Speaker 1: It was hard to nail down one specific reason why
Speaker 1: no one could get along. But looking back, it seems
Speaker 1: like they were divided along lines that sound eerily familiar
Speaker 1: to us today. Conservative and liberal views on religion had
Speaker 1: fractured the people, but so had socio economic differences. The wealthier,
Speaker 1: more liberal coastal elites of Salem Town, with its busy
Speaker 1: ports and growing businesses, sat in direct opposition to the
Speaker 1: inland conservatives, who wanted independence and a much more strict
Speaker 1: church life. That's an oversimplification of the climate, I know,
Speaker 1: but it's still a fair summary of the key differences
Speaker 1: according to most historians. And yet, well, if we were
Speaker 1: standing in Salem village in we would have been able
Speaker 1: to see the true breadth of the differences with our
Speaker 1: own eyes. In fact, those differences literally rode into the
Speaker 1: village on March one. You see, there was a law
Speaker 1: on the books in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that was
Speaker 1: known as the Sumptuary Laws. Think of the word sumptuous,
Speaker 1: which means splendid or expensive looking, and you'll get the idea.
Speaker 1: These were laws that dictated what you could wear depending
Speaker 1: on your social status. They acted as a sort of
Speaker 1: outward sign of a person's place in a larger society.
Speaker 1: Most people were farmers working the land as either indentured
Speaker 1: servants or low income settlers. They were allowed to wear
Speaker 1: some of the basic colors, such as muted reds and
Speaker 1: greens and blues. They wiped their noses on their sleeves
Speaker 1: rather than on the handkerchiefs that the wealthy used, and
Speaker 1: their clothing was much more functional than formal. So when
Speaker 1: John Hawthorne rode into Salem Village that day, even from
Speaker 1: a distance, it was clear that he was someone important.
Speaker 1: The black clothing, the silver lace and gold buttons on
Speaker 1: his coat, the fancy jewelry and beautiful boots, all of
Speaker 1: it spoke of a person of privilege and power, to
Speaker 1: words that accurately described John Hawthorne. With him was another
Speaker 1: well dressed man, Jonathan Corwin. They were making their way
Speaker 1: through the village toward a very special destination, the home
Speaker 1: of Nathaniel Ingersol. It was a building that served double
Speaker 1: duty as the local tavern, what they called an ordinary
Speaker 1: back then, and Ingersoll's Ordinary was about to play host
Speaker 1: the opening pitch of a very long, very deadly game.
Speaker 1: Because Hawthorne and Corwin weren't just two rich visitors out
Speaker 1: on a jaunt through the countryside. They were the law
Speaker 1: keepers of Salem. The magistrates had arrived. The trials we're
Speaker 1: about to begin. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. Let's
Speaker 1: begin with systems. We talk a lot today about systems
Speaker 1: that are breaking down, or how we've stepped outside of
Speaker 1: the norm and are experiencing a very unusual kind of life.
Speaker 1: It's a common way of seeing the world. When things
Speaker 1: feel like they've veered off the typical, well worn path,
Speaker 1: we notice it, and as we continue to explore sale them,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk more and more about that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But to understand what those deviations meant for
Speaker 1: the people of Salem over three d years ago, we
Speaker 1: have to understand what was expected and normal. You can't
Speaker 1: talk about how the system was breaking down without talking
Speaker 1: about the system. It's a lot less sexy than descriptions
Speaker 1: of witchcraft or even general criminal activity. But you can't
Speaker 1: build a fancy house without a foundation. So here we go.
Speaker 1: The Massachusetts Bay Colony had been set up in the
Speaker 1: New World by a royal charter by England's King James,
Speaker 1: the first a charter was a powerful piece of paper
Speaker 1: because it established significant institutions like universities, organizations, and of course, communities.
Speaker 1: They typically served double duty to setting up the colony
Speaker 1: in an official capacity while also providing the laws and
Speaker 1: rules for governing it. The Royal Charter for the Massachusetts
Speaker 1: Bay Colony was shoot in sixteen that's almost sixty five
Speaker 1: years before the events in Salem. That means three generations
Speaker 1: of people learned to understand, follow, and enforce the laws
Speaker 1: of this new land, and the charter informed all of that.
Speaker 1: Even those sumptuary laws I mentioned earlier, the ones that
Speaker 1: dictated what clothing people were allowed to wear, came from
Speaker 1: that charter. Six years after the charter was established, a
Speaker 1: man named William Hawthorne arrived in the New World, first
Speaker 1: settling in the area known as Dorchester, which is now
Speaker 1: part of Boston's South Side. A year later he was
Speaker 1: elected town deputy, but sometime after that he moved his
Speaker 1: family north to Salem. By sixteen forty four, he had
Speaker 1: ascended to the colonial equivalent of the Massachusetts Speaker of
Speaker 1: the House, was the military leader of Salem and served
Speaker 1: as magistrate over the people there. He was the man
Speaker 1: responsible for giving land to newcomers in Salem for settling
Speaker 1: disputes and levying to x is one other thing about
Speaker 1: William Hawthorne, though, despite the fact that his second wife's
Speaker 1: mother was a Quaker, he spent a good number of
Speaker 1: years persecuting them all over the colony. Here's Salem State
Speaker 1: University professor of history Emerson Baker. You see that long
Speaker 1: history of Salem, of the quite literally tortured relationship with Quakers.
