1
00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:14,440
Speaker 1: It wasn't over yet. As powerful as the reprieve from

2
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:17,400
Speaker 1: Governor Phipps had been, it didn't close the books on

3
00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,200
Speaker 1: the trials immediately. I wish it had. I wish all

4
00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:26,040
Speaker 1: the fear and uncertainty and frustration just sort of evaporated

5
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:29,400
Speaker 1: into the wind like a puff of smoke. But it didn't.

6
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:33,680
Speaker 1: In the days between Stowton's signing of her death warrant

7
00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:37,720
Speaker 1: on January and the February one message from the Governor

8
00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:41,479
Speaker 1: that canceled it, Elizabeth Proctor gave birth to the baby

9
00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:45,400
Speaker 1: she had carried throughout the ordeal. It was her pregnancy

10
00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:47,800
Speaker 1: that had kept her alive the day her husband John

11
00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:50,440
Speaker 1: had been led to the gallows and hanged, and now

12
00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:55,120
Speaker 1: that safety net was gone, it can't have been an

13
00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:59,680
Speaker 1: easy delivery. Months earlier and Procter, wife of Thomas and

14
00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:02,680
Speaker 1: one of the afflicted who put so many others in jail,

15
00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:06,880
Speaker 1: had delivered her own baby. She would have prepared groaning

16
00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:10,959
Speaker 1: cakes and groaning beer, the traditional provisions laid out to

17
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,800
Speaker 1: refresh the women of the community as they gathered by

18
00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:17,240
Speaker 1: her side, coaching and supporting her through the process of

19
00:01:17,319 --> 00:01:20,960
Speaker 1: labor and birth. New clean linens would have been ready

20
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,480
Speaker 1: nearby as well to wrap the newborn. A family cradle

21
00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:27,440
Speaker 1: would be in the room. Thomas Putnam would have stepped

22
00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:30,120
Speaker 1: in among the women of the Salem Village church to

23
00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,520
Speaker 1: bless his new child with a father's love, to share

24
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:36,800
Speaker 1: pride and joy with the weary mother, to receive the

25
00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:42,760
Speaker 1: warm smiles and congratulations of his neighbors. Not for Elizabeth Proctor.

26
00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:46,920
Speaker 1: Though her birthing experience that January was as cold and

27
00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:50,320
Speaker 1: unfriendly as the jail cell she sat in, she more

28
00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:52,880
Speaker 1: than likely would have labored on the bare dirt floor,

29
00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,160
Speaker 1: and unless the people around her were no longer bound

30
00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:59,000
Speaker 1: by leg irons and chains, she would have had to

31
00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:03,320
Speaker 1: labor alone. There were no fresh linens to swaddle her

32
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:06,840
Speaker 1: newborn son, and her husband John was never going to

33
00:02:06,880 --> 00:02:10,000
Speaker 1: walk through that door and share in her joy. He

34
00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:14,560
Speaker 1: was gone now, so too was her protection from execution.

35
00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:18,440
Speaker 1: There was little to look forward to, so she named

36
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:22,320
Speaker 1: him with an eye on the past, John, just like

37
00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:27,079
Speaker 1: his father. Even though John would need his mother now

38
00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:31,280
Speaker 1: more than ever, his birth signaled her death. Stoughton's death

39
00:02:31,280 --> 00:02:33,960
Speaker 1: warrant now had power over her, and when the first

40
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:37,720
Speaker 1: session of the Superior Court convened on February one. She

41
00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:41,040
Speaker 1: fully expected to be led away and never see him again.

42
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:46,239
Speaker 1: But then, of course, Phipps stopped all of that. But

43
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:50,840
Speaker 1: the governor's message didn't stop everything. After Stoughton abandoned the

44
00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:54,280
Speaker 1: courts in an angry huff, Thomas Danforth took over and

45
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:57,720
Speaker 1: shouldered the unsavory task of wrapping up all the remaining

46
00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:01,560
Speaker 1: open cases. He took over as Chief Justice and began

47
00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:04,640
Speaker 1: to methodically work through them, And the most talked about

48
00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:08,720
Speaker 1: of them all was that of Lydia Dustin. She was

49
00:03:08,760 --> 00:03:11,440
Speaker 1: one of those individuals who had been hounded for years

50
00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:14,600
Speaker 1: by accusations of witchcraft. When she was pulled into the

51
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:18,480
Speaker 1: chaos of she said very little in her own defense,

52
00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:21,040
Speaker 1: which gave her the appearance of guilt in the eyes

53
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,919
Speaker 1: of the magistrates. But all of the evidence against her

54
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:28,880
Speaker 1: had been spectral. Tales of ghostly visitations were invisible attacks,

55
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:34,000
Speaker 1: and that was no longer permissible in the trials. The jury,

56
00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:37,480
Speaker 1: of course, acquitted her, and she was ordered to pay

57
00:03:37,520 --> 00:03:40,720
Speaker 1: her jail fees and go home. And one would hope

58
00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:43,800
Speaker 1: that by now the community around her would have caught

59
00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:46,880
Speaker 1: on and recognized an innocent woman when they saw one.

60
00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:49,800
Speaker 1: But there were a number of complaints about the verdict,

61
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:53,640
Speaker 1: so many that Dan Fourth actually begged her to confess

62
00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:58,880
Speaker 1: if she was truly guilty. She did not. She returned

63
00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:01,080
Speaker 1: to the jail in Cambridge, where she had been staying

64
00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:04,240
Speaker 1: and waited for her family to gather the necessary funds

65
00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:07,840
Speaker 1: to purchase her freedom. While she was there, though, she

66
00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:11,200
Speaker 1: became sick, and even after being brought home to be

67
00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:14,040
Speaker 1: cared for, she was too old and frail to fight

68
00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:21,159
Speaker 1: it off. She died on March tenth, the final victim

69
00:04:21,200 --> 00:05:01,120
Speaker 1: of the Salem which trials. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky.

