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Speaker 1: There were a lot of rumors about Abigail. Some were small,

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Speaker 1: as you might expect. She was rude, she was unseemly,

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Speaker 1: she was irreverent. But there were other more specific rumors,

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Speaker 1: and those were the kinds that spread like fire in

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Speaker 1: a dry barn. They whispered that she lay out alone

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Speaker 1: in the woods at night, that she was disobedient at home,

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Speaker 1: that she openly mocked the traditions of the Puritan faith,

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Speaker 1: even going as far as to use the Lord's name

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Speaker 1: in vain, That she made a pact with the devil.

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Speaker 1: And all of it was true. Abigail's family lived in

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Speaker 1: the village of Topsfield, roughly five miles north of Salem Village.

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Speaker 1: They were part of that larger Salem community in which

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Speaker 1: the same way Beverly and over when Um and others were,

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Speaker 1: But they hadn't always been in Topsfield as far as

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Speaker 1: I can tell. Abigail was born there, but at the

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Speaker 1: age of four, ten years before the events of her father, William,

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Speaker 1: packed the family up and headed north to Fallmouth, Maine.

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Speaker 1: Over the next seven years, though tragedy crashed against her

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Speaker 1: family like ocean waves. The Native American attacks on those

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Speaker 1: northern frontier communities were brutal and deadly. Abigail lost siblings,

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Speaker 1: she lost her mother, and finally her father lost their land,

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Speaker 1: forcing them to return to tops Field and defeat. But

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Speaker 1: they didn't come alone. William had remarried, so his new wife, Deliverance,

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Speaker 1: came home with them. All of this is context. It's

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Speaker 1: stage dressing. If we want to understand who Abigail was.

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Speaker 1: These are stories that we need to hear because they

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Speaker 1: help us see her experience. But the one thing they

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Speaker 1: don't explain is why she being so hard into these rumors.

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Speaker 1: You see, These stories of Satanic packs and sleeping in

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Speaker 1: the woods weren't rumors told about her. These were things

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Speaker 1: she said about herself. Abigail Hobbs was a witch, and

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Speaker 1: she was proud of it. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky.

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Speaker 1: To take our next step forward into Salem, we need

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Speaker 1: to travel somewhere else Maine. Now I know what you're thinking.

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Speaker 1: I'm here for the Salem, which trials, not the history

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Speaker 1: of Maine, and I can understand. But as I've often repeated,

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Speaker 1: context is everything. No historical event takes place inside a vacuum.

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Speaker 1: And if we're ever going to fully understand what happened

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Speaker 1: in Salem. We need to cast a wider net. Believe me,

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Speaker 1: we'll be better off for it. Maine was founded decades

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Speaker 1: before as a separate colony from the Massachusetts Bay Colony,

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Speaker 1: and the two regions grew differently as well. Massachusetts expanded fast,

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Speaker 1: allowing cities to form, which attracted better off families and

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Speaker 1: people who were less adventurous. Early settlements in Maine, however,

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Speaker 1: tended to stick to the Rocky Coast. They were less

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Speaker 1: city like, functioning more as outposts to gather materials needed

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Speaker 1: in the more urban communities around Boston. Here's Marybeth Norton,

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Speaker 1: professor of an American History at Cornell University. Maine in

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Speaker 1: the sixteen seventies and sixteen nineties was really where the

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Speaker 1: action was as far as profit to be made in

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Speaker 1: New England. In Boston, people had bought land, they had

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Speaker 1: set up sawmills. Boston had a very vigorous ship building

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Speaker 1: industry that the sawmills in Maine were providing the timber

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Speaker 1: for the very well developed pines were perfect for ships.

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Speaker 1: Mass These early main communities places like Falmouth up in

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Speaker 1: Casco Bay and Wells York and Saco all served as

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Speaker 1: borderland between the safer realm of Massachusetts and the evil

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Speaker 1: of the frontier up north. More than anywhere else the

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Speaker 1: settlers could think of was darkness and danger. Around sixteen

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Speaker 1: fifty two, a group of settlers in Maine decided to

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Speaker 1: petition parliament back in England for the ability to rule themselves.

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Speaker 1: But when word of their plans got out, the government

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Speaker 1: in Massachusetts became worried. They were getting rich off of

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Speaker 1: those Maine frontiersmen, and they didn't want to lose that.

