.840 amounts of theology. So when the Governor's Council met three 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.600 days after the first public execution, Phipps and a handful 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.640 of the magistrates reached out to the ministers, then asked 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.640 for their full official response. Gathered together, they told them 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:02.360 and discussed the challenges we all face. Then, when you're ready, 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.120 bring them to us for a discussion. What they came 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.120 back with was a written response known as the Return 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.200 of Several Ministers. It was polite and supportive of the 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.280 overall mission of the Oyer and termin Or trials, but 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.400 the letter addressed a bigger concern, namely, Chief Judge William 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.960 Stowton believed that specters could not impersonate innocent people, and 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:30.400 the ministers disagreed. There's a lot of theology at play here, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:32.280 and I don't want to get too deep into the 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.600 nitty gritty of it all, but essentially, people were worried 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:40.080 about wrongful accusations and convictions. Thanks to the trust the 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.920 authorities replacing in the accusations of the afflicted girls, as 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.280 well as allowing Mercy Lewis to serve as a witch finder, 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.920 it had become all too easy to imagine that innocent 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.760 people might get caught in the crossfire. Stoton believed that 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.520 if someone witnessed the spectral image of a witch, then 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.360 the person they saw was the person to laim. The ministers, 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:05.880 though disagreed, they believed that the devil could impersonate innocent people, 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:10.040 literally putting on their appearance as a disguise, just to 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:14.360 get those people in trouble. So obviously, the next question 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:17.959 was even trickier, how can you tell? It was bad 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.679 enough that no one except a handful of the accused 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.520 could actually see the specters of their attackers, but now 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.199 they had to play detective and figure out which ones 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.800 were the devil in disguise and which ones were real witches. 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.520 And the solution, according to the ministers, was to avoid 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:40.160 prosecuting virtuous people, people with blameless reputations and no history 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:44.720 of any wrongdoing. It was a cop out answer, though, 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.600 because Stoton believed that very few people were actually of 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:53.440 unblemished reputation. He and his fellow judges were part of 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.000 that select few, naturally, But outside of that, it was 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:01.839 difficult to imagine anyone without a sordid path, even Rebecca Nurse, 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.000 who was a full member of the Salem Village Church 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.400 and well respected, and as she was about to find out, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.120 when your fate rested on invisible evidence, it was hard 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:23.680 to see anything other than darkness. Ask most people today 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.760 if they know anything about the Salem Which Trials, and 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.199 the most common answer you'll get from non historians is 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.120 that it was really just one big mess that revolved 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.240 around property line disputes. And hopefully over the last few 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.079 episodes I've put that rumor to rest for you at least. 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.240 But here's where I'm going to contradict myself for a moment. 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.680 When we talk about Rebecca Nurse, we have to talk 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:52.240 about property lines. Keep in mind, these Puritan settlers were 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.760 certainly focused on the mission of establishing God's kingdom in 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.320 the New World. They were deeply religious people, but they 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.960 were also a notoriously difficult to get along with. That's 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.560 one of the reasons they left England after all. So 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.040 you can imagine living in a community in a strange place, 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.679 constantly afraid of the world around them, that these settlers 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.319 were on the edge and cranky about a lot of things. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.080 Back in episode one, we talked about the differences between 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.800 the Putnam's and the Porters, and I don't want to 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.319 repeat myself here, but let me sum it up by 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.079 saying that the Porters were the wealthy family that lived 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.319 on the edge between Salem Town and Salem Village. They 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.600 figuratively rode the fence, so to speak. They benefited from 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.120 the high society of the town, but also benefited from 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.960 the resources and expansive land of the village. Keeping the 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.440 two communities together as a single legal entity was in 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:51.320 their best interest. But inside Salem Village was another family, 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:54.959 the Putnam's, who didn't have a vested interest in the town. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.280 They wanted autonomy and a break from the wealthier Port community. 