Speaker 1: If you're not one of us, if you're not a Puritan,
Speaker 1: then you're against us, and more to the point, that
Speaker 1: means you are stopping really the the creation of this
Speaker 1: godly community of the city upon the hill. Hawthorne and
Speaker 1: his first wife had eight children, four boys and four girls.
Speaker 1: His youngest daughter, by the way, would go on to
Speaker 1: marry Israel Porter, the man who would later preside over
Speaker 1: the execution of Thomas Putnam's estate and award most of
Speaker 1: that fortune to the one Putnam who wanted Salem Village
Speaker 1: to remain part of Salem Town. His fifth child, born
Speaker 1: in sixty one, was John, the man now making his
Speaker 1: way toward Nathaniel Ingersoll's ordinary. He had inherited father's love
Speaker 1: of the legal foundations of the colony and After making
Speaker 1: a fortune in a merchant business co owned by his father,
Speaker 1: he began working his way up the same ladder as
Speaker 1: his father had decades before. By two John was fifty,
Speaker 1: he was one of Salem's magistrates and a Justice of
Speaker 1: the Peace, along with sitting on a number of important committees,
Speaker 1: committees like the one tasked with finding a minister for
Speaker 1: the Salem Village Congregation. Thanks to his father's legacy, John
Speaker 1: was respected and admired. I think that's equally true of
Speaker 1: the other judges as well. Most of them, again are
Speaker 1: very experienced and long standing. Most of the members of
Speaker 1: the second generation. Again that's Emerson Baker. You also have
Speaker 1: Bartholomew Gidney. He's a second generation merchant. He's a physician.
Speaker 1: He's the colonel in charge and command of the Essex
Speaker 1: County Militia. You have Jonathan Corwin, who again Haythorns and
Speaker 1: Corwin's for for two generations. The fathers served in the
Speaker 1: legislature together. They've been family traditions of militia officers. They
Speaker 1: had helped make Salem what it was as this bustling,
Speaker 1: shiny seaport. But here's where things go off. The rails
Speaker 1: that Royal Charter that was issued in sixteen lasted for
Speaker 1: over six decades. But during that time a lot had
Speaker 1: happened back home in England. The Civil War had torn
Speaker 1: the country apart. King Charles the First was executed in
Speaker 1: sixteen forty nine and the monarchy was abolished. Then in
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty it was all restored and Charles the Second
Speaker 1: took the throne. It was a time of constant, dramatic upheaval,
Speaker 1: and in the midst of all of it was the
Speaker 1: fate of England's New World colonies. Many of them weren't
Speaker 1: in favor of giving the king ultimate authority over their
Speaker 1: own communities, and Massachusetts was the most vocal about that,
Speaker 1: So in sixty four England annulled their charter. So when
Speaker 1: I say that context matters, that we have to understand
Speaker 1: how things are supposed to work in order to bed
Speaker 1: or understand just how broken they were. This is the
Speaker 1: stuff I'm talking about. Accusations of witchcraft would have been
Speaker 1: handled differently if the charter had still been in place,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. Salem was an untethered boat in a
Speaker 1: stormy sea, which meant that these new rumors of witchcraft
Speaker 1: were the worst possible test of their tenuous position. Uncertain
Speaker 1: of what to do, the community turned to the only
Speaker 1: people they could trust, and the well respected John Hawthorne
Speaker 1: was one of them. Salem might have been in political chaos,
Speaker 1: but there was still hope. The magistrates were taking charge.
Speaker 1: The process was already off the rails, so to speak,
Speaker 1: in the days before the charter had been taken away
Speaker 1: from the colony. The process was fairly strict and weighty.
Speaker 1: If you suspected someone of witchcraft, you were accusing them
Speaker 1: of a capital crime across I'm punishable by death. Because
Speaker 1: of that, the law made sure everyone had serious skin
Speaker 1: in the game. Here's Emerson Baker again. Normally you would
Speaker 1: have to postpond if you were charging someone with a
Speaker 1: felony like that, basically what today would call a nuisance suit,
Speaker 1: or to essentially maybe charge persons for political purposes or
Speaker 1: a way to get back at them if the case
Speaker 1: wasn't proven, you'd forfeit your bond. That would have been
Speaker 1: a substantial inducement to not accuse someone flippantly of a
Speaker 1: high crime, right. But when Thomas Putnam Jr. And his
Speaker 1: three friends walked to Salem Town the day after the
Speaker 1: snowstorm and stood before Hawthorne and Corwin. They did no
Speaker 1: such thing. Sure, they named names and made accusations, but
Speaker 1: none of them paid the bond. Despite that, the magistrates
Speaker 1: still issued the warrants for three individuals it was unheard of.