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Speaker 1: So they examined their own charter and somehow found a

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Speaker 1: loophole that gave them authority over Maine. Convenience I know,

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Speaker 1: but don't go assuming that the government of Massachusetts rushed

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Speaker 1: in to grab control of Maine because they loved the place. No,

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Speaker 1: they loved the resources that flowed out of it and

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Speaker 1: the wealth it pumped into their economy. But Maine itself

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Speaker 1: was something straight out of their Puritan nightmares. To the

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Speaker 1: Puritans in Boston and Salem, Maine was a godless land.

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Speaker 1: The settlers there rejected English communal order and were less

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Speaker 1: interested in building the Puritan city on a hill that

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Speaker 1: was so important to the folks in Salem. Abigail Hobb's

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Speaker 1: new stepmother was a great example of this. Here was

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Speaker 1: an adult woman living in Puritan New England, and she

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Speaker 1: had never been baptized by the Church. Maine came with

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Speaker 1: another challenge as well, proximity to the Native American tribes

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Speaker 1: to the north. Not just proximity, but conflict. As you

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Speaker 1: might imagine, the English settlers were spreading out, taking over

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Speaker 1: more and more land that belonged to the people who

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Speaker 1: already lived there. They justified it with law and religion too,

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Speaker 1: claiming that the Crown had given them authority over every

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Speaker 1: single person within their territory, whether they were English or not.

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Speaker 1: So as the Native Americans watched their lands get swallowed

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Speaker 1: up by a hungry colonial enterprise, they felt the need

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Speaker 1: to do something. Some of them fell in line and

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Speaker 1: accepted it, believing that being nice to the English would

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Speaker 1: benefit them in the long run. Others went looking for

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Speaker 1: powerful friends to help them, eventually connecting with the French

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Speaker 1: settlers far to the north. But there was a third

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Speaker 1: group that wanted none of that, and they lashed out

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Speaker 1: in the only way they could think of, with violence. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, if Massachusetts hadn't rushed in and taken control

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Speaker 1: of Maine. Those frontier settlers would have had to defend themselves,

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Speaker 1: but that's not how it happened. Massachusetts got greedy, and

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Speaker 1: because of that they were responsible for that defense. In

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Speaker 1: sixteen seventy five, war broke out between the English colonists

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Speaker 1: and the Native Americans around them, who were led by

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Speaker 1: a man named Meta Coom. He preferred to call himself

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Speaker 1: by a more English title, though, so he went by

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Speaker 1: the name King Philip. The three year conflict then became

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Speaker 1: known as King Philip's War. It was a bloody, violent

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Speaker 1: time too. Both sides took hostages, both sides went back

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Speaker 1: on their promises that could have ended the fighting. There

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Speaker 1: were stories of Native children having their head smashed in

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Speaker 1: and of pregnant English women being murdered and sculped. Both

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Speaker 1: sides crossed the line of human decency far too often.

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Speaker 1: Mary Beth Norton once again. The Indian War then finally

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Speaker 1: came to an end more less with a truce in

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Speaker 1: sixteen seventy eight. It was devastating to the English who

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Speaker 1: had settled in Maine and New Hampshire. They had abandoned

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Speaker 1: their communities in that period. They moved back in and

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Speaker 1: then the Second War started in six and it all

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Speaker 1: happened all over again, so it was devastating. It was

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Speaker 1: devastating war. Basically, the Indian Wars devastated the economy of

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Speaker 1: Maine and Maine in a lot of ways never really recovered.

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Speaker 1: People didn't come back until the seventeen twenties, and when

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Speaker 1: they did a lot of the entrepreneurial energy was gone.

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Speaker 1: So it was really very bad. Abigail Hobbs family were

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Speaker 1: some of the people displaced by that war. They had

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Speaker 1: left hops Field in sixteen eighty two looking for a

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Speaker 1: better life. Most of the land in and around Salem

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Speaker 1: was owned by a small handful of wealthy families like

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Speaker 1: the Porters, and Putnam's Maine had represented their chance to

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Speaker 1: get out from under the thumb of the one percent

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Speaker 1: and make a better life for themselves. Elsewhere, the Indian Wars,

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Speaker 1: as they called them back then, ruined all of that.

