WEBVTT - S1 – 2: The Outsiders 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.720 It was hard to nail down one specific reason why 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.880 no one could get along. But looking back, it seems 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.639 like they were divided along lines that sound eerily familiar 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:29.280 to us today. Conservative and liberal views on religion had 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:34.400 fractured the people, but so had socio economic differences. The wealthier, 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.560 more liberal coastal elites of Salem Town, with its busy 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.839 ports and growing businesses, sat in direct opposition to the 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.840 inland conservatives, who wanted independence and a much more strict 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:52.040 church life. That's an oversimplification of the climate, I know, 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.200 but it's still a fair summary of the key differences 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:59.520 according to most historians. And yet, well, if we were 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:04.000 standing in Salem village in we would have been able 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.440 to see the true breadth of the differences with our 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:11.040 own eyes. In fact, those differences literally rode into the 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.600 village on March one. You see, there was a law 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.520 on the books in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that was 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.240 known as the Sumptuary Laws. Think of the word sumptuous, 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:26.240 which means splendid or expensive looking, and you'll get the idea. 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.240 These were laws that dictated what you could wear depending 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.160 on your social status. They acted as a sort of 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.520 outward sign of a person's place in a larger society. 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.560 Most people were farmers working the land as either indentured 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.199 servants or low income settlers. They were allowed to wear 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.200 some of the basic colors, such as muted reds and 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.760 greens and blues. They wiped their noses on their sleeves 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.840 rather than on the handkerchiefs that the wealthy used, and 0:01:54.880 --> 0:02:00.320 their clothing was much more functional than formal. So when 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.960 John Hawthorne rode into Salem Village that day, even from 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.920 a distance, it was clear that he was someone important. 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.920 The black clothing, the silver lace and gold buttons on 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:15.080 his coat, the fancy jewelry and beautiful boots, all of 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.160 it spoke of a person of privilege and power, to 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:24.960 words that accurately described John Hawthorne. With him was another 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.960 well dressed man, Jonathan Corwin. They were making their way 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.640 through the village toward a very special destination, the home 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.600 of Nathaniel Ingersol. It was a building that served double 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.960 duty as the local tavern, what they called an ordinary 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.800 back then, and Ingersoll's Ordinary was about to play host 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.360 the opening pitch of a very long, very deadly game. 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.440 Because Hawthorne and Corwin weren't just two rich visitors out 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.280 on a jaunt through the countryside. They were the law 0:02:54.400 --> 0:03:00.679 keepers of Salem. The magistrates had arrived. The trials we're 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:39.680 about to begin. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. Let's 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.560 begin with systems. We talk a lot today about systems 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.360 that are breaking down, or how we've stepped outside of 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.600 the norm and are experiencing a very unusual kind of life. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.360 It's a common way of seeing the world. When things 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.400 feel like they've veered off the typical, well worn path, 0:03:56.600 --> 0:04:00.440 we notice it, and as we continue to explore sale them, 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:02.800 we're going to talk more and more about that sort 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:07.320 of thing. But to understand what those deviations meant for 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.240 the people of Salem over three d years ago, we 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.960 have to understand what was expected and normal. You can't 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.120 talk about how the system was breaking down without talking 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:20.839 about the system. It's a lot less sexy than descriptions 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.960 of witchcraft or even general criminal activity. But you can't 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.120 build a fancy house without a foundation. So here we go. 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.320 The Massachusetts Bay Colony had been set up in the 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.840 New World by a royal charter by England's King James, 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.080 the first a charter was a powerful piece of paper 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:47.000 because it established significant institutions like universities, organizations, and of course, communities. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.000 They typically served double duty to setting up the colony 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.360 in an official capacity while also providing the laws and 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.800 rules for governing it. The Royal Charter for the Massachusetts 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:03.120 Bay Colony was shoot in sixteen that's almost sixty five 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.880 years before the events in Salem. That means three generations 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.760 of people learned to understand, follow, and enforce the laws 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.520 of this new land, and the charter informed all of that. 