Speaker 1: Their next steps were simple enough. The three women would
Speaker 1: be arrested and then questioned. The judges would conduct the
Speaker 1: examinations one by one to determine if the charges were true,
Speaker 1: and they would do all of this publicly. The morning
Speaker 1: that Hawthorne and Corwin were traveling to Ingersoll's Ordinary in
Speaker 1: Salem Village, they had two constables doing their dirty work.
Speaker 1: Think of them as police officers with very limited power
Speaker 1: who had been assigned a very specific task gather the
Speaker 1: three women at the center of the accusations and bring
Speaker 1: them to Ingersoll's for examination. One of the constables, a
Speaker 1: man named George Locker, only really had one person to
Speaker 1: bring in that morning, but Sarah Good was a handful
Speaker 1: and probably needed all of his energy and attention. I'll
Speaker 1: get into more about why that is in a bit,
Speaker 1: but what's important to know right now is that Locker
Speaker 1: found her and took her into custody. When he did,
Speaker 1: though Sarah's husband, William Good, followed along The other Constable,
Speaker 1: Joseph Herrick, had more on his list. He needed to
Speaker 1: locate two suspects, not one, Sarah Osburne and Tituba, the
Speaker 1: slave who lived at the Paris home. He managed to
Speaker 1: collect both of them that morning, but as he did so,
Speaker 1: he also conducted brief inspections of their homes. He even
Speaker 1: recorded the deed on the back of the warrant. Made
Speaker 1: diligent search for images and such, he wrote, but can
Speaker 1: find none. He also had two other jobs that morning. First,
Speaker 1: he'd been asked to gather the four girls who had
Speaker 1: started all of the accusations, Betsy Paris, her cousin, Abigail Williams,
Speaker 1: and neighbor girls Annie Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard. Then, as
Speaker 1: if that weren't enough, the magistrates had also asked him
Speaker 1: to bring, in their own words, any other person that
Speaker 1: can give evidence. Naturally, a crowd was forming by the
Speaker 1: time Locker and Herrick arrived at Ingersoll's Ordinary with their
Speaker 1: three suspects. They had a massive entourage and tow Some
Speaker 1: had come as part of the official proceedings that were
Speaker 1: about to place, but all of them were there to watch.
Speaker 1: It was a spectacle unlike anything they had ever seen.
Speaker 1: The trouble was Ingersolls was nothing more than a house
Speaker 1: like building, not a stadium. There was no way all
Speaker 1: of these people were going to fit inside that humble structure.
Speaker 1: Three suspects, two husbands, four accusers, two constables and two magistrates.
Speaker 1: That was thirteen people without any other witnesses. So Hawthorne
Speaker 1: and Corwin put their heads together and they made a
Speaker 1: decision they needed to go elsewhere. Just down the road
Speaker 1: was the new Salem Village meeting House, and while it
Speaker 1: wasn't enormous, it was built to hold larger crowds, so
Speaker 1: they would have to do inside. It was a wide
Speaker 1: open space, roughly thirty four feet by twenty eight ft.
Speaker 1: It's no longer standing today. A few buildings from that
Speaker 1: era are, to be honest, but it was described as
Speaker 1: a barn like structure that was modeled after traditional buildings
Speaker 1: of similar purpose. I made the mistake early on of
Speaker 1: thinking of the meeting house purely as a church. And yes,
Speaker 1: that's where Samuel Paris preached every Sunday in front of
Speaker 1: his congregation, but the building served civic duties as well.
Speaker 1: It was exactly what they called it a meeting house.
Speaker 1: It was literally a place for meetings, so moving the
Speaker 1: examinations of the three suspects under that roof made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Speaking of which, not all of the
Speaker 1: suspects were brought over at once. In fact, when Hawthorne
Speaker 1: and Corwin made the brief trek back out into the
Speaker 1: snow and trudged down the road to the larger space,
Speaker 1: only Sarah Good followed behind them, watched over by Constable
Speaker 1: George Locker. When the meeting began moments later, Sarah Good
Speaker 1: found herself standing alone before the two magistrates as a
Speaker 1: packed house watched on. A few people in the room
Speaker 1: cared for Sarah Good, including the judges. If she was
Speaker 1: expecting to throw herself on the mercy of the court,
Speaker 1: she was about to be very to pointed, there would
Speaker 1: be no mercy to be found. Sarah Good was the
Speaker 1: very definition of an outsider. Life didn't start out that
Speaker 1: way for her. Though her father had been a prosperous
Speaker 1: pub owner when she was born in sixteen fifty three.
Speaker 1: Trouble began nineteen years later when he passed away and
Speaker 1: none of that wealth was bequeathed to her. She was
Speaker 1: left completely on her own. Her first husband had been
Speaker 1: a farmer, but life was hard for them, and they
Speaker 1: took on more debts than either of them could manage.