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.400 So there is this tug of war between the two families, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.240 and then the town family showed up. They were a 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.120 family from England with seven children, three daughters and four sons, 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.959 and when they arrived they purchased a tract of land 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.640 along the western edges of Salem Village, or maybe it 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:20.000 was the eastern edges of tops Field, because that's where 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:24.960 the conflict began five decades before the Salem which trials 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:29.200 a sloppy Massachusetts clerk, as Stacy Shift puts, it, drew 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.200 part of tops Fields boundary lines right over the existing 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:35.880 lines for Western Salem. It created a small bubble of 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.560 land between the two communities that technically belonged to both, 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:44.040 and that's the land that the Town's bought. Now, as 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.720 the conflict went on and grew between the Porters and 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.160 the Putnam's. The Putnam started to feel the need to 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.760 expand farther west and get away from the porters. The 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.040 trouble was the towns were there, sort of walling them in, 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.880 and as a result, the Putnam's resented them, and this 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.720 led to all sorts of conflict. There was a horse 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.800 theft that forced the towns to sue the Putnams. They 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.400 fought over firewood, something that every family needed an abundance 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.480 to survive the cold New England winters, and they bickered 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:17.920 about where each family might grace their livestock. Honestly, anything 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.920 that could have been fought over probably was, and it 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.880 went on for years. All the town kids grew up, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:29.160 of course, and married into the surrounding community. Daughters, Mary, 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.199 Sarah and Rebecca became Mary sty Sarah Klois, and Rebecca Nurse, 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.040 all three names that should ring a bell by now, 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.400 because by June of they were all in jail and 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.880 no wonder. Up until July, more than half of all 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:49.520 the witchcraft accusations had originated from a Putnam house. You 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.080 don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to understand why Rebecca 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.240 was particularly annoying to the Putnam's. Because she married into 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.160 a Salem Town family, aligning herself with the wealthier reporters 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:05.440 by association. Her husband, Francis, was an artist there, but 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.760 years after their marriage they leased a large three acre 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.640 farm in the middle of Salem Village, pushing the thorn 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.240 right back into the heel of the Putnams. By the 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.200 time the witch trials had ramped up, Rebecca was an 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.640 old woman in her seventies. But despite doing well for 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.440 herself and building a reputation as an upstanding member of 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:29.320 the local church and an elder in the community, Rebecca 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:34.520 was still accused of witchcraft. Why while outside of the 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.480 decades long feud between her own family and the Putnams 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.480 of Salem Village, there might be two other reasons for 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.520 the way some in the community turned on her. Here's 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:48.160 Emerson Baker Rebecca Nurse. Her case is another key turning point. 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.680 Why would this wonder this, this elderly sainted grandmother who's 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.840 a member of the Salem Town Church up here in 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.520 Saint why would she be accused of witchcraft? Well, again, 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.040 note she's a member of the Salem Town Church, not 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.320 the Salem Village church. In other words, Rebecca didn't go 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.240 through the rigorous membership gauntlet that the strict conservative Salem 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.920 Village Church required. Instead, she had become a full member 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.760 in the less strict Salem town where the halfway Covenant 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:20.800 was accepted. Despite that she was enjoying all the benefits 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:25.000 of full membership right there in Samuel Paris's congregation. To 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:29.600 a lot of people, it didn't seem fair. The second reason, though, 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.800 was rooted in bigotry. If you remember, it was known 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.840 that Rebecca had taken in an orphaned Quaker neighbor out 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.720 of the goodness of her heart, but that child represented 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:43.000 something evil in the minds of her accusers. That's because, 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.720 in pursuit of their mission to build a Puritan Kingdom 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.520 of God in the New World, any other version of 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:53.480 Christianity was the enemy. Catholic, Quaker, it didn't matter. They 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.720 were forces of the devil. So Rebecca, through her Christian charity, 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.880 had done something that many in the commune nity equated 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.040 with being a traitor. Add to this the fact that 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.960 her husband, Francis, was part of the committee that was 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.600 trying to remove Reverend Paris from his job as village minister. 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.240 And we have a recipe for division and in fighting 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.240 it was a bigger version of the story that most 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.360 of the victims were living through that spring and early summer. 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.040 But Rebecca had a few advantages over her fellow jail mates. 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.800 Her family had decades of experience fighting back, they were 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:35.840 well connected, and they were tenacious. Unfortunately, they were going 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.720 to need every bit of that in the coming weeks. 