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Speaker 1: Another person affected by the war was George Burrows. Now

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Speaker 1: if that name sounds familiar, that's because Burrows served as

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Speaker 1: minister of the Salem Village Church years before Samuel Parris,

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Speaker 1: way back in sixteen eighty one. But he started up

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Speaker 1: in Falmouth Maine, where he was the minister there. An

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Speaker 1: attack on Falmouth back in August of sixteen seventy six

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Speaker 1: left dozens of settlers dead and sent a wave of

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Speaker 1: refugees south to say For territory. Burrows managed to escape

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Speaker 1: along with a three year old girl named Mercy Lewis,

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Speaker 1: whose entire family had been killed. After living and working

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Speaker 1: for a time in the town of Salisbury, he and

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Speaker 1: Mercy traveled farther south, eventually arriving in Salem Village in

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Speaker 1: sixteen eighty one. After his time serving as the second

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Speaker 1: minister of the church in Salem Village, Burrows actually returned

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Speaker 1: to Maine. The war was over and many people were

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Speaker 1: beginning the long journey back north to reclaim their lost

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Speaker 1: land and try rebuilding, and George Burrows went along with them.

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Speaker 1: Money flowed back north as well. Folks in the Salem

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Speaker 1: area felt safe to reinvest money in Maine, including the Putnams.

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Speaker 1: And here's the amazing part of it all. If you

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Speaker 1: were to look at a list of the people settling

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Speaker 1: in or working with those settlers up in Maine, a

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Speaker 1: whole slew of Salem names would jump off the page

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Speaker 1: at you. Heck, when the conflict resurfaced in the late

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Speaker 1: sixteen eighties. It was the Salem magistrates John Hawthorne and

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Corwin who took a trip north to inspect the situation.

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Speaker 1: People in Salem were fully aware of the danger lurking

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Speaker 1: just beyond their borders. Here's Marybeth Norton once again. What

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Speaker 1: happened was all the people who had been settling in

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Speaker 1: Maine had to somewhere if they weren't killed, and so

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Speaker 1: they filtered down into Massachusetts. They filtered down, especially into

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Speaker 1: Essex County, which is the northernmost county of Massachusetts, the

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Speaker 1: northeastern most county, and so a lot of the people

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Speaker 1: came to live in marble Head, or came to live

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Speaker 1: in Salem, are came indeed to live in Salem Village.

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Speaker 1: All of that is context. You can't understand Sale and

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Speaker 1: Village in without understanding Maine. In the decades leading up

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Speaker 1: to it. They weren't too disparate, places that never bumped

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Speaker 1: into each other. These were sibling communities joined at the

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Speaker 1: hip through family ties, military service, and economic needs. Every

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Speaker 1: person inside Sale and Village was acutely aware of what

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Speaker 1: was happening to the folks in Maine, even more so

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Speaker 1: when those refugees began to flood back toward them. Oh

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Speaker 1: and one last thing I want to point out. On

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Speaker 1: January six, just days before Betty Paris and Abigail well

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Speaker 1: Illiams were about to fall into fits for the first time,

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Speaker 1: a Native American raid destroyed another settlement in Maine. Not

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Speaker 1: Falmouth far to the north though no this raid happened

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Speaker 1: much closer in the southern town of York. From the

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Speaker 1: perspective of the people in Salem, the conflict and danger

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Speaker 1: was headed right toward them. So keep all of that

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Speaker 1: in mind as we move forward, because the next events

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Speaker 1: might very well take place in Salem, but that doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean they're isolated. And some historians think that everything that

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Speaker 1: was about to happen could be blamed on Abigail Hobbs, who,

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Speaker 1: thanks to the wild stories she was telling her friends,

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Speaker 1: ended up being arrested on April nineteen. Her examination happened

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Speaker 1: a short time later, and it came with some interesting revelations.

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Speaker 1: Standing before the magistrates, Abigail Hobbs spoke before they could

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Speaker 1: ask her any questions. I will speak the truth, she said.