70
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:03,560
Speaker 1: One other death that happened that winter was that of

71
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:07,080
Speaker 1: and Over rapist Timothy Swan. He had been one of

72
00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:10,200
Speaker 1: the men to start the and Over accusations, claiming that

73
00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:12,559
Speaker 1: he had been bewitched by some of the women in town,

74
00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:15,960
Speaker 1: causing him to become sick. When he passed away on

75
00:05:16,040 --> 00:05:19,560
Speaker 1: February second, it was the day after those women were

76
00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:23,000
Speaker 1: released and sent home six months earlier. That sort of

77
00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:26,240
Speaker 1: coincidence would have landed those women back in jail, but

78
00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:29,840
Speaker 1: the tide had shifted. Most people saw his death as

79
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:35,039
Speaker 1: natural and expected. There were still doubts in the air

80
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:38,800
Speaker 1: in Salem, though yes, Lydia Dustin had been acquitted, but

81
00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:41,680
Speaker 1: there were a handful of others still being held for trial,

82
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:44,719
Speaker 1: and everyone wondered if they would receive the same open

83
00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:49,160
Speaker 1: minded treatment or if criminal charges awaited them, But they

84
00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:52,080
Speaker 1: would have to wait because the Superior Court was needed

85
00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:57,360
Speaker 1: in Boston to handle other matters of governance. On February six,

86
00:05:57,640 --> 00:06:01,600
Speaker 1: just five days after Governor Phipps reprieve, Salem village minister

87
00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:05,000
Speaker 1: Samuel Paris led a small committee of members from his

88
00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:08,679
Speaker 1: congregation along the Ipswich Road to the home of Francis Nurse,

89
00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:13,119
Speaker 1: husband of Rebecca, who had been executed months before. Along

90
00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:14,800
Speaker 1: the way, they stopped at the home of their son,

91
00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:18,360
Speaker 1: Samuel Nurse, as well as John Tarbell, Rebecca's son in law.

92
00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:25,000
Speaker 1: The committee consisted of Reverend Paris, Nathaniel Ingersoll, Old Bray Wilkins,

93
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:29,800
Speaker 1: and three Putnams, although not Chief Instigator Thomas Putnam. They

94
00:06:29,839 --> 00:06:31,920
Speaker 1: made the trip out to the Nurse farm to make

95
00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:36,440
Speaker 1: a complaint about the behavior of those families. Specifically, they

96
00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:38,520
Speaker 1: were upset that the men had refused to come to

97
00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:42,600
Speaker 1: church or partake in Holy communion, and if Reverend Paris

98
00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:44,960
Speaker 1: was to be able to do his job as shepherd

99
00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:49,400
Speaker 1: of the flock. They needed to come back. From what

100
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:51,719
Speaker 1: we know, each of the men received the message in

101
00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:56,960
Speaker 1: stony silence. They didn't make excuses or explain themselves, probably

102
00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,599
Speaker 1: because the reasons should have been clear enough. Paris helped

103
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:03,359
Speaker 1: stoke the community fears that led to the deaths of

104
00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:06,560
Speaker 1: Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty, and they owed him no

105
00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:10,480
Speaker 1: excuse for being angry about that. But they all did

106
00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:12,800
Speaker 1: agree to come into the village the following day to

107
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:16,280
Speaker 1: meet the whole committee and discuss the matter. They extended

108
00:07:16,320 --> 00:07:19,520
Speaker 1: the offer to Bray Wilkins grandson Thomas as well, and

109
00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:23,120
Speaker 1: to Peter Klois, whose wife Sarah had somehow managed to

110
00:07:23,160 --> 00:07:29,000
Speaker 1: outlive her sister's Rebecca and Mary. John Tarbell arrived two

111
00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:33,200
Speaker 1: hours early and headed straight for the minister's parsonage. Paris

112
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:36,560
Speaker 1: led him upstairs to his study, where Tarbell raged at

113
00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:40,120
Speaker 1: him for over an hour. He took months of frustration

114
00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:43,679
Speaker 1: and pain and anger and swung it like a club,

115
00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:47,400
Speaker 1: pointing all of the blames squarely on Paris. If not

116
00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:50,560
Speaker 1: for the words and actions of Paris, he claimed, Rebecca

117
00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:54,600
Speaker 1: Nurse would still be alive, as would so many others

118
00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:59,400
Speaker 1: After he left, Samuel Nurse climbed the minister's stairs and

119
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:02,480
Speaker 1: did the act same thing. The only thing that saved

120
00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:05,040
Speaker 1: Paris this time was the start of the one pm

121
00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:08,240
Speaker 1: committee meeting, so both men left and walked over to

122
00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:12,040
Speaker 1: the meeting house. Imagine they didn't walk together, though there

123
00:08:12,040 --> 00:08:14,160
Speaker 1: would have been tensioned in the air between Paris and

124
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:19,400
Speaker 1: the others that borderlined on tangible. The group meeting was

125
00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:22,640
Speaker 1: just as rough for Paris. They blamed him for everything,

126
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:27,040
Speaker 1: calling him the instrument of our miseries and the beginning

127
00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:31,200
Speaker 1: and procureur of the sorest afflictions, not of this village only,

128
00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:34,800
Speaker 1: but to this whole country. But Paris was quick to

129
00:08:34,840 --> 00:08:37,600
Speaker 1: shift all the blame to God. It was God who

130
00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,120
Speaker 1: sent the evil into their community to test and refine them,

131
00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:45,440
Speaker 1: so Paris should be off the hook. Peter Cloy's didn't

132
00:08:45,440 --> 00:08:47,600
Speaker 1: come to that meeting, but he did make a trip

133
00:08:47,679 --> 00:08:51,240
Speaker 1: to Paris's house the following day. Once upstairs in the

134
00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:55,640
Speaker 1: minister's study, he did the same thing as the others. Paris,

135
00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:59,000
Speaker 1: he said, helped drive a community witch hunt that had

136
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:02,120
Speaker 1: claimed the lives of both of his wife's sisters. Was

137
00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:04,800
Speaker 1: it any wonder that he and the others had refused

138
00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:08,079
Speaker 1: to attend church and sit under his teaching and leadership.

139
00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:13,240
Speaker 1: There would be more meetings, just like the first. Paris

140
00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:15,160
Speaker 1: and the men of the Nurse family met again two

141
00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:18,720
Speaker 1: weeks later, and then twice in March, twice in April,

142
00:09:19,120 --> 00:09:22,720
Speaker 1: and then once again in May. Multiple meetings did nothing

143
00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:25,120
Speaker 1: to calm their anger, though in fact, those same men

144
00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:29,160
Speaker 1: began to lobby for the removal of Samuel Paris from Salem,

145
00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:31,920
Speaker 1: and whether it was by their influence or the powers

146
00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:35,800
Speaker 1: of other angry villagers, the rates committee continued to refuse

147
00:09:35,880 --> 00:09:38,760
Speaker 1: to collect his salary, just as they had done for

148
00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:44,000
Speaker 1: the previous two years. Things had changed in Salem. During

149
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,840
Speaker 1: March and April of a full year after the first

150
00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:51,440
Speaker 1: afflicted girls frightened the village with their unusual fits, a

151
00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:54,520
Speaker 1: fifteen year old servant girl named Mercy Short began to

152
00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:58,400
Speaker 1: have her own seizures. Cotton Mother actually took the girl

153
00:09:58,440 --> 00:10:01,240
Speaker 1: into his own home and cared for her, recording her

154
00:10:01,240 --> 00:10:05,280
Speaker 1: condition and behavior, where she claimed that forces were pinching her,

155
00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:10,960
Speaker 1: choking her, and tempting her with unheard whispers. But Mercy

156
00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:13,720
Speaker 1: Short was the orphaned daughter of a family from Maine,

157
00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:16,240
Speaker 1: where her parents had been killed in the violence of

158
00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:20,160
Speaker 1: King William's War. She had been taken captive during the fighting,

159
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:24,160
Speaker 1: but when she was finally released, she moved south to Salem.