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.680 The pump had been primed. If anyone was to blame 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.760 for getting the community in an uproar about Rebecca Nurse 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.920 and her sisters, it was Reverend Samuel Paris. Of course, 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.080 he felt threatened. Rebecca and the others didn't care for 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.600 his highly concern port of hand on the rudder, and 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.120 they wanted him gone. Paris responded with scathing sermons from 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.639 the pulpit through March, April and May. Paris used his 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.080 position at the head of the congregation to so discontent 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.399 and fear. He preached about the devil among them, and 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.480 about how anyone might be working for the enemy, even 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:24.080 the neighbors they had known for so long. So when 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.040 the Oyer and Terminer moved on from bridget Bishop and 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.800 began to hear testimony and depositions in regards to Rebecca Nurse, 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.280 there were plenty of people to come forward. Mercy Lewis 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.800 reported seeing Rebecca's specter attacking a Putnam boy, then another Putnam, 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.160 John Jr. Claimed that his infant son died just three 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.440 days after he had a public disagreement with the old woman. 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.760 Thomas Putnam, Nathaniel Ingersoll, and Reverend Paris were among the 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.040 respected adults who put pen to paper and wrote out 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.000 their testimony against Rebecca. They were bringing out the big guns, 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:00.480 so to speak, with the aim of damn the old 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.359 woman in the eyes of the judges and jury. But 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.359 they were in for a surprise. Maryland k roach once again. 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:12.760 The nurse family circulated a petition among neighbors, and lots 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.240 of people signed it. It wasn't just them, so people 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:21.520 put their names on it. This was incredibly significance. Here's 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:27.320 historian Richard Trask on exactly why. Of the documents that survive, 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.359 we have maybe about twenty of them in which either 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:36.040 one person, a couple, or a bunch of people would 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.959 send in a deposition or a petition saying that we've 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.080 known her all of our life and she never looked 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.520 like she was a witch. Er, never deported her any 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:50.480 more than a good Christian. Forty people signed the one 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.520 to Rebecca Nurse. The judges went into the official Oyer 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.840 and Terminator trial for Rebecca Nurse, assuming she would play 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:01.760 along like everyone else, but backfired. If they were going 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.240 to have a cloud of witnesses to her evil nature, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.520 then Rebecca's family would bring an army of their own, 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:11.679 and they made huge advances too. Some of the character 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.359 witnesses who stepped forward to defend Rebecca Nurse also brought 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.800 unusual stories that cast doubt on the testimony of the 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.119 afflicted girls. Much of it centered around Elizabeth Hubbard, the 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.800 teenage girl who had seen that wolf following her that 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:30.200 cold winter night many months before. One man claimed that 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.560 during a visit to the home of Elizabeth's uncle, Dr Griggs, 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.360 the girl had talked about denying the Sabbath. Another man, 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.879 sixty year old farmer named Clements Coldham, recalled giving Elizabeth 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.600 a ride home on his horse when the girl claimed 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.639 that they were being followed by the devil. After a while, 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.280 she told Coldham that she wasn't afraid because she and 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.679 the devil were on good speaking terms. A similar story 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.480 with a similar message was told about one of the 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.160 other afflicted girls, ab Gail Williams and a farmer named 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.399 Robert Molton believed that Susannah Sheldon had lied to the 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.719 court when she told them that the devil had dragged 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.480 her over a stone wall, because he was there that 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:12.959 day and he watched her climb the wall all on 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.679 her own. Rebecca's own daughter, Sarah Nurse, testified that she 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.639 had watched another of the accusers, Sarah Biber, actually pulled 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.720 straight pins out of her clothing and then prick herself 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:27.800 in the knee before crying out that Rebecca had attacked her. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:32.199 It was all a farce, she said, and in a 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.240 shocking move against her own family, John and Rebecca Putnam 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.040 stood up in her defense as well. One of the 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.960 charges against Rebecca Nurse had been that she had killed 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.680 their daughter and son in law, but the grieving parents 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.000 made it clear that the younger couple had died from 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.439 a fever and not witchcraft. It was amazing, really, in 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.879 the face of the frightful charge of witchcraft, Rebecca's family 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.080 not only mounted a solid defense of her character, but 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.720 they attacked the very truth of the accusers at the 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.280 same time. It was a one to punch that was 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:09.400 sure to set their friend and matriarch free. Armed