Speaker 1: When he died a few years later, Sarah was left
Speaker 1: to carry the entire burden herself. Her current husband, William Good,
Speaker 1: thought he could help, but both of them had become
Speaker 1: buried under the weight of it all. By sixte two,
Speaker 1: the couple had a four year old daughter named Dorothy
Speaker 1: and three month old infants, but not much else. Sarah
Speaker 1: and William had been forced to hand a portion of
Speaker 1: their tiny property to debtors, and then had to sell
Speaker 1: the rest so that they could support themselves, which meant
Speaker 1: that by March of two they were homeless, sleeping in
Speaker 1: neighbors barns, and begging for food. Think about it from
Speaker 1: Sarah's point of view. She had been born into a
Speaker 1: comfortable life, but then all of that had been taken
Speaker 1: away from her, sending her into a downward spiral of
Speaker 1: defeat and hopelessness. It's no wonder others in the community
Speaker 1: viewed her as bitter and sullen when she walked around town,
Speaker 1: grumbling under her breath and generally being mean to everyone else.
Speaker 1: She was piste off, and honestly, I can't blame her
Speaker 1: after all of that, here she was standing before the
Speaker 1: magistrates in a crowded meeting house on a cold March morning,
Speaker 1: and you can't help but wonder if she would have
Speaker 1: been there at all, if she had been a little
Speaker 1: bit more likable, a little more well off, and a
Speaker 1: little more religious. Sarah Good, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: was thought of as guilty before she stepped through the door,
Speaker 1: simply because she didn't fit in Sarah Good, John Hawthorne began,
Speaker 1: what evil spirit have you familiarity with? None, she replied.
Speaker 1: The written records can't convey the tone of her voice.
Speaker 1: But knowing everything else we do about her and positive,
Speaker 1: her answer was dripping with annoyance. Have you made no
Speaker 1: contract with the devil? He continued, No, Then, pointing toward
Speaker 1: the four girls who had begun the entire ordeal, Hawthorne continued,
Speaker 1: why do you hurt these children? I do not hurt them,
Speaker 1: she replied. In response, Hawthorne asked the girls to look
Speaker 1: at Sarah Good and say whether or not she was
Speaker 1: the person who had been tormenting them. They replied that
Speaker 1: Good was one of the people responsible. Yes, a moment later,
Speaker 1: all four of them began to convulse and cry out
Speaker 1: in pain. For the first time, all of the torment
Speaker 1: and despair that had been kept behind the closed doors
Speaker 1: of the Paris home was on full display, laid bare
Speaker 1: to the eyes of everyone in the galleries. If their
Speaker 1: accusations of witchcraft had begun as a private matter, left
Speaker 1: to the realms of whispers and rumor, this was the
Speaker 1: moment it transformed. A cat as black and evil as
Speaker 1: it was, was finally out of the bag. After the
Speaker 1: noise died down, Sarah Good's examination continued. Hawthorne used the
Speaker 1: outburst as evidence of witchcraft and asked Sarah Good to
Speaker 1: tell the truth, why do you torment these poor children?
Speaker 1: When she shook her head, Hawthorne replied, who was it
Speaker 1: then that tormented the children? When she answered, the words
Speaker 1: stunned the crowd. It was Sarah Osburne. Sarah Good had
Speaker 1: named names. She had taken the net of accusation and
Speaker 1: tossed it wider, snagging another woman in it. But before
Speaker 1: the court moved on to speak with Osbourne, who was
Speaker 1: waiting for them back at Ingersoll's Ordinary, they brought witness
Speaker 1: up to the front of the room to speak to
Speaker 1: Sarah Good's character. It was her own husband, William Good.
Speaker 1: Here's Jane Kaminsky, a professor of history at Harvard University.
Speaker 1: In a place like Massachusetts, where it's an inquisitorial system,
Speaker 1: not an advocacy system, a goal of parent religion and
Speaker 1: a goal of jurisprudence is to get to the truth,
Speaker 1: not to defend one side against the other. Those are
Speaker 1: instances where the charges at hand and the testimony of
Speaker 1: neighbors had made people question the behavior of those they
Speaker 1: lived with intimately, and it would have been expected in
Speaker 1: the community that they would come forward with their doubts.
Speaker 1: There's a unity of husband and wife as a political person,
Speaker 1: as an economic person. He had recently told someone else
Speaker 1: in town that Sarah and I quote, either was a
Speaker 1: witch or would be one very quickly, and they asked
Speaker 1: him to explain what that meant. At first, he tried
Speaker 1: to back out of it, claiming that she had treated
Speaker 1: him poorly and he was just lashing out at her
Speaker 1: for it, but the magistrates continued to press him on it. Eventually,
Speaker 1: with tears in his eyes, he turned to them and
Speaker 1: explained that his wife was and I quote an enemy
Speaker 1: of all Good. That was all the magistrates needed to hear.
Speaker 1: With a gesture from Hawthorne, Constable George Locker moved in
Speaker 1: from the side of the room and took Sarah Good's arm.