160
00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:26,800
Speaker 1: Today we can see her as a grief stricken young

161
00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:29,880
Speaker 1: woman dealing with the trauma of her past. But Mather

162
00:10:30,080 --> 00:10:36,000
Speaker 1: diagnosed her with something different, demonic possession. That didn't stop

163
00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:39,080
Speaker 1: the stories, though. Some people who visited her during her

164
00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:42,440
Speaker 1: illness claimed they could smell brimstone in the room. Others

165
00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:45,400
Speaker 1: said they could feel the air move, hinting at invisible

166
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:48,240
Speaker 1: spirits at work in the house. It was the typical

167
00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:51,600
Speaker 1: spectral evidence we have all come to expect from Salem.

168
00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:55,000
Speaker 1: But nothing ever came of it. No one took anyone

169
00:10:55,040 --> 00:10:58,760
Speaker 1: to court over her sufferings. No names were named. Neither

170
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:01,880
Speaker 1: even wrote about her ordeal in a new pamphlet called

171
00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:05,200
Speaker 1: A Brand Plucked out of the Burning, where he stated

172
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:08,120
Speaker 1: that Mercy's real recovery would happen when she learned to

173
00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:12,760
Speaker 1: find safety and protection inside her new home in Salem.

174
00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,240
Speaker 1: In other words, her torment wasn't the work of witches

175
00:11:16,360 --> 00:11:20,800
Speaker 1: or spirits. It was nothing more than the cruelty of life.

176
00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:30,360
Speaker 1: The Superior Court met again on May tenth of to

177
00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,960
Speaker 1: hear the final cases against the last remaining which suspects.

178
00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:37,640
Speaker 1: Danforth was back as Chief Justice, with no sign of

179
00:11:37,679 --> 00:11:41,480
Speaker 1: William Stoughton. Thankfully, the majority of the cases were dismissed

180
00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 1: by the grand jury. While five of them went to trial.

181
00:11:44,880 --> 00:11:47,319
Speaker 1: All of them were found not guilty and ordered to

182
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:51,760
Speaker 1: be released upon payment of their jail fees. One of

183
00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:55,559
Speaker 1: the dismissed cases was that of the Paris family slave Tichiba.

184
00:11:56,240 --> 00:11:58,800
Speaker 1: She'd been in jail for over a year, but unlike

185
00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:02,160
Speaker 1: everyone else, he had yet to actually be indicted with

186
00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:06,720
Speaker 1: a specific crime. But Paris, showing his true colors, once again,

187
00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:10,319
Speaker 1: refused to pay her jail fees and secure her release.

188
00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:15,360
Speaker 1: Here's Pulitzer Prize winning historian Stacy Schiff, you can't leave

189
00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:18,360
Speaker 1: until you've paid your jail fees, and no one is willing,

190
00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:21,480
Speaker 1: it seems to pay titibus until later. I think she's

191
00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:24,680
Speaker 1: in jail for a year altogether. I don't know what

192
00:12:24,760 --> 00:12:26,440
Speaker 1: the what the law would have been for a slave.

193
00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:29,079
Speaker 1: They certainly didn't want her back, and we have very

194
00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:30,680
Speaker 1: little sense of where she could have gone after that.

195
00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:32,360
Speaker 1: By the way, I mean, it's interesting because she's so

196
00:12:32,440 --> 00:12:35,240
Speaker 1: completely at the heart of this and therefore would have

197
00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:39,480
Speaker 1: been very much spoiled goods. It turns out Titchiba was

198
00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:43,880
Speaker 1: essentially confiscated by the state, like an abandoned piece of property.

199
00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:46,360
Speaker 1: She would have been sold off to the highest bidder,

200
00:12:46,440 --> 00:12:49,840
Speaker 1: although we have no record of that transaction, but the

201
00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:53,439
Speaker 1: full picture of the dehumanization of a slave in colonial

202
00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:59,080
Speaker 1: New England couldn't be more clear. Meanwhile, the conflict continued

203
00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:02,040
Speaker 1: between Paris and the villagers who remembered his role in

204
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:06,040
Speaker 1: fanning the flames of fear. Let's be clear, Samuel Paris

205
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,440
Speaker 1: did not deliberately drive the chaos forward, and he didn't

206
00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:13,000
Speaker 1: create the tension between feuding families in the area. But

207
00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:15,720
Speaker 1: he did use his position to poke at those sore

208
00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:19,360
Speaker 1: spots and draw attention to them. He didn't create the fear,

209
00:13:19,760 --> 00:13:22,320
Speaker 1: but he certainly wielded it like a tool to advance

210
00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:27,280
Speaker 1: his own causes. These people confronted Paris about his failures

211
00:13:27,320 --> 00:13:32,400
Speaker 1: for over two years. Finally, in November of six Paris

212
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:34,920
Speaker 1: wrote an apology of sorts and read it out loud

213
00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:38,400
Speaker 1: during a Sunday service. But it was too little, too late,

214
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:41,760
Speaker 1: and far from an actual apology. In fact, it was

215
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:44,280
Speaker 1: more of the same old blame shifting that he loved

216
00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:47,640
Speaker 1: to engage in. This wasn't really his fault, he said.