with 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.760 all of that testimony, the jury was sent away to 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:17.399 make a decision. Here's Richard Trask once again. At first 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:22.240 the jurors came back with a not guilty, and it 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:27.680 was pandemonium in the courthouse. The afflicted children who were there, 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:32.120 and also some older afflicted ones started going into profound 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.440 fits and so forth. WILLIAMS. Stouton, he was the chief 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:39.600 justice of the panel, He said, um, have you considered 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:44.080 some testimony of someone who said this of that? And 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.720 the jurors asked Rebecca Nurse a question I confessed, which 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.320 had given testimony that she was one of us. Rebecca 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:56.240 said why she is one of us? And she was 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.400 asked what did that mean? And she didn't say anything, 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:05.480 and because she couldn't hear, she was almost deaf. After 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.320 what must have seemed like an eternity, the members of 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.639 the jury slowly walked back into the courtroom. I can 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.000 imagine the room was blanketed with a tense silence as 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.160 each of them took their seat, and then they announced 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.720 that they had made their decision. Rebecca Nurse. They said 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:31.919 it was guilty. Jun was a busy day for the 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.000 court of Lawyer and Terminer. Not only had they heard 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.679 the case against Rebecca Nurse, but others were brought to 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:42.880 trial as well. One of them was Sarah Good, the grumbling, homeless, 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.639 pipe smoking woman that everyone loved to hate. She'd been 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:50.119 in jail for months, her infant child had died, and 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.560 her five year old daughter, Dorothy, was still in a 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.800 Boston jail, the same jail that had already claimed the 0:22:55.840 --> 0:23:00.480 lives of Sarah Osburne and Roger Toothaker. But her trial 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:03.600 couldn't have been a stronger contrast to that of Rebecca Nurse. 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:07.520 There was no large collection of friends and family mounting 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:10.800 a passionate defence. There were no prominent members of the 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:14.359 community calling the accusations of the afflicted girls. Into question. 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:18.080 It was just Sarah Good against the court, and she 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:22.120 can't have felt a lot of hope about that. One 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:24.240 of the witnesses brought to the courtroom that day was 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.840 none other than Tituba, the slave woman from the Paris household. 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.320 She was asked to repeat for the benefit of the jury, 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:35.360 of course, the story she told that first examination months earlier, 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.600 on March one. Of course, she had been given plenty 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.600 of opportunities to keep her story straight thanks to the 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:45.240 repeated visits from the magistrates over those long months in jail. 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:51.200 Thomas Newton, the Attorney General overseeing the trial, even submitted 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:55.760 a document as evidence that came straight from Sarah's little girl, Dorothy. 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.000 Despite her young age, someone had managed to convince the 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:02.199 child to give to stimony against her own mother, and 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:05.280 as the court proceeded, Sarah had to listen to those 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:10.320 words as they were read aloud. Local heavyweights contributed their 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:14.200 own testimony against her too. Thomas Putnam and Ezekiel Chiever 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.760 reaffirmed their earlier testimony, and Reverend Samuel Paris described the 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:21.640 torment that his daughter and niece had gone through, and 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:25.360 by doing so, Paris gave the courtroom clear permission from 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:29.679 the church to view Sarah Good as the enemy. She 0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:33.440 was found guilty and charged with three separate counts of witchcraft, 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.399 but she wouldn't be the only one that day. A 0:24:36.440 --> 0:24:39.359 woman named Susannah Martin was also brought to the trial, 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:42.080 and there were plenty of witnesses available to paint her 0:24:42.119 --> 0:24:44.919 in a dark light. She was like Sarah Good in 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:48.000 many ways. She was poor and alone, but she was 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:51.399 also an old widow from Amesbury, a community far to 0:24:51.480 --> 0:24:54.840 the north. When she was led into the courtroom, the 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:59.159 afflicted girls fell into terrible fits. Former sale and village 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:02.399 minister Dale Debt Lawson would later record that some of 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:06.200 them even vomited blood. It was sometime during this chaos 0:25:06.280 --> 0:25:08.840 that one of the afflicted shouted out to the courtroom 0:25:09.040 --> 0:25:13.040 that they were being attacked by someone new, Samuel Willard. 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:16.479 There must have been a sharp intake of breath at 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:19.359 the sound of his name. Willard was not someone they 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:22.199 would have suspected of witchcraft. Not only was he the 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:25.119 minister of the Boston First Church, but he was a 0:25:25.160 --> 0:25:28.119 close friend and adviser to many of the judges in 0:25:28.160 --> 0:25:32.679 the trial. Thinking quickly on his feet, Stoughton suggested to 0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:35.760 the girl that she was mistaken, that she had confused 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:39.280 John Willard with the good reverend. She was quickly removed 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:42.199 from the courtroom, while word was passed among those seated 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:45.040