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.200 Even those sumptuary laws I mentioned earlier, the ones that 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.679 dictated what clothing people were allowed to wear, came from 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:26.560 that charter. Six years after the charter was established, a 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.960 man named William Hawthorne arrived in the New World, first 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.920 settling in the area known as Dorchester, which is now 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.080 part of Boston's South Side. A year later he was 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.400 elected town deputy, but sometime after that he moved his 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:44.160 family north to Salem. By sixteen forty four, he had 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.640 ascended to the colonial equivalent of the Massachusetts Speaker of 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.279 the House, was the military leader of Salem and served 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.200 as magistrate over the people there. He was the man 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.160 responsible for giving land to newcomers in Salem for settling 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.520 disputes and levying to x is one other thing about 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.760 William Hawthorne, though, despite the fact that his second wife's 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:08.080 mother was a Quaker, he spent a good number of 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.480 years persecuting them all over the colony. Here's Salem State 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.360 University professor of history Emerson Baker. You see that long 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.120 history of Salem, of the quite literally tortured relationship with Quakers. 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.240 If you're not one of us, if you're not a Puritan, 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:24.599 then you're against us, and more to the point, that 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.440 means you are stopping really the the creation of this 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.880 godly community of the city upon the hill. Hawthorne and 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.479 his first wife had eight children, four boys and four girls. 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:38.640 His youngest daughter, by the way, would go on to 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.640 marry Israel Porter, the man who would later preside over 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.839 the execution of Thomas Putnam's estate and award most of 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.000 that fortune to the one Putnam who wanted Salem Village 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.160 to remain part of Salem Town. His fifth child, born 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.880 in sixty one, was John, the man now making his 0:06:55.960 --> 0:07:00.760 way toward Nathaniel Ingersoll's ordinary. He had inherited father's love 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.960 of the legal foundations of the colony and After making 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.640 a fortune in a merchant business co owned by his father, 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.200 he began working his way up the same ladder as 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:14.600 his father had decades before. By two John was fifty, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.520 he was one of Salem's magistrates and a Justice of 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.840 the Peace, along with sitting on a number of important committees, 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.360 committees like the one tasked with finding a minister for 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.040 the Salem Village Congregation. Thanks to his father's legacy, John 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.400 was respected and admired. I think that's equally true of 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.040 the other judges as well. Most of them, again are 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.520 very experienced and long standing. Most of the members of 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.080 the second generation. Again that's Emerson Baker. You also have 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.680 Bartholomew Gidney. He's a second generation merchant. He's a physician. 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.360 He's the colonel in charge and command of the Essex 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:53.560 County Militia. You have Jonathan Corwin, who again Haythorns and 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.920 Corwin's for for two generations. The fathers served in the 0:07:56.000 --> 0:08:00.280 legislature together. They've been family traditions of militia officers. They 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.280 had helped make Salem what it was as this bustling, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:08.720 shiny seaport. But here's where things go off. The rails 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.440 that Royal Charter that was issued in sixteen lasted for 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.440 over six decades. But during that time a lot had 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.640 happened back home in England. The Civil War had torn 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.120 the country apart. King Charles the First was executed in 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.280 sixteen forty nine and the monarchy was abolished. Then in 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.920 sixteen sixty it was all restored and Charles the Second 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:35.439 took the throne. It was a time of constant, dramatic upheaval, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.560 and in the midst of all of it was the 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:41.320 fate of England's New World colonies. Many of them weren't 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.439 in favor of giving the king ultimate authority over their 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.199 own communities, and Massachusetts was the most vocal about that, 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:54.520 So in sixty four England annulled their charter. So when 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.640 I say that context matters, that we have to understand 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.920 how things are supposed to work in order to bed 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.920 or understand just how broken they were. This is the 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.719 stuff I'm talking about. Accusations of witchcraft would have been 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.720 handled differently if the charter had still been in place, 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.320 but it wasn't. Salem was an untethered boat in a 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.080 stormy sea, which meant that these new rumors of witchcraft 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:22.439 were the worst possible test of their tenuous position. Uncertain 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.959 of what to do, the community turned to the only 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.880 people they could trust, and the well respected John Hawthorne 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.160 was one of them. Salem might have been in political chaos, 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.560 but there was still hope. The magistrates were taking charge. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.160 The process was already off the rails, so to speak, 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.240 in the days before the charter had been taken away 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.480 from the colony. The process was fairly strict and weighty. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.080 If you suspected someone of witchcraft, you were accusing them 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.400 of a capital crime across I'm punishable by death. Because 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:05.760 of that, the law made sure everyone had serious skin 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:10.400 in the game. Here's Emerson Baker again. Normally you would 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.680 have to postpond if you were charging someone with a 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.600 felony like that, basically what today would call a nuisance suit, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.240 or to essentially maybe charge persons for political purposes or 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.080 a way to get back at them if the case 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.400 wasn't proven, you'd forfeit your bond. That would have been 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.640 a substantial inducement to not accuse someone flippantly of a 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.440 high crime, right. But when Thomas Putnam Jr. And his 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:33.400 three friends walked to Salem Town the day after the 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.560 snowstorm and stood before Hawthorne and Corwin. They did no 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:42.560 such thing. Sure, they named names and made accusations, but 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.320 none of them paid the bond. Despite that, the magistrates 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:50.840 still issued the warrants for three individuals it was unheard of. 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.600 Their next steps were simple enough. The three women would 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.880 be arrested and then questioned. The judges would conduct the 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.800 examinations one by one to determine if the charges were true, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.480 and they would do all of this publicly. The morning 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.800 that Hawthorne and Corwin were traveling to Ingersoll's Ordinary in 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.400 Salem Village, they had two constables doing their dirty work. 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.000 Think of them as police officers with very limited power 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.760 who had been assigned a very specific task gather the 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:25.079 three women at the center of the accusations and bring 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:30.400 them to Ingersoll's for examination. One of the constables, a 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.640 man named George Locker, only really had one person to 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.840 bring in that morning, but Sarah Good was a handful 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.520 and probably needed all of his energy and attention. I'll 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:42.600 get into more about why that is in a bit, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.280 but what's important to know right now is that Locker 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.720 found her and took her into custody. When he did, 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:55.000 though Sarah's husband, William Good, followed along The other Constable, 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.280 Joseph Herrick, had more on his list. He needed to 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:03.080 locate two suspects, not one, Sarah Osburne and Tituba, the 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.440 slave who lived at the Paris home. He managed to 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.959 collect both of them that morning, but as he did so, 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.560 he also conducted brief inspections of their homes. He even 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.760 recorded the deed on the back of the warrant. Made 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:20.079 diligent search for images and such, he wrote, but can 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:25.200 find none. He also had two other jobs that morning. First, 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.720 he'd been asked to gather the four girls who had 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.920 started all of the accusations, Betsy Paris, her cousin, Abigail Williams, 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.160 and neighbor girls Annie Putnam and Elizabeth Hubbard. Then, as 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.240 if that weren't enough, the magistrates had also asked him 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:43.880 to bring, in their own words, any other person that 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:48.920 can give evidence. Naturally, a crowd was forming by the 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.640 time Locker and Herrick arrived at Ingersoll's Ordinary with their 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.880 three suspects. They had a massive entourage and tow Some 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.480 had come as part of the official proceedings that were 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.520 about to place, but all of them were there to watch. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.640 It was a spectacle unlike anything they had ever seen. 