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Speaker 1: I have seen sights and have been scared I have

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Speaker 1: been very wicked. I hope I shall be better if

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Speaker 1: God will help me. What sights did you see, Hawthorne asked,

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Speaker 1: I have seen dogs and many creatures. What dogs do

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Speaker 1: you mean, Hawthorne asked, ordinary dogs. Abigail shook her head,

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Speaker 1: I mean the devil. The magistrates pressed on. Where had

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Speaker 1: she seen them, they asked, and Abigail replied that her

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Speaker 1: encounter had taken place in the woods in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the day years ago, back when she lived at

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Speaker 1: Casco Bay. That was where she'd put her hand on

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Speaker 1: his book when they carried her off to jail a

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Speaker 1: short while later. The name Cascoe Bay still hung in

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Speaker 1: the air like a neon sign, pointing at the danger

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Speaker 1: that lurked the north, but Abigail had also made it

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Speaker 1: clear that it was spreading south and might already be

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Speaker 1: among them. She claimed that a shape shifting man had

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Speaker 1: visited her at her home here in Tompsfield. He had

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Speaker 1: alternated between the form of a cat, a dog, and

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Speaker 1: a black man with a black hat, and this man,

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Speaker 1: she claimed, had offered her fine clothes and the power

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Speaker 1: to harm others in town, a power that she had

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Speaker 1: readily accepted. If the news from the frontier was frightening

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Speaker 1: to the people of Salem Village. It was made even

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Speaker 1: more so by the actual presence in their homes of

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Speaker 1: people who had lived through the horrors of it all.

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Speaker 1: One of the most prominent of all of them was

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Speaker 1: the little girl who George Burrows had rescued from Falmouth

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Speaker 1: back in sixteen seventy six. Mercy Lewis my sixteen ninety two.

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Speaker 1: Though she was a nineteen year old woman living in

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Speaker 1: the home of Thomas and Ann Putnam along with their

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Speaker 1: violently afflicted daughter Annie, it's easy to believe that over

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Speaker 1: their time together, Mercy had been filling Annie's head with

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Speaker 1: horrifying tales of del buls who attack in the night.

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Speaker 1: But she had more to contribute than just tails. Mercy

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Speaker 1: Lewis was having fits of her own, and one of

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Speaker 1: the incidents that was recorded down Mercy claimed the Putnam's

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Speaker 1: house had become filled with the spirits of witches and

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Speaker 1: that they were trying to force her to partake of

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Speaker 1: some twisted red communion. Suddenly, the figure of a white

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Speaker 1: man appeared in the room, brightening off the witches and

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Speaker 1: casting a brilliant light across her face, and Putnam not

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Speaker 1: one to be showed up soon had a powerful vision

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Speaker 1: of her own. During hers the people around her heard

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Speaker 1: her shout, Oh, dreadful, dreadful. Here is a minister. What

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Speaker 1: are ministers witches too? Obviously this caught the attention of

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Speaker 1: the people around her, A minister implicated in assisting the

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Speaker 1: devil himself. Well, it was unheard of, and yet here

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Speaker 1: it was spelled out right in front of them. A

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Speaker 1: moment later, the minister's invisible spirit conveniently identified itself to

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Speaker 1: them all as well. It was their former minister and

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Speaker 1: hero of Maine, George Burrows. But George Burrows wasn't the

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Speaker 1: spotless minister we might assume him to be. Here's Stacy Schiff,

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Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize winning author of several historical works, including The Witches.

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Speaker 1: Burrows is the ex minister who leaves the community on

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Speaker 1: bad terms and is as much a hero in his

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Speaker 1: new community in todays southern Maine as he had been

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Speaker 1: a persona on grata in Salem. He was clearly a

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Speaker 1: very stubborn and difficult man, and possibly an abusive husband

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Speaker 1: when he was in Salem. Stories of how he had

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Speaker 1: mistreated his wives will trail him even when he when

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Speaker 1: he moves to Maine with Burrows, there's this terrific, vexed

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Speaker 1: history with the community. There seems to be a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of getting back at him by women who may

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Speaker 1: have been friends with his dead wives. The day after

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Speaker 1: Annie Putnam's vision of George Burrows, original afflicted girl Abigail

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Speaker 1: Williams and her friend and Mary Walcott, both had a

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Speaker 1: frightening experience as they sat in Ingersoll's ordinary with a

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Speaker 1: number of their neighbors. They claimed that the spirits of

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Speaker 1: William and Deliverance Hobbs, parents to Abigail Hobbs, were there

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Speaker 1: and attacking them. One of the men in the room,

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Speaker 1: Benjamin Hutchinson, actually drew his sword and started swinging it

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Speaker 1: at the empty air in an attempt to kill the spirits.