Speaker 1: He guided her toward the door and then out into
Speaker 1: the cold. As he did, the next suspect was led in.
Speaker 1: Sarah Good had deflected the blame, and now it was
Speaker 1: Sarah Osburne's turn to defend herself. But her battle wouldn't
Speaker 1: be any easier. Sarah Osburne had no idea what had
Speaker 1: transpired inside the meeting house during her long wait back
Speaker 1: at Ingersoll's, But when one of the constables came to
Speaker 1: lead her out of the tavern and down the snow
Speaker 1: covered road to the official gathering, his face probably told
Speaker 1: her everything she needed to know. At the end of
Speaker 1: that short cold walk was a dangerous display of Puritan law. Now,
Speaker 1: before we dive into her examination, it would be helpful
Speaker 1: to take a small tour of exactly how that law
Speaker 1: functioned there in the colony. The Massachusetts law that had
Speaker 1: been on the book since sixty eight was sort of
Speaker 1: a hybrid of the typical laws of the time mixed
Speaker 1: with Puritan biblical rules. In fact, John Hawthorne's father William,
Speaker 1: most likely helped put all of that law on paper.
Speaker 1: Today we live in a world where there's a strong
Speaker 1: distinction between civic law and religious customs, though there was
Speaker 1: no such thing. All of the laws drew heavily on
Speaker 1: biblical ideas and love old punishment at anyone who broke them.
Speaker 1: Whipping and branding were common, but the authorities also engaged
Speaker 1: in ear cropping and nose slitting, which were as painful
Speaker 1: and horrific as they sound. There's a bit of nuance there.
Speaker 1: According to historian maryland Roach, not every sin as a crime,
Speaker 1: but all crimes involves some kind of sin. Drunkenness would
Speaker 1: be sinful, But if a guy is drunk but he
Speaker 1: doesn't waste the family substance, beat the wife and the children,
Speaker 1: then it's not a crime, but it's sinful. The important
Speaker 1: thing to remember here is that the Puritans of Massachusetts
Speaker 1: in didn't see a distinction between the church and the state.
Speaker 1: You could be charged with showing contempt of the ministry
Speaker 1: or even just bad habits. Your only hope was to
Speaker 1: be a law abiding, churchgoing Puritan devotee. Outside of that
Speaker 1: narrow umbrella, you were at risk. Sarah Osburne sat outside
Speaker 1: that narrow umbrella, and she knew it. That's why she
Speaker 1: was worried about her examination, not because she was actually
Speaker 1: a witch. You see, Sarah Osborne had been stuck in
Speaker 1: bed for over a year due to illness, which had
Speaker 1: prevented her from doing a lot of things, including attending church,
Speaker 1: and the community had noticed. It didn't help that her
Speaker 1: past was less than ideal in their eyes. After marrying
Speaker 1: into a distant branch of the Putnam family and raising
Speaker 1: two sons, her husband died and placed their land in
Speaker 1: the hands of John and Thomas Putnam, and they weren't
Speaker 1: the sharing type. It also didn't help that shortly after
Speaker 1: her husband died, she began a relationship with a young,
Speaker 1: indentured servant named Alexander Osborne. The scandal was practically overwhelming,
Speaker 1: and the village buzzed with rumors. Folks wondered if she
Speaker 1: and her lover conspired to kill her husband. They mocked
Speaker 1: the age difference between the two of them. They found
Speaker 1: it indecent that Era freed him from his indenture herself
Speaker 1: to pave the way for their marriage. It was all
Speaker 1: far too unconscionable for their small community. When Sarah Good
Speaker 1: was led into the meeting house that day, it was
Speaker 1: like being shoved into the lions den. She had been
Speaker 1: absent from church for long enough to give the impression
Speaker 1: she had rejected God. She was the longtime enemy of
Speaker 1: the Putnam family thanks to her property dispute with them,
Speaker 1: So when she laid eyes on Annie Putnam, one of
Speaker 1: the four girls making the accusations, she knew the odds
Speaker 1: were stacked against her. All four of the girls began
Speaker 1: to convulse and shriek at the sight of her. The
Speaker 1: packed room fell silent as everyone held their breath in
Speaker 1: utter horror. Right there before their eyes, a which was
Speaker 1: tormenting her victims. It was abhorrence and evil to the core.
Speaker 1: The first questions were the same ones Sarah Good had
Speaker 1: to answer. What evil spirit have you familiar charity with?
Speaker 1: Why do you hurt these children? Have you made no
Speaker 1: contract with the devil? That was to be expected. But
Speaker 1: then the magistrates brought up Sarah Good and asked how
Speaker 1: often the two women saw each other. I have not
Speaker 1: seen her these two years, Osbourne replied. Frustrated, Hawthorne turned
Speaker 1: his questions towards her work as a witch. Osbourne shook
Speaker 1: her head and protested, I'm more likely to be bewitched
Speaker 1: than to be one myself, was her response. But rather
Speaker 1: than settle the matter, that statement gave Hawthorne a bit
Speaker 1: of new flesh to claw at. Why do you say that?