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.920 The trouble was Ingersolls was nothing more than a house 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.120 like building, not a stadium. There was no way all 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:18.160 of these people were going to fit inside that humble structure. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:24.559 Three suspects, two husbands, four accusers, two constables and two magistrates. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.600 That was thirteen people without any other witnesses. So Hawthorne 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.400 and Corwin put their heads together and they made a 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.000 decision they needed to go elsewhere. Just down the road 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.080 was the new Salem Village meeting House, and while it 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.439 wasn't enormous, it was built to hold larger crowds, so 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.680 they would have to do inside. It was a wide 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:49.200 open space, roughly thirty four feet by twenty eight ft. 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.560 It's no longer standing today. A few buildings from that 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:55.320 era are, to be honest, but it was described as 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:58.840 a barn like structure that was modeled after traditional buildings 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.480 of similar purpose. I made the mistake early on of 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.520 thinking of the meeting house purely as a church. And yes, 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.760 that's where Samuel Paris preached every Sunday in front of 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.280 his congregation, but the building served civic duties as well. 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.560 It was exactly what they called it a meeting house. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.000 It was literally a place for meetings, so moving the 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.240 examinations of the three suspects under that roof made a 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.920 lot of sense. Speaking of which, not all of the 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.280 suspects were brought over at once. In fact, when Hawthorne 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.520 and Corwin made the brief trek back out into the 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.320 snow and trudged down the road to the larger space, 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.479 only Sarah Good followed behind them, watched over by Constable 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:43.280 George Locker. When the meeting began moments later, Sarah Good 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.120 found herself standing alone before the two magistrates as a 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.720 packed house watched on. A few people in the room 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.680 cared for Sarah Good, including the judges. If she was 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.560 expecting to throw herself on the mercy of the court, 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.960 she was about to be very to pointed, there would 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:10.320 be no mercy to be found. Sarah Good was the 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.320 very definition of an outsider. Life didn't start out that 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.840 way for her. Though her father had been a prosperous 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.680 pub owner when she was born in sixteen fifty three. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.440 Trouble began nineteen years later when he passed away and 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.200 none of that wealth was bequeathed to her. She was 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.120 left completely on her own. Her first husband had been 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.360 a farmer, but life was hard for them, and they 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:34.880 took on more debts than either of them could manage. 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.040 When he died a few years later, Sarah was left 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:42.200 to carry the entire burden herself. Her current husband, William Good, 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.880 thought he could help, but both of them had become 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:48.880 buried under the weight of it all. By sixte two, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.400 the couple had a four year old daughter named Dorothy 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.440 and three month old infants, but not much else. Sarah 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.600 and William had been forced to hand a portion of 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.680 their tiny property to debtors, and then had to sell 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.680 the rest so that they could support themselves, which meant 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.640 that by March of two they were homeless, sleeping in 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:11.560 neighbors barns, and begging for food. Think about it from 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.320 Sarah's point of view. She had been born into a 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:17.080 comfortable life, but then all of that had been taken 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.280 away from her, sending her into a downward spiral of 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.120 defeat and hopelessness. It's no wonder others in the community 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.680 viewed her as bitter and sullen when she walked around town, 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.720 grumbling under her breath and generally being mean to everyone else. 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.800 She was piste off, and honestly, I can't blame her 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.320 after all of that, here she was standing before the 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.880 magistrates in a crowded meeting house on a cold March morning, 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.200 and you can't help but wonder if she would have 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.320 been there at all, if she had been a little 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.480 bit more likable, a little more well off, and a 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:55.200 little more religious. Sarah Good, as far as I can tell, 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.360 was thought of as guilty before she stepped through the door, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:04.280 simply because she didn't fit in Sarah Good, John Hawthorne began, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:10.400 what evil spirit have you familiarity with? None, she replied. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.679 The written records can't convey the tone of her voice. 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.920 But knowing everything else we do about her and positive, 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:21.480 her answer was dripping with annoyance. Have you made no 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:27.399 contract with the devil? He continued, No, Then, pointing toward 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:31.440 the four girls who had begun the entire ordeal, Hawthorne continued, 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.159 why do you hurt these children? I do not hurt them, 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:40.200 she replied. In response, Hawthorne asked the girls to look 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.840 at Sarah Good and say whether or not she was 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.000 the person who had been tormenting them. They replied that 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.920 Good was one of the people responsible. Yes, a moment later, 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.280 all four of them began to convulse and cry out 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:57.120 in pain. For the first time, all of the torment 0:17:57.200 --> 0:17:59.960 and despair that had been kept behind the closed doors 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.400 of the Paris home was on full display, laid bare 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.440 to the eyes of everyone in the galleries. If their 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.879 accusations of witchcraft had begun as a private matter, left 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.679 to the realms of whispers and rumor, this was the 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.760 moment it transformed. A cat as black and evil as 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.760 it was, was finally out of the bag. After the 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:26.080 noise died down, Sarah Good's examination continued. Hawthorne used the 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.199 outburst as evidence of witchcraft and asked Sarah Good to 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.200 tell the truth, why do you torment these poor children? 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.320 When she shook her head, Hawthorne replied, who was it 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.639 then that tormented the children? When she answered, the words 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:47.280 stunned the crowd. It was Sarah Osburne. Sarah Good had 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.480 named names. She had taken the net of accusation and 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.520 tossed it wider, snagging another woman in it. But before 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.800 the court moved on to speak with Osbourne, who was 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.399 waiting for them back at Ingersoll's Ordinary, they brought witness 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:01.960 up to the front of the room to speak to 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.200 Sarah Good's character. It was her own husband, William Good. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.760 Here's Jane Kaminsky, a professor of history at Harvard University. 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:16.040 In a place like Massachusetts, where it's an inquisitorial system, 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.119 not an advocacy system, a goal of parent religion and 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.800 a goal of jurisprudence is to get to the truth, 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.760 not to defend one side against the other. Those are 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:31.480 instances where the charges at hand and the testimony of 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:36.120 neighbors had made people question the behavior of those they 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.520 lived with intimately, and it would have been expected in 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:41.919 the community that they would come forward with their doubts. 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:47.320 There's a unity of husband and wife as a political person, 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.760 as an economic person. He had recently told someone else 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:55.159 in town that Sarah and I quote, either was a 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.640 witch or would be one very quickly, and they asked 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.960 him to explain what that meant. At first, he tried 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.119 to back out of it, claiming that she had treated 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:06.720 him poorly and he was just lashing out at her 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:11.359 for it, but the magistrates continued to press him on it. Eventually, 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.959 with tears in his eyes, he turned to them and 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.720 explained that his wife was and I quote an enemy 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.400 of all Good. That was all the magistrates needed to hear. 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:26.600 With a gesture from Hawthorne, Constable George Locker moved in 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.720 from the side of the room and took Sarah Good's arm. 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.760 He guided her toward the door and then out into 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:37.479 the cold. As he did, the next suspect was led in. 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.800 Sarah Good had deflected the blame, and now it was 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:46.920 Sarah Osburne's turn to defend herself. But her battle wouldn't 0:20:46.920 --> 0:21:01.440 be any easier. Sarah Osburne had no idea what had 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.720 transpired inside the meeting house during her long wait back 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.919 at Ingersoll's, But when one of the constables came to 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.240 lead her out of the tavern and down the snow 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.320 covered road to the official gathering, his face probably told 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.320 her everything she needed to know. At the end of 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:23.440 that short cold walk was a dangerous display of Puritan law. Now, 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.399 before we dive into her examination, it would be helpful 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.080 to take a small tour of exactly how that law 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.639 functioned there in the colony. The Massachusetts law that had 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.280 been on the book since sixty eight was sort of 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.200 a hybrid of the typical laws of the time mixed 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.600 with Puritan biblical rules. In fact, John Hawthorne's father William, 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.119 most likely helped put all of that law on paper. 