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Speaker 1: As he did, the two afflicted girls recounted the blow

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Speaker 1: by blow action that only they could see. Goody Hobbs

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Speaker 1: had been injured, they claimed, and there was blood all

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Speaker 1: over the floor. Think about this moment from a different perspective, though,

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Speaker 1: Salem feared that the warfare of the North would spread

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Speaker 1: down to their own safe space, that before long, they

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Speaker 1: too would be battling with the Devil's forces. The Native

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Speaker 1: Americans who plagued their borders. So when you find a

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Speaker 1: scene in a public tavern where weapons are drawn and

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Speaker 1: flashing through the air, it's their greatest fears come to life.

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Speaker 1: Between this highly public display of panic and the new

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Speaker 1: accusations brought up by Annie Putnam and her friends, the

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Speaker 1: momentum of the witchcraft panic began to accelerate. Within ten

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Speaker 1: days of Abigail Hobb's examination, fifteen new names were submitted

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Speaker 1: as potential witches. Some seemed connected to pass suspects, while

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Speaker 1: others were more shocking to hear. Giles Corey and Mary

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00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:27,959
Speaker 1: Warren were taken from their homes and then examined and jailed.

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Speaker 1: Their connections to Martha Corey and the proctors, both of

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Speaker 1: whom were already in jail, were just too close to overlook.

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Speaker 1: Rebecca Nurse's two younger sisters, Mary Etsy and Sarah Klois

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Speaker 1: were also imprisoned. Nathaniel Putnam had his black slave Mary arrested,

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Speaker 1: and another woman who had been acquitted of witchcraft years before,

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Speaker 1: name Bridget Bishop, was also arrested for a second time.

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Speaker 1: After a brief examination, she was jailed for trial, along

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Speaker 1: with two other members of her family. Ship was married,

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Speaker 1: so she's not alone in the world. That's Maryland ka Roach,

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00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,760
Speaker 1: historian and author of Six Women of Salem. She's been

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00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:14,199
Speaker 1: suspected before, however, of witchcraft, but she has survived that.

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Speaker 1: That's not as much paperwork on it as you'd like surviving.

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Speaker 1: She was confrontational. Some of the neighbors thought, I'd say

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Speaker 1: she stuck up for herself. This is her third husband.

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Speaker 1: The second husband would hit her now and then, but

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Speaker 1: she hit him back then. The crisis burst beyond the

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00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:35,159
Speaker 1: Salem boundary. Arrests were made throughout Essex County, in the

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Speaker 1: towns of reading, Amesbury, Beverly, and more over in Topsfield.

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00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:44,240
Speaker 1: Both William and Deliverance Hobbs were arrested. The logic was simple.

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Speaker 1: If their daughter had consorted with the devil, who could

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Speaker 1: be more to blame than they, But the most dramatic

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00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,840
Speaker 1: arrest would be the most unexpected. Rather than dismissing the

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00:19:55,880 --> 00:20:00,080
Speaker 1: accusations against George Burrows, the magistrates all agreed that it

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00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:02,800
Speaker 1: would be best to bring him in for questioning, but

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00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 1: he was far to the north of them in Wells, Maine,

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Speaker 1: and they feared that making a public declaration might tip

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Speaker 1: him off. And give him the chance to run. So instead,

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00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:15,600
Speaker 1: they gathered a group of men and gave them their

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Speaker 1: assignment in secret. They were to ride north, capture him,

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Speaker 1: and then bring him back for examination. George Burrows was

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Speaker 1: a wanted man. Salem Village didn't sit around waiting for

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Speaker 1: Burroughs to arrive before making their minds up about him,

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Speaker 1: and we have a number of the locals to thank

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Speaker 1: for that. One was a young woman named Sarah Churchill

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Speaker 1: who worked as a servant in a local household, but

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Speaker 1: she was also a refugee from Maine. For a while,

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Speaker 1: Churchill experienced some of the same afflictions as the others,

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Speaker 1: but her employer beat her until it stopped. That's how

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Speaker 1: John Procter had handled Mary Warren, but when her symptoms stopped,

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00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,199
Speaker 1: the judges decided it was because she had given in

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Speaker 1: to the demands of the devil. When Churchill's afflictions did

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00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:15,480
Speaker 1: the same, she stood at risk of the same assumption.