Speaker 1: He asked. In response, Osborne told Hawthorne about a dream
Speaker 1: she had years ago. She had opened her eyes to
Speaker 1: find the dark figure of a Native American standing at
Speaker 1: the foot of her bed. After some struggle, this home
Speaker 1: invader had grabbed her by the hair and dragged her
Speaker 1: to the door of her house. At the same time,
Speaker 1: she claimed she heard a voice that told her she
Speaker 1: and I quote should go no more to meeting. Noting
Speaker 1: her clear absence from church in the time since that dream,
Speaker 1: Hawthorne dug in, why did you yield thus far to
Speaker 1: the devil? Then? But that wasn't the reason. She stayed
Speaker 1: home in bed each day. She was sick, and she
Speaker 1: told him so. Even her own husband spoke up and
Speaker 1: confirmed the dates. One year and two months, he said,
Speaker 1: which didn't really seem to help Sarah Osborne had painted
Speaker 1: herself into a corner while trying to prove that she
Speaker 1: wasn't a witch. She had put forth a story that
Speaker 1: was meant to cast her in the light of a victim.
Speaker 1: She was nothing more than an innocent woman who had
Speaker 1: been cursed. But the magistrates hadn't heard the message she
Speaker 1: was trying to get across. They heard an admission of guilt.
Speaker 1: She had received orders from the devil himself, they said,
Speaker 1: and then she had followed them. Right there, on the
Speaker 1: first day of examinations, a suspect had revealed her true colors.
Speaker 1: And yet the day was far from over. One more
Speaker 1: woman had yet to take the stand. When she did, though,
Speaker 1: she would pull on the thread that would unravel the
Speaker 1: entire community. Everything they believed was about to be confronted,
Speaker 1: and they would never be the same. If Sarah Good
Speaker 1: and Sarah Osburne were outsiders, Tituba was an alien in
Speaker 1: a foreign land by sixteen ninety two. It was the
Speaker 1: second time in her life that she had felt that way.
Speaker 1: She was, of course a slave, but she was also
Speaker 1: referred to as an Indian in all of the surviving
Speaker 1: documents from the Salem Trials. Now, for most of the
Speaker 1: settlers living in New England, and Indian was anyone from
Speaker 1: one of the many Native American tribes in the area,
Speaker 1: the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Wabanaki being some of the most common.
Speaker 1: But Tituba was not from the northeast or even from
Speaker 1: North America. Uh she had been, like so many others
Speaker 1: during the four centuries of transatlantic slave trade, kidnapped from
Speaker 1: her home and taken far away. We can infer a
Speaker 1: few details of her past from her name and where
Speaker 1: she began her life of slavery. Barbados, where the Paris
Speaker 1: family had lived in the late seventeenth century, placed a
Speaker 1: high value on slaves from South America, particularly in the
Speaker 1: area of modern day Venezuela. The women from the Arawak
Speaker 1: tribes were gifted at skills their slavers needed, like weaving cloth,
Speaker 1: which was highly valued in Puritan society. One of the
Speaker 1: clan names within the Arawak people is Tetabitana, which some
Speaker 1: scholars think was reduced down to Tituba. It's highly likely
Speaker 1: that she was kidnapped into slavery around the age of
Speaker 1: ten and taken straight to Barbados to serve there among
Speaker 1: the white landowners who needed domestic servants. It's all a guess,
Speaker 1: but based on a lot of strong clues. What we're
Speaker 1: a lot more sure about is that when Samuel Paris
Speaker 1: sold off his plantation in Barbados and then headed north
Speaker 1: to Salem, he brought Tituba along with her husband John
Speaker 1: with him. So when she finally arrived in Massachusetts, in sight,
Speaker 1: it was the second time she had been removed from
Speaker 1: a place she was familiar with and thrown into a
Speaker 1: strange new land. And while her life in Barbados might
Speaker 1: have been different from South America, it was only when
Speaker 1: she moved to Puritan Massachusetts that the culture shock really
Speaker 1: hit her. It was cold and strict and very unfriendly.
Speaker 1: Don't assume she was brought in as an equal, though,
Speaker 1: despite the efforts to christianize anyone who wasn't white, The
Speaker 1: color of her skin placed her firmly outside the community
Speaker 1: in every practical sense, from rights and freedoms to the
Speaker 1: types of punishment they had to endure. If a white
Speaker 1: settler broke a minor law, they would typically be fined.