217
00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:50,760
Speaker 1: The events of six two had been a rebuke by

218
00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:54,839
Speaker 1: God for events that had begun inside his house. Titchuba

219
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:57,880
Speaker 1: and John Indian were both to blame because they had

220
00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:00,640
Speaker 1: helped Mary Sibley make the Yearine cake to ward off

221
00:14:00,679 --> 00:14:03,520
Speaker 1: the devil. Magic had been used in his house to

222
00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:07,360
Speaker 1: fight magic, and God was angry about that. In the end,

223
00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:11,199
Speaker 1: his apology was really just a lot of excuses about

224
00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:15,280
Speaker 1: why he wasn't to blame. It took two more years

225
00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:18,559
Speaker 1: before Samuel Paris grew weary of the countless meetings and

226
00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:23,160
Speaker 1: conversations about his failures in sixteen ninety two. In April

227
00:14:23,240 --> 00:14:26,200
Speaker 1: of sixteen ninety six, he informed the village elders that

228
00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:29,200
Speaker 1: he would be leaving his position as minister, much to

229
00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:33,120
Speaker 1: the relief of many families in the area, but he

230
00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:36,880
Speaker 1: held onto the parsonage until early sixteen ninety seven, when

231
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:40,000
Speaker 1: the church finally gave him his unpaid salary as a

232
00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:43,040
Speaker 1: bribe to pack up and leave. He moved to Stowe,

233
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:46,120
Speaker 1: Massachusetts to take a position in a church there, but

234
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:48,680
Speaker 1: was quickly caught up in a dispute with the elders

235
00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:55,920
Speaker 1: the issue his salary. Of course, another church experienced some

236
00:14:56,000 --> 00:15:00,120
Speaker 1: change in January of sixty seven. As Samuel Willard was

237
00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:03,240
Speaker 1: walking up the center aisle of Boston's Third Church, a

238
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:06,520
Speaker 1: hand reached out and handed him a letter. It was

239
00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:09,120
Speaker 1: Judge Samuel Sewell, one of the men to sit on

240
00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:12,280
Speaker 1: both the Court of Oyer and Terminer and the Superior Court,

241
00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:15,800
Speaker 1: and the letter came with instructions to be read aloud immediately.

242
00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:21,280
Speaker 1: It was an apology, not from the collective judges, just

243
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:24,840
Speaker 1: from him. But it was a real apology, standing in

244
00:15:24,880 --> 00:15:28,160
Speaker 1: sharp contrast to the blame shifting that Paris had engaged in.

245
00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:32,120
Speaker 1: Sewell expressed his deep regret for what had taken place

246
00:15:32,240 --> 00:15:35,320
Speaker 1: under his supervision. He asked for the blame to fall

247
00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:39,760
Speaker 1: on his shoulders, and begged for prayers of forgiveness. And

248
00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:42,280
Speaker 1: he used a word that had been spoken seldom in

249
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:46,440
Speaker 1: regards to the actions of the Court sin. It wasn't

250
00:15:46,520 --> 00:15:48,680
Speaker 1: just that they had made mistakes, but that they had

251
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:53,080
Speaker 1: committed crimes against God. Sewell's prayer was that the punishment

252
00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:56,000
Speaker 1: for his own sin would stop with him, rather than

253
00:15:56,040 --> 00:16:00,680
Speaker 1: spilling out onto the community and his own family. No

254
00:16:00,800 --> 00:16:04,240
Speaker 1: other judges ever made the same sort of public apology,

255
00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:07,160
Speaker 1: but others from different parts of the system joined him later.

256
00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:10,640
Speaker 1: Thomas Fisk had been the foreman of the jury during

257
00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:13,720
Speaker 1: the Oyer and Terminal trials, and he released a statement

258
00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:17,000
Speaker 1: along with eleven other jurymen. They acknowledged that they had

259
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:19,480
Speaker 1: been led on by the judges to do horrible things

260
00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:23,480
Speaker 1: that resulted in innocent blood spilled, and they begged for forgiveness.

261
00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:28,160
Speaker 1: The public was beginning to feel more and more bold

262
00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:32,240
Speaker 1: with their anger about the handling of the trials. In seven,

263
00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:36,120
Speaker 1: Boston merchant Robert Caliph published a collection of papers from

264
00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,080
Speaker 1: the trial that only he could have put together. Not

265
00:16:39,200 --> 00:16:41,560
Speaker 1: only had he been a wealthy merchant, but he also

266
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:44,240
Speaker 1: served as a constable for a time, and that gave

267
00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:47,440
Speaker 1: him access to documents and people that otherwise would have

268
00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:52,240
Speaker 1: been out of reach. He titled his publication More Wonders

269
00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:55,800
Speaker 1: of the Invisible World, a direct attack against Cotton Mather's

270
00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:58,440
Speaker 1: own book of a similar title that had been written

271
00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:02,720
Speaker 1: as a pr tactic defense of the trials. Half pulled

272
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,400
Speaker 1: no punches, making sure the utter failure of the Massachusetts

273
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:10,760
Speaker 1: leadership was on full display. He even took another stab

274
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:13,880
Speaker 1: at Cotton Mother by naming one of his chapters another

275
00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:17,439
Speaker 1: brand plucked out of the Burning, referencing Mathers report on

276
00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:21,359
Speaker 1: Mercy Short that I mentioned earlier. The book features interviews

277
00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:25,480
Speaker 1: with Captain John Alden, Nathaniel Carey, and George Jacobs Jr.

278
00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:28,399
Speaker 1: All of whom had escaped Salem in the chaos of

279
00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:32,560
Speaker 1: the Fall of six two but had since returned, and

280
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,320
Speaker 1: he made it clear just how widely it was known

281
00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Corwin was skimming from the confiscations, but in

282
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:42,400
Speaker 1: the midst of his attack on the judges and leadership,

283
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:46,240
Speaker 1: Caleff gives us one last glimpse into the story of Tichiba.

284
00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:50,240
Speaker 1: In his book, Califf reveals her own testimony about what

285
00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:54,960
Speaker 1: happened in six She confirmed that Paris had indeed beaten

286
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:57,520
Speaker 1: a confession out of her, and that he coached her

287
00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:00,720
Speaker 1: on what to say and how to say it. The

288
00:18:00,760 --> 00:18:03,480
Speaker 1: most surprising part of her interview with Caliph is that

289
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,200
Speaker 1: it takes place after she was sold by the state

290
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:08,919
Speaker 1: to pay for the jail fees. We still don't know

291
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:11,960
Speaker 1: the specifics of that sale or where she ended up,

292
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:14,719
Speaker 1: but apparently Caliph knew enough about it to track her

293
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:17,199
Speaker 1: down and speak with her. She might have been treated

294
00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:19,399
Speaker 1: like a piece of property by many of the people

295
00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:23,200
Speaker 1: in power, but to Robert Caliph, Titchiba was just one

296
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:26,600
Speaker 1: more reliable witness, a human being who had lived through

297
00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:31,439
Speaker 1: hell and had valuable information to share. But it was

298
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:34,280
Speaker 1: nothing more than a snapshot of a wisp of smoke.