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Speaker 1: To help her case, she played along with the magistrates

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Speaker 1: and gave them whatever they wanted. In jail across town,

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Speaker 1: Mary Warren was doing the same. She rolled on her employers,

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Speaker 1: the proctors, and said that they threatened to force red

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Speaker 1: hot fireplace tongs down her throat if she didn't sign

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00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 1: The Devil's Book. Even Mercy Lewis got back into the spotlight,

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Speaker 1: she claimed to have been attacked by the specter of Burroughs,

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Speaker 1: who she knew very well. She said that he tortured her,

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Speaker 1: that he threatened to kill her, and that he carried

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Speaker 1: her up to a high mountain and offered to give

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Speaker 1: her everything she could see in exchange for her mark

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Speaker 1: in the Devil's Book, Mercy claims she refused, echoing the

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Speaker 1: willpower of Jesus. In a similar situation in the Bible,

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Speaker 1: one young woman, Sarah Morrell, seems to only have been

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Speaker 1: arrested because she too was a refugee from Maine. It

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00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 1: was ironic, really, Salem had been set up as a

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Speaker 1: place of peace, a city on the hill, as a

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Speaker 1: beacon of hope, and yet it was quickly becoming a

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Speaker 1: dangerous place to live. May nine saw a number of

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Speaker 1: arrivals in Salem village. William Stoughton, the Massachusetts Chief Justice,

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Speaker 1: and Samuel Sewell, who was a young judge from the

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Speaker 1: Massachusetts General Court and a dedicated record keeper, Together with

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Speaker 1: John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin, these four brought the entire

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00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: authority of the colony to bear on the next examination.

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Speaker 1: Here's Emerson Baker, professor of American history at Salem State

346
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Speaker 1: University and author of A Storm of Witchcraft. Here's the problem.

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Speaker 1: I really think the judges like Stowton were filled with

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Speaker 1: incredible self loathing. Stowton had been a minister, he had

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Speaker 1: been a minister in England. He's basically kicked out with

350
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Speaker 1: a restoration because he was a Puritan. And he comes

351
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Speaker 1: back to New England. And he comes back and he's

352
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Speaker 1: he's hailed as this wonderful leading figure the colony. He's

353
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Speaker 1: asked by several towns, please be our minister, please please

354
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Speaker 1: please be our minister. And he says, no, I'm not worthy.

355
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Speaker 1: I'm not worthy of being a minister. I can't do it.

356
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Speaker 1: Samuel sewell as well too. You can see his struggles.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't want to become a member of the church

358
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Speaker 1: because it doesn't think he's worthy. My God, the guy

359
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 1: was brilliant student at Harvard. He could recite the Bible

360
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,439
Speaker 1: backwards and forwards. Read his two volume diary, and you

361
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 1: know he's an incredibly devout Puritan. But he thinks he's

362
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 1: not worthy. That examination was of the other new arrival

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Speaker 1: in town, George Burrows. By the time he was escorted

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Speaker 1: into the Sale and Village meeting house, Stowton, Hawthorne, Corwin

365
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:45,400
Speaker 1: and Sewell had already questioned him privately. They had focused

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Speaker 1: on the last time he had taken communion and where

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00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 1: George must have understood the seriousness of his situation. When

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Speaker 1: he answered that it had been such a long time

369
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: that he couldn't remember, it didn't help his case for sure.

370
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Speaker 1: The afflicted girls appeared grievously tortured when Burrows stepped through

371
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: the meeting house door. One girl shouted out that Burrows

372
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: had killed his two wives, and that their spirits had

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00:24:09,400 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 1: appeared right there in the room, with them wrapped in

374
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,960
Speaker 1: their winding sheets, and laying the blame for their death

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Speaker 1: on their husband's head. Burrows was offered a chance to

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00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: respond to the girls, but all he would say was

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Speaker 1: that he understood nothing of it. After that, testimonies continued.

378
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 1: Men who had known Burrows in Casco Bay reported that

379
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Speaker 1: he had in human strength that he was able to

380
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 1: hold a seven foot rifle with one hand while other

381
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,120
Speaker 1: men struggled to hold it with two he was able

382
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: to lift barrels of molasses and cider by himself to

383
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 1: unload the boats that supplied the coastal town. Of course,

384
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,640
Speaker 1: Burrows tried to defend himself, but his explanations and protests

385
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: fell on deaf ears. The truth of the matter was

386
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: a lot more simple. He had lost his case before

387
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,439
Speaker 1: he even entered the room, and the examination was for

388
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: no other reason then to just go through the motions

389
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:07,360
Speaker 1: and make it official. When the examination was over, Burrows

390
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,119
Speaker 1: was walked out of the crowded meeting house and into

391
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: an already crowded jail. He was their biggest catch of

392
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: the season, so to speak, and represented a major victory.