Speaker 1: A slave, though would face physical punishment. Court documents show
Speaker 1: us how slaves were referred to as it or that
Speaker 1: instead of he, she, or even they. The dehumanize them,
Speaker 1: and as history has shown us, when you dehumanize a
Speaker 1: person or a people group, it's a lot easier to
Speaker 1: rob them of even the most basic human rights. Slavery
Speaker 1: is New England's dirty little secret first off, and we
Speaker 1: know that as early as the sixteen thirties that we
Speaker 1: have the first sort of documented evidence of slaves coming
Speaker 1: into Massachusetts. So not longer after the colony starts, slaves
Speaker 1: come in as well. That's Emerson Baker. Once again, they're
Speaker 1: not a large presence in the colony. We don't have
Speaker 1: a plantation economy, but we do need people to work
Speaker 1: the docks in places like the lumber mills and working
Speaker 1: the crops. They do become sort of a status symbol
Speaker 1: for the wealthier merchants. I think one more thing about
Speaker 1: Titsuba and her background. She didn't come to Massachusetts as
Speaker 1: an empty vessel like each and every one of our
Speaker 1: own ancestors. When she was transplanted from one part of
Speaker 1: the world to another, there she brought her beliefs and
Speaker 1: traditions and folklore with her. Yes, the Paris family probably
Speaker 1: did their best to teach their slaves the Christian faith,
Speaker 1: but nothing was going to erase those older stories and lessons,
Speaker 1: stories of devils in the woods that prowled in search
Speaker 1: of those who stepped off the path, tales of evil
Speaker 1: spirits that could take the form of animals or even
Speaker 1: take control of humans. They were stories of darkness and
Speaker 1: fear and risk. Tituba's world was alive with danger. So
Speaker 1: when she stood before the magistrates that cold March day
Speaker 1: and told John Hawthorne that the devil had approached her
Speaker 1: and asked her to serve him, it wasn't a notion
Speaker 1: she would have found unusual, But in a room full
Speaker 1: of frightened Puritans living on the edge of the known world,
Speaker 1: thousands of miles from their homeland, it was a bombshell.
Speaker 1: But then she dove deeper into the hysteria. She told
Speaker 1: Hawthorne that she had personally witnessed at least four women torment.
Speaker 1: The girls, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburne were two, but
Speaker 1: she couldn't remember the names of the others, but they
Speaker 1: would command her to hurt them. And then there was
Speaker 1: the tall man. The crowd was most likely forced into
Speaker 1: a frightened silence. According to Tituba, there weren't just two
Speaker 1: other witches the first two women examined that day, No,
Speaker 1: there were five others beside her four women and one man.
Speaker 1: Tituba went on to apologize for hurting the girls and
Speaker 1: claimed that it would never happen again. She was only
Speaker 1: doing what she had been instructed to do by the others.
Speaker 1: She was a slave, after all, not a person, just
Speaker 1: a thing to order around. How could she be held
Speaker 1: responsible for her actions? She was painting a frightening picture
Speaker 1: for the magistrates and the people in the galleries listening
Speaker 1: to her. Things were much worse than they had feared.
Speaker 1: When she was pressured to identify the man who worked
Speaker 1: alongside the witches, Tituba shook her head. She didn't know
Speaker 1: his name, but he took the form of a hog,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a great black dog that spoke to her.
Speaker 1: Stacy Schiff is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian.
Speaker 1: We know so little about Titiba that it's very hard
Speaker 1: to say where that comes from. It has been hinted at.
Speaker 1: It's possible that she was fed some lines it. Indeed,
Speaker 1: is she who mentions the She's got yellow bird, she's
Speaker 1: got red cats, she's got a black hog. It's very
Speaker 1: colorful stuff. And yes, the furry creature with the wings
Speaker 1: and the long nose who sits by the fireplace. This
Speaker 1: particular animal, according to Tichiba, was dragging her out of
Speaker 1: the Paris house where she had been instructed to torment
Speaker 1: the girls under her care, and out into the wider village.
Speaker 1: That's why Elizabeth Hubbard and Annie Putnam were pinched and
Speaker 1: stabbed as well, because the man who took the shape
Speaker 1: of a black dog forced her to do it. There
Speaker 1: were more animals too. Sarah Good had a small yellow
Speaker 1: bird that suckled at the skin between her fingers. A
Speaker 1: dark man had offered her a bird of her own,
Speaker 1: but she refused, and one of the witches sent a
Speaker 1: different animal to afflict Elizabeth Hubbard, a wolf. The entire
Speaker 1: crowd probably inhaled at once. They had all heard the
Speaker 1: story of the wolf following poor Elizabeth home just days before,
Speaker 1: and this confession only seemed to make it more real
Speaker 1: and more frightening, and it forced everyone to wrestle with
Speaker 1: a larger question, one that left all of them unsettled
Speaker 1: and anxious. If the wolf was real, what else was
Speaker 1: out there for them to fear? If the magistrates were
Speaker 1: looking for scary stories, Tituba was ready to deliver. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, she was well equipped for this sort
Speaker 1: of task. Born into a culture that believed in the
Speaker 1: dangers of the supernatural word around her, this new world
Speaker 1: of Christianity, with its demons and devils, monsters and magic,
Speaker 1: was at once both new and familiar. Stacy Schiff once again,
Speaker 1: remember that she's the only woman of those three who's
Speaker 1: a slave, and we probably lived in fear of reporting
Speaker 1: back to Samuel Parris, in whose household she lives. She's
Speaker 1: clearly been with the family for years. She clearly loves
Speaker 1: the children. She lives in close quarters. She probably slept
Speaker 1: in the same beds as they. She may have been
Speaker 1: told a tale. She may also have been a tale teller.