299
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:40,240
Speaker 1: After her brief mention in Caliph's book, that's the last

300
00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:44,480
Speaker 1: we ever hear from her, Pitchiba has vanished from the

301
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:55,080
Speaker 1: public records forever. After every tragedy, community has to learn

302
00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 1: to stand back up and rebuild. We see this today

303
00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:02,879
Speaker 1: after natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. We see it

304
00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:06,399
Speaker 1: happen in war torn countries. We see it happen in

305
00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:11,800
Speaker 1: our own lives. Storms bring damage, and that damage needs repaired.

306
00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:17,440
Speaker 1: Salem Village wasn't unique in that regard. Yes, their storm

307
00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:21,439
Speaker 1: was unusual and unique among the pages of American history,

308
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:25,080
Speaker 1: and yes it was a storm crafted by the people

309
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 1: who lived there. But regardless of all of that, they

310
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,080
Speaker 1: still had work to do if they wanted to move on.

311
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:35,879
Speaker 1: The departure of Reverend Samuel Paris left the position of

312
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:39,080
Speaker 1: Minister vacant in Salem Village, but they soon filled it

313
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:43,080
Speaker 1: Joseph Green was a brand new graduate from Harvard and

314
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:46,960
Speaker 1: a baby at just twenty two. Reports describe him as

315
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:51,119
Speaker 1: socially outgoing and gregarious, and apparently a bit more open

316
00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:55,240
Speaker 1: minded than the former minister. One of the first things

317
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:58,200
Speaker 1: he did was institute the Halfway Covenant in the village

318
00:19:58,280 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 1: church that meant people could become full members without the

319
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 1: humiliation of public confession. He baptized the families that Paris

320
00:20:06,040 --> 00:20:08,800
Speaker 1: had pushed out of the church, and even rearranged the

321
00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:12,480
Speaker 1: seating chart for the Sunday service to place the Putnam's

322
00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:17,119
Speaker 1: and the nurses on the same bench. By the early

323
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,520
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, the church in Salem Village was on the men.

324
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: Reverend Green led the church in removing Martha Corey's excommunication.

325
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:29,280
Speaker 1: They founded a community school, built a brand new, larger

326
00:20:29,359 --> 00:20:33,680
Speaker 1: meeting house, and instituted an annual Thanksgiving fundraiser to support

327
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 1: the needy among them. They had transition from selfish, inward

328
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:43,400
Speaker 1: looking people to a community that cared about the outsider. Then,

329
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:48,800
Speaker 1: in August of seventeen o six, something amazing happened. Annie Putnam,

330
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:51,600
Speaker 1: daughter of Thomas and Ann Putnam, and one of the

331
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:56,480
Speaker 1: chief instigators of the spectral evidence, approached Reverend Green and

332
00:20:56,560 --> 00:20:59,760
Speaker 1: asked to become a full member of the church. Here

333
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:02,719
Speaker 1: is one of the girls responsible for setting the village

334
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:05,240
Speaker 1: on fire with fear that took the lives of over

335
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 1: two dozen people, and she wanted to sit beside her

336
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: neighbors in church and be a part of the community.

337
00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:16,880
Speaker 1: And Green agreed. He helped her craft her apology, which

338
00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 1: he then wrote down in the Minister's Record Book, a

339
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:24,440
Speaker 1: book that historian Richard Trask allowed me to hold. I

340
00:21:24,560 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 1: see some like modern edges to the page. Know what

341
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,199
Speaker 1: this is is called leaf casting. What they did was

342
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:35,040
Speaker 1: they cast on new new paper on the old. And

343
00:21:35,080 --> 00:21:42,679
Speaker 1: then this is the confession of and Putnam in the

344
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:47,359
Speaker 1: early seventeen hundreds. And she says, basically, I desire to

345
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 1: be laid low in the dust of humility for accusing

346
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:57,040
Speaker 1: people that I now believe we're innocent. And it was

347
00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,320
Speaker 1: her way of trying to give amends so that she

348
00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: could become a full church member. Is there is the

349
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,440
Speaker 1: confession that's in the book. Here's this in her handwriting,

350
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,800
Speaker 1: special signature dictated by her into the book, and then

351
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 1: she signs it herself. That confession was also delivered to

352
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:18,200
Speaker 1: the congregation by Anne herself. She stood in her place

353
00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:21,800
Speaker 1: in the meeting house on August and read the confession

354
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,919
Speaker 1: out loud. Here's historian Stacy Schiff. She says she was

355
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,520
Speaker 1: essentially led us stray right. It's a little bit the

356
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 1: devil made me do it kind of excuse, but she

357
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:34,359
Speaker 1: does indicate that she was. She doesn't address how she

358
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: came up with these spectral images. She simply says that

359
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:42,879
Speaker 1: she was misguided and deluded, and the congregation accepted her.

360
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:45,840
Speaker 1: She became a full member in the church and attended

361
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:49,119
Speaker 1: right alongside the families of the people she helped execute.

362
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:52,000
Speaker 1: It was a powerful symbol of the healing that needed

363
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 1: to happen, but it also belies a darker undercurrent. The

364
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: families of the victims were still in agony, and they

365
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: were out to cry out for justice. The first place

366
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:06,159
Speaker 1: to start, in the minds of many was for the

367
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,159
Speaker 1: government to reverse the charges against the people who had

368
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: been tried and convicted in Sixto, to restore their innocency,

369
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 1: as they said, But they also wanted financial restitution. Remember,

370
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: many of the people who were executed and convicted lost everything.

371
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,080
Speaker 1: If the husband was executed, every piece of his property

372
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: was confiscated by the states, even if there was a

373
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 1: widow and children left behind. Single women faced the same devastation,

374
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 1: and many others experienced death blows to their business or

375
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: personal finances. Something had to be done to fix it.

376
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:46,360
Speaker 1: In seventeen oh three, the convictions of Abigail Faulkner, Sarah Wardwell,

377
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Proctor were reversed, and then in seventeen ten,

378
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: the Massachusetts legislature set up a committee to investigate what

379
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,199
Speaker 1: else they might be able to do. The members of

380
00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: that committee arrived in Salem in September of that year,

381
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,400
Speaker 1: and during their six day visit they received forty five

382
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: petitions for restitution. Every one you might have expected was

383
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 1: part of that list. Sarah Good's husband, William, the nurses

384
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 1: and stes and carriers. Charles Burrows, the oldest son of

385
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 1: the executed minister from Maine, added his name to the list,

386
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: as did Philip English. In fact, he submitted a list

387
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: of items stolen by Sheriff George Corwen and filed suit

388
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 1: against the man. George Jacobs Jr. Who had returned from

389
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:36,160
Speaker 1: hiding elsewhere, also submitted a list. His included cows and pigs,

390
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: sixty bushels of corn, a quantity of pewter bed rugs, blankets, pillows,

391
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:47,119
Speaker 1: and other furniture, all taken by Corwen. It took the

392
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: committee more than a year to hand over a decision,

393
00:24:50,040 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: but when they did, the General Court acted on it immediately.