393
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: But all of that was about to change. The new

394
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: day would bring a new tragedy, and I'm not sure

395
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 1: anyone in Salem was prepared. On the day after burrows arrest,

396
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: the crisis claimed its first life. Sarah Osburne, already weak

397
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:45,439
Speaker 1: with an ongoing illness when she had been jailed on

398
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: March one, died in her Boston jail cell. She had

399
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,919
Speaker 1: been held there in horrible conditions for nine weeks without

400
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 1: ever getting a trial. The news had to have struck

401
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: the people of Salem village with a painful blow. Whatever

402
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: you could say about how they were handling the situation,

403
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: with all of their warrants and examinations and constables carting

404
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 1: suspects off to jail, there were real people involved, real lives,

405
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,399
Speaker 1: real neighbors, real people who they had known for a

406
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: long time. But now those people were being turned into

407
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 1: something else, something less than human. That's something we're all

408
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: very good at. We always have been, if we're honest

409
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:34,399
Speaker 1: about it. People have a knack for isolating certain individuals

410
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: or cultures and then stripping them of their humanity. When

411
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: things get rough and a community faces a crisis, it's

412
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: the dehumanized who are always the most vulnerable to violence.

413
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot about the events in Salem

414
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: that are singular. They are special and unique and one

415
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: offs that don't repeat themselves again. But this the dehumanizing

416
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: of the other to the point where lives are lost.

417
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: This is something that's tragically commonplace to our modern world.

418
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 1: Sarah Osborne was one of the first to step into

419
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,399
Speaker 1: a local jail to await a full hearing before a

420
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: lawful court, but she was certainly not the last. Day

421
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: after day, new members of the community were accused of

422
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: allegiance to Satan. They were questioned by the wealthy, powerful

423
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: men of the colony and then torn from their lives

424
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 1: and their families. The fits and accusations of the afflicted

425
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: would continue, The jails in Boston, Salem, and Ipswich would

426
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: continue to fill up, and the community would continue to wait.

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Speaker 1: The man they had pinned their hopes on, Sir William Phipps,

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Speaker 1: was rumored to be on his way. Phipps was the

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Speaker 1: newly appointed governor of Massachusetts. He'd sailed to England to

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Speaker 1: retrieve a newly approved colonial charter. It was that magical

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Speaker 1: piece of paper that would help them fight off their

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Speaker 1: enemies and a abolished true justice with the righteous hand.

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Speaker 1: And so they waited. But thankfully they wouldn't have to

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Speaker 1: wait long. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured.

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Speaker 1: Stick around after this short sponsor break for a preview

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Speaker 1: of what's in store for next week. Next time on Unobscured,

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Speaker 1: we might look on Alden's capture by the French with

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Speaker 1: pity and see his release and plans to return to

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Speaker 1: his son to be noble. The magistrates, though, saw it

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Speaker 1: as a sign that he was in league with the

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Speaker 1: devil the French word Catholic, and they had allied themselves

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Speaker 1: with the Native Americans, two groups of people viewed as

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Speaker 1: tools of Satan by the Puritans. John Alden wasn't the

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Speaker 1: only suspect to leave the meeting house in shackles that day, though.

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Speaker 1: One of them was Martha Carrier from nearby and over

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Speaker 1: Accusations about her involvement in witchcraft began after she used

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Speaker 1: to leave town after her family contracted smallpox, which upset

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Speaker 1: her neighbors, never mind the fact that the outbreak was

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Speaker 1: really the fault of Phipps and his failed military expedition.

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Speaker 1: Everyone was carted off to jail that afternoon, but unlike

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Speaker 1: all the previous examinations that had taken place, these suspects

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Speaker 1: could at least see the light at the end of

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Speaker 1: the tunnel. With the oyer and terminer announced, they knew

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Speaker 1: their time in jail wouldn't go on for months. Finally

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Speaker 1: there was an end in sight, but that tunnel would

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Speaker 1: be much more dark and dangerous than any of them

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Speaker 1: could have imagined. Unobscured was created and written by me

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Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey and produced by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams

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Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works, with research by Carl

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Speaker 1: Nellis and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about

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Speaker 1: our contributing historians further reading material, resource archive, and links

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Speaker 1: to our other shows at history Unobscured dot com. Until

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Speaker 1: next time, thanks for listen. Name