Speaker 1: After revealing Sarah Good as the source of the wolf
Speaker 1: that had pursued Elizabeth Hubbard, Titchuba moved on to describe
Speaker 1: the creature that seemed to serve Sarah Osborne. It had
Speaker 1: a head like a woman, she said, with two legs
Speaker 1: and wings. At that very moment, Abigail Williams, the niece
Speaker 1: of Samuel Paris and the first of the girls to
Speaker 1: show signs of this demonic torment, shouted out that she
Speaker 1: had seen that very same creature with her own eyes,
Speaker 1: and when she saw it. She had watched in horror
Speaker 1: as it transformed back into the shape of Sarah Osburne.
Speaker 1: But Tituba wasn't finished just yet. What else have you seen,
Speaker 1: Hawthorne asked her, like a child asking his grandmother about
Speaker 1: all the places she'd visited in her lifetime. Another hairy thing,
Speaker 1: she replied. It goes upright like a man and has
Speaker 1: only two legs. This thing, she told them, had appeared
Speaker 1: right inside the Minister's house the previous night, standing in
Speaker 1: front of the fire as if to warm itself. It
Speaker 1: was dressed in black clothing and stood very tall, and
Speaker 1: he sometimes brought a woman with him, one who wore
Speaker 1: a black hood with a top knot on it. At
Speaker 1: this final description, the four girls began to writhe and
Speaker 1: cry out in their nearby seats. It began to act
Speaker 1: as if something invisible were attacking them, striking them and
Speaker 1: causing them pain. They appeared to be in agony. Do
Speaker 1: you see who it is is that torments these girls,
Speaker 1: Hawthorne demanded, Yes, Tituba said, it is Sarah Good. She
Speaker 1: hurts them in her own shape, and then it stopped.
Speaker 1: It was almost as if naming the attacker was enough
Speaker 1: to frighten her off. The girls all fell into a
Speaker 1: hushed calm, and the people gathered around them did the same.
Speaker 1: But it wouldn't last. After a brief pause, the girls
Speaker 1: began crying out in pain and convulsing all over again.
Speaker 1: Who hurts them now, Hawthorne demanded. In response, Tittiba moved
Speaker 1: her head back and forth, almost as if she were
Speaker 1: looking around the room, but her eyes were distant, almost blank.
Speaker 1: She rolled her head backward and then forward again, and
Speaker 1: side to side, until finally she gave him an answer.
Speaker 1: I am blind now, she said, I cannot see. Tituba
Speaker 1: had led the village to the edge of a precipice
Speaker 1: and then abandoned them there. She was certain that they
Speaker 1: were all in danger, but she had nothing else to
Speaker 1: tell them, whether her insider knowledge had just dried up
Speaker 1: or there were no more fresh fictions to weave into
Speaker 1: her testimony. She was done, however much. The rest of
Speaker 1: the crowd wanted her to keep going, but that was
Speaker 1: a dangerous thing. If Tituba could no longer see the truth,
Speaker 1: then they would have to go hunt it for themselves.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around
Speaker 1: After this short sponsor break for a preview of what's
Speaker 1: in store for next week. Next time on Unobscured. He
Speaker 1: told me to sign my name in it, she said,
Speaker 1: And did you do that? They asked, yes. One time
Speaker 1: I made a mark in the book with a red ink,
Speaker 1: red like blood. Did he take that red ink from
Speaker 1: your own body? No? But he said, would get it
Speaker 1: out of me the next time he visited. And then
Speaker 1: the magistrates dug deeper. They believe that Titsuba had seen
Speaker 1: the Devil's Book, his tool for recruiting humans into his
Speaker 1: evil mission among them. So he asked about that. Did
Speaker 1: you see any other marks in this book? They asked, yes,
Speaker 1: she said, a great many, some in red, some in yellow.
Speaker 1: He held it wide open and showed me a great
Speaker 1: many marks in it. What names were in the book?
Speaker 1: They asked? Did he tell you Good and Osbourne? She answered,
Speaker 1: but there were more. I couldn't read. Hawthorne and Corwin
Speaker 1: must have felt a chill run down their spines. More
Speaker 1: names meant more witches. They had already found three, which
Speaker 1: felt overwhelming as it was, But now they had learned
Speaker 1: that there were more among them. They prayed it wasn't
Speaker 1: an insurmountable number. Unobscured was created and written by me
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey and produced by Matt Frederick and Alex Williams
Speaker 1: in partnership with How Stuff Works, with research by Carl
Speaker 1: Nellis and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn more about
Speaker 1: our contributing historians, further reading material, a resource archive, and
Speaker 1: links to our other shows at history unobscured dot com.
Speaker 1: Until next time, thanks for listening.