394
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,679
Speaker 1: They reversed the property seizures of twelve executed witches, along

395
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: with Jihles Corey and seven others who had been convicted

396
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,679
Speaker 1: but not killed. But if you're trying to do the

397
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: math in your head to keep up, you might have

398
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 1: noticed a gap. Seven convictions for witchcraft still remained in place,

399
00:25:10,440 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: bridget Bishop Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, and pudiator Wilma Reid,

400
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: Margaret Scott and Elizabeth Johnson, and while attempts were made

401
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: over the years to address their cases, it wasn't until

402
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 1: two thousand one that their convictions were finally reversed. Yes,

403
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 1: I said two thousand one, three hundred years after the

404
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: trials ended. Apologies and reparations aside, there was a lot

405
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 1: of silence from the people who should have spoken out.

406
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: Part of that was pride. William Stoughton, for example, never

407
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: apologized and continued to believe for the rest of his life,

408
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: that he had done everything right. Others might have felt shame,

409
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:02,199
Speaker 1: but they atled it up and kept quiet to avoid

410
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: the attention. But there were others who began to do

411
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: something more sinister. They covered up their tracks. Here's Stacy

412
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: shifted once again. There's deafening silence all around, and it's

413
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: almost a conspiracy. And when you look at when you

414
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: begin to look at the record, the diaries have been

415
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: purged from those years. The congregations book, as you know,

416
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: Paris pulls out those entries for those months, so that

417
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: we don't have those entries. The court records are missing.

418
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: Even Samuel Willard, who is one of the great Boston ministers,

419
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: we have his compendium of sermons, which is an enormous volume,

420
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,240
Speaker 1: but missing are the sermons from that summer. So there's

421
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:40,719
Speaker 1: clearly a sense of shock to the system and a

422
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: sense of regret, and I think of tremendous guilt at

423
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: what has happened. There seems to be a realization that

424
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: no one really articulates until Samuel Sewell, one of the judges,

425
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: finally does, But there does seem to be this Could

426
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 1: we cover this up as quickly as possible? Could we

427
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: make it go away feeling. And it wasn't just personal

428
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,159
Speaker 1: records that went missing. There were more than thirty witchcraft

429
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,439
Speaker 1: trials held by the Superior Court in early and we

430
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: have all of those court records. But it's the Oyer

431
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: and Terminer, the court that ran through most of six

432
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: that seems to have fallen off the books, and what's

433
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: happened to them has never been discovered. Of course, researchers

434
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: stumble upon new items from time to time. That's the

435
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: sort of thing that historian Richard Trask keeps his eye

436
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,959
Speaker 1: out for. Once in a while. Um, we find some

437
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: of the documents. Often we've just not looked hot enough

438
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: within the traditional sources that they located there. Other times

439
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: something pops up that became an archival astray centuries ago

440
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: and it comes back in when the witchcraft was over.

441
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: Many of these documents Scott Scattered that was a governor

442
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts during the pre Revolutionary period, Thomas Hutchison who

443
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 1: wrote a history of Massachusetts, and he actually was given

444
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of these very important documents. And Hutchison

445
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: was a Tory and during the Stamp Act Crisis of

446
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty five, when the American provincials were mad at England.

447
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,679
Speaker 1: They attacked his house, and they scattered all of his

448
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:23,679
Speaker 1: papers outside on the ground, and so forth. Some historians

449
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: have seen the missing documents as an attempt to erase

450
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:30,400
Speaker 1: a terrible mistake, to save the leadership of Massachusetts from

451
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:34,119
Speaker 1: the shame that came with the aftermath. Nineteenth century author

452
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: Charles W. Upham wrote the book Salem Witchcraft in eighteen

453
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: sixty seven that pushes just such a notion, and it's

454
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:45,800
Speaker 1: a popular take on a historical mystery. These missing records

455
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: weren't lost, they say they were deleted. We also have

456
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: three centuries of descendants involved with a lot of these cases.

457
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: One of the judges in both the Oil and Terminer

458
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: and the Superior Court was wait Still Winthrop. He was

459
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: a prolific letter writer who traded correspondence with his brother

460
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: fitz John Winthrop all through the sixteen eighties and nineties,

461
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: But letters from sixteen ninety two and ninety three are missing,

462
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: and many historians believe that was the work of later

463
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 1: generations who wanted to hide their family shame. Even Samuel

464
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: Parris did a bit of track covering. He kept extensive

465
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: notes of his observations of the afflicted girls and their

466
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: spectral visions, as well as records of other witness testimony.

467
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: And yet only one page from one of those notebooks

468
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: still exists, suggesting that Paris destroyed the collection before it

469
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: could be seized or found. But of course, time went

470
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 1: on in Salem Village. In the seventeen fifties, nearly a

471
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: century after they began to ask for their independence from

472
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: Salem Town. That freedom was granted. They changed their name

473
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: to Danvers and have become a very distinct community from

474
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: their neighbors in Salem over the past two and a

475
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: half centuries, and they're very proud of that. Some people

476
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: who suffered through the events of sixteen ninety two were

477
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: less proud, though. Sarah Klois had lost both of her sisters,

478
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: Mary st and Rebecca Nurse, and couldn't bear to stay

479
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: in the village. Afterward, she and her husband Peter moved

480
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: south towards modern day, framing him setting off a sort

481
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: of minor exodus. My seventeen hundred, just eight years after

482
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: they'd left, they found themselves in the center of a

483
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: community of roughly fifty former Salem neighbors. Peter and Sarah

484
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: became central figures in this new neighborhood of framing him

485
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: known as Salem end one more interesting side note that

486
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: I just can't leave out of the story. Historian Richard

487
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 1: Trask is a Danvers native and descended from multiple victims

488
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: of the sixteen ninety two which trials. He's lived within

489
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: this historical narrative his entire life, but also with the

490
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: unique perspective of literally living in the neighborhood where much

491
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: of it began. According to him, even up until in

492
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, there was an isolated group of neighbors in

493
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: the area of Center Street and Danvers that had held

494
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: onto the old Salem village accent. Trask refers to it

495
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: as the Center Street Twang. Just one little artifact among

496
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: so many others that gives texture and character to what

497
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: took place there over three d twenty five years ago.