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:49.480 Today we live in a world where there's a strong 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:54.800 distinction between civic law and religious customs, though there was 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.199 no such thing. All of the laws drew heavily on 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.720 biblical ideas and love old punishment at anyone who broke them. 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.600 Whipping and branding were common, but the authorities also engaged 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.240 in ear cropping and nose slitting, which were as painful 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:14.040 and horrific as they sound. There's a bit of nuance there. 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:18.480 According to historian maryland Roach, not every sin as a crime, 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:23.440 but all crimes involves some kind of sin. Drunkenness would 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.600 be sinful, But if a guy is drunk but he 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:30.640 doesn't waste the family substance, beat the wife and the children, 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:37.280 then it's not a crime, but it's sinful. The important 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.480 thing to remember here is that the Puritans of Massachusetts 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:45.080 in didn't see a distinction between the church and the state. 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.840 You could be charged with showing contempt of the ministry 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.199 or even just bad habits. Your only hope was to 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.600 be a law abiding, churchgoing Puritan devotee. Outside of that 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:02.480 narrow umbrella, you were at risk. Sarah Osburne sat outside 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.919 that narrow umbrella, and she knew it. That's why she 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:09.400 was worried about her examination, not because she was actually 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.600 a witch. You see, Sarah Osborne had been stuck in 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.280 bed for over a year due to illness, which had 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:19.080 prevented her from doing a lot of things, including attending church, 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.360 and the community had noticed. It didn't help that her 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:27.440 past was less than ideal in their eyes. After marrying 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.280 into a distant branch of the Putnam family and raising 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:33.520 two sons, her husband died and placed their land in 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.520 the hands of John and Thomas Putnam, and they weren't 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:40.040 the sharing type. It also didn't help that shortly after 0:23:40.080 --> 0:23:43.480 her husband died, she began a relationship with a young, 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:49.360 indentured servant named Alexander Osborne. The scandal was practically overwhelming, 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.879 and the village buzzed with rumors. Folks wondered if she 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:56.399 and her lover conspired to kill her husband. They mocked 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:58.960 the age difference between the two of them. They found 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:02.520 it indecent that Era freed him from his indenture herself 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.359 to pave the way for their marriage. It was all 0:24:05.440 --> 0:24:10.280 far too unconscionable for their small community. When Sarah Good 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:12.840 was led into the meeting house that day, it was 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.600 like being shoved into the lions den. She had been 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:19.240 absent from church for long enough to give the impression 0:24:19.359 --> 0:24:22.879 she had rejected God. She was the longtime enemy of 0:24:22.920 --> 0:24:26.240 the Putnam family thanks to her property dispute with them, 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:28.800 So when she laid eyes on Annie Putnam, one of 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:32.080 the four girls making the accusations, she knew the odds 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:36.280 were stacked against her. All four of the girls began 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:39.520 to convulse and shriek at the sight of her. The 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:42.879 packed room fell silent as everyone held their breath in 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:47.840 utter horror. Right there before their eyes, a which was 0:24:47.960 --> 0:24:52.280 tormenting her victims. It was abhorrence and evil to the core. 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:56.680 The first questions were the same ones Sarah Good had 0:24:56.720 --> 0:25:00.480 to answer. What evil spirit have you familiar charity with? 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:03.840 Why do you hurt these children? Have you made no 0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:07.840 contract with the devil? That was to be expected. But 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.920 then the magistrates brought up Sarah Good and asked how 0:25:10.960 --> 0:25:14.639 often the two women saw each other. I have not 0:25:14.720 --> 0:25:20.200 seen her these two years, Osbourne replied. Frustrated, Hawthorne turned 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:23.920 his questions towards her work as a witch. Osbourne shook 0:25:23.960 --> 0:25:28.280 her head and protested, I'm more likely to be bewitched 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:31.800 than to be one myself, was her response. But rather 0:25:31.840 --> 0:25:35.000 than settle the matter, that statement gave Hawthorne a bit 0:25:35.040 --> 0:25:38.520 of new flesh to claw at. Why do you say that? 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:43.480 He asked. In response, Osborne told Hawthorne about a dream 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:46.639 she had years ago. She had opened her eyes to 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:49.439 find the dark figure of a Native American standing at 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:52.320 the foot of her bed. After some struggle, this home 0:25:52.359 --> 0:25:54.959