498
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: But the Salem witch Trials could never stay local. The

499
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: events were immediately attractive to writers and historians, and word

500
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: about the tragedy spread. In seventeen twenty, the first regional

501
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: history of New England to include the witch trials was

502
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: published in London by Daniel Neil. It gave prominence to

503
00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: the events and helped a wider audience learn about what

504
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: took place in sixte Neil does an admirable job of

505
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: helping people see logic over superstition. The Trials happened because

506
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: of human error and misjudgments, not a satanic plot to

507
00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: overthrow a Puritan community. But he also put on paper

508
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: of view that has clouded the public perception of the

509
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: Trials ever since, that it was purely a battle between

510
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: credulous bigots on one side and the advance of reason

511
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: and science on the other. But Neil's approach paints in

512
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: black and white a picture that had a lot more

513
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: nuance than he would admit. Those anti science religious leaders

514
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:23,600
Speaker 1: were actually very pro science. Sure, there were a few

515
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: who muddied the water men like Cotton Mother come to mind,

516
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: of course, but most of the ministers in Massachusetts were

517
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: also the most interested in modern science. Here's historian Maryland

518
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: k Roach. I think people generally see the sale in

519
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: which trials is something so bizarre they can't really identify

520
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,239
Speaker 1: with it. That it's something foolish people did because they

521
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 1: didn't know any better. They didn't have computers, they didn't

522
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: have this, They didn't know that. And we're smarty than there.

523
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 1: But they were educated people and well intentioned people who,

524
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: even by the lights of their own philosophy in their

525
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: own time, include to have figured out that things were

526
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: not proceeding as they should without converting to twenty one

527
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: century skepticism. For example, the Harvard Professor of American History

528
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: Jane Kamensky agrees and sees the truth as a call

529
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: to humility. These are the best minds of their generation.

530
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: These are the most educated, the most advanced thinkers and scientists,

531
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: the philosophers who have access to the latest findings and

532
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: ways of thinking morally and ethically, acting morally and ethically

533
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: in their universe. They cannot be laughed off. They are

534
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: the smartest, most privileged people of their times. Confronted with

535
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: something that is awful to them, and they act in

536
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: ways that come to seem, even within a couple of years,

537
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: almost miraculously terribly um and yet they do it with

538
00:33:59,760 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: the best of intentions and the sharpest of tools. If

539
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: that doesn't encourage a kind of radical humility and second

540
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: guessing and checking in with each other about who's doing

541
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,359
Speaker 1: what to when, whom, why, I don't know what? Does

542
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: it might sound like I'm making a big deal out

543
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: of a little thing. But Neil's position influenced almost two

544
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: centuries of public opinion, which contributed to how the events

545
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: had become so misunderstood over time. Even more dangerous, though,

546
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: his attitude about Salem lulls us into a false sense

547
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: of safety, because if Neil was correct, then the events

548
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:42,959
Speaker 1: in Salem were a product of an earlier time when

549
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: superstition ranked higher than reason. And since we've grown up

550
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: since then, and science has brought new advancements and pushed

551
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: away the shadows of superstition, it would be easy to

552
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 1: think that we as a culture have outgrown such a

553
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: tragic failure. But oh how wrong we would be. Technology

554
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 1: and advancements and science only gives us tools. How we

555
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: use those tools is guided by human nature. It's important

556
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,720
Speaker 1: to remember that advancements in ship building and cartography allowed

557
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: the exploration of the New World, but also empowered the

558
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: Transatlantic slave trade. Social media connects us, but it also

559
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: poisoned the well. Science alone can't save us again. We

560
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: are very hard in the people of I think if

561
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: you look back on on our on our perspective, in

562
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 1: three years, people may be heard on us and again,

563
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:38,280
Speaker 1: despite the best intentions of people to create a good, orderly,

564
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: godly society. Bad things happen, and I think the lesson

565
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: is if we can just try to be understanding you

566
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,239
Speaker 1: kind of people, you know, and try to get through

567
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: it as best we can, and try to look towards

568
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,399
Speaker 1: the good and human nature and try to avoid those

569
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: sort of base reflexes as much as possible. You know,

570
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: it's not a happy ending, and we just hope people

571
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 1: learn from it. Historians might have spent centuries dissecting the

572
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,840
Speaker 1: Salem which trials and placing the blame at the feet

573
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: of various notions, but there's one thing everyone can agree on.

574
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: Popular culture loves to retell the story. Arthur Miller's The

575
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: Crucible immediately comes to mind for many, and it's certainly

576
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 1: a powerful piece of entertainment. Here's Marilyn kay Roach once

577
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: again atha Miller's play, which is creative fiction, but definitely

578
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 1: on the part about not being believed when you're telling

579
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: the truth, so you lie and then they believe you.

580
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,800
Speaker 1: That's that hits the nail on the head. Yes, Miller

581
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: helped bring attention to the Salem events, but he also

582
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 1: borrowed fictional elements from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hawthorne,

583
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: treating legend as fact. He even blended individual details from

584
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 1: the trials into new chimera, like moments that didn't actually

585
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: take place and details are just playing wrong. In The Crucible,

586
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,879
Speaker 1: Miller portrays Dan Fourth as the chief Justice hell bent

587
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: on executing as many which is as possible, while in

588
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 1: truth that man was William Stowton. Of course, Dan Fourth

589
00:37:17,520 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 1: and Stowton aren't the only figures from Salem to receive

590
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: a massage treatment from storytellers and historians over the years.

591
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 1: In fact, it maybe the most mysterious one of them

592
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: all that has received the most attention. Tichiba. The most

593
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: obvious transformation we see in modern retellings of the Salem

594
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: events happens when storytellers saw that Tichiba was a slave,

595
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: and because they identify slavery with blackness, she was pushed

596
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,839
Speaker 1: into that mold. In the process, the role of indigenous

597
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: people's in the tale are reduced or removed completely. Other

598
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: layers have been added over the years as well, giving

599
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: Tichiba actual powers of witchcraft or voodoo, sometimes going as

600
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: far as to put the full responsibility for what happens

601
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 1: square early on her shoulders. I remember hearing the story

602
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: of the Salem witch trials for the first time decades ago,

603
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,439
Speaker 1: and whoever it was that recited it to me did

604
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,279
Speaker 1: just that, stating as a fact that it was all

605
00:38:11,320 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: Titchuba's fault. After twelve episodes, though, I think all of

606
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: us know just how wrong that was. But the most

607
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: common question historians are asked, hands down, is what they

608
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: think the real cause was for the witchcraft panic. It's

609
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:28,920
Speaker 1: a good question, and it comes from a place of

610
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 1: genuine interest, but it also hints at the misconception that

611
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: the events in Salem can be boiled down to one

612
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: single reason, like a magic pill that covers all the symptoms. Sadly,

613
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: there is no such simple answer. A lot of people

614
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: like to bring up the hypothesis that the entire community

615
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: fell victim to ergot poisoning. Ergot, you see, is a

616
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: fungus and under the right conditions, it can grow on

617
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: rye and other grains. If humans ingest the erga with

618
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: the grains, it can cause medical conditions such as convulsions

619
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: and fits. But history professor Mary Beth Norton disagrees. I

620
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: don't see or good even if it's possible, um, which

621
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: I think is very unlikely, is a real explanation. I

622
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: researched for my book cases in England and America before

623
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 1: six in which young children began to have what were

624
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: described as fits that were then attributed to witchcraft, and

625
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: I discovered that it was a not unusual pattern. It

626
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 1: was it wasn't necessary, it was common, but it was known.

627
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: It was a known pattern, and it was a pattern

628
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 1: when children were in intensely religious households, as indeed they

629
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 1: were in the household of Samuel Paris. Social and cultural

630
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,359
Speaker 1: norms aside. There are even medical reasons why er goot

631
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 1: poisoning misses the target, because urgotism presents with certain symptoms

632
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: depending on whether or not the patient has a vitamin

633
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,879
Speaker 1: A deficiency. If they lack vitamin A, they might have convulsions.

634
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:08,919
Speaker 1: If not, it's most likely to present as gang green

635
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 1: and a great source of vitamin A, it turns out,

636
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: is fish. Considering the fact that Salem was a support

637
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: community and many of the afflicted were from wealthy families,

638
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that their diets lacked vitamin A, so no

639
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: no matter how attractive the idea might be, er goot

640
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 1: poisoning was not involved. Others have suggested encephalitis, which is

641
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: an infection in the brain that causes inflammation. Honestly, there

642
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: have been a lot of theories. Tomorrow someone might suggest

643
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: a different illness altogether, but all of them fail to

644
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: explain the actual experience of the afflicted girls. Nothing covers

645
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: the hallucinations and the convulsions, all while the girls were

646
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 1: observed by countless people around them to be healthy and fit.

647
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:00,400
Speaker 1: The less sexy answer is that the afflicted girl, and

648
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,399
Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, the rest of their community, we're

649
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 1: all suffering through the intense fear and trauma of a

650
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: war that was creeping closer to their homes. They lived

651
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 1: in a world where politics and religion were creating bitter

652
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,720
Speaker 1: rivalries and driving wedges between neighbors, where the line between

653
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: truth and lies was becoming increasingly blurry. In the end,

654
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 1: people were just really scared. Don't get me wrong, There's

655
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 1: nothing inherently bad about bringing fresh eyes and new perspectives

656
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: to the table. New questions about the problems inside Salem

657
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: help us move the study of it all forward. That's

658
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 1: why we now consider King William's War to be an

659
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: essential component of the Salem story, but we have to

660
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: be careful to not become clouded by popular ideas that

661
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: ignore the real facts. Today, if you mentioned the sale

662
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: in which trials most people conjure up images of victims

663
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: burning at the stake, of women being tied to stones

664
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: and tossed into water to see if they'll float. We

665
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 1: imagine crowds of villagers with pitchforks and torches, and people

666
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: pulled out of their beds in the middle of a night.

667
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 1: And none of that ever happened in Salem. At the

668
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: same time, what did happen in Salem, to some degree,

669
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: keeps happening in our own world over and over again.

670
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: They might not always involve accusations of witchcraft, but we've

671
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 1: come to think of them all as witch hunts. Nonetheless,

672
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: here's Richard Trask. You have to confront your own period

673
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:32,919
Speaker 1: of witch hunts with clear vision and bravery, because this

674
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:37,160
Speaker 1: is not something that happened back in It's almost always

675
00:42:37,239 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 1: with us. From the interment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps,

676
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 1: to the Army McCarthy hearings, the Red Scare to time

677
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,839
Speaker 1: and time again, these kinds of things happen. We can

678
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: spend the story of Salem however we want. We can

679
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: look for outside forces like illness or drug induced to

680
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: lucin nations, or point to the age old battle between

681
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:05,359
Speaker 1: superstition and science. We can invent any number of excuses,

682
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: but none of it comes close to the most obvious

683
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:12,760
Speaker 1: answer on the table, the Salem which trials happened because

684
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 1: humans were involved, and we have a very long track

685
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: record of making a mess of things. History is safe

686
00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:30,600
Speaker 1: because it sits in the past. It happened, and now

687
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 1: there's distance between us and the tragedy. After over five years,

688
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: we talked more about witch hunts in the metaphorical sense

689
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: than the literal, But the truth is long after Salem,

690
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: real witch hunts were still threatening innocent lives. In seven

691
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:51,919
Speaker 1: there was a case in Philadelphia involving a woman who

692
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: was accused by her neighbors of being a witch. An

693
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: angry mob brutally murdered her out of fear. In seventeen nine,

694
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,000
Speaker 1: another woman was suspected of being a witch in York, Maine,

695
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: and she was viciously attacked because of it. In the

696
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,359
Speaker 1: second half of the nineteenth century, a Methodist minister named

697
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: James Monroe Buckley traveled across the United States and interviewed

698
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: people about their beliefs, and witchcraft was a common feature

699
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:21,359
Speaker 1: of many of their tales. According to Buckley, there were

700
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: more than fifty lawsuits involving witchcraft in the eighteen eighties.

701
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: Old beliefs. It seems we're far from gone. Those later

702
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: witchcraft accusations were always pointed at the usual suspects, the

703
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: outsiders in society. Irish Americans accused their New Scottish immigrant neighbors,

704
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 1: German American communities accused immigrants from Eastern Europe, and most

705
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,479
Speaker 1: common of all, white colonizers and settlers accused the Native

706
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 1: Americans around them. But Salem still sits on the pedestal

707
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,479
Speaker 1: for most people. It's become the popular icon of witch

708
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: hunts in most people's minds. Then Professor of history Emerson

709
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: Baker sometimes wonders why that is why Salem, Because by

710
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: European standards, Salem unfortunately is a fly speck. You know,

711
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: in the Great Age of witch hunts over several hundred

712
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 1: years in Europe, we know that about a hundred thousand

713
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 1: people were prosecuted and about half of them were executed

714
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: for witchcraft, you know, in in in in Cologne, Germany.

715
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: There was a tenure witchcraft outbreak from the sixteen twenties

716
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: to the sixteen thirties where hundreds and hundreds of people

717
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 1: lost their lives. And I've been I don't know if

718
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: you've been a clone. It's a beautiful city, but no

719
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:33,359
Speaker 1: one calls it the witch city. So and you know,

720
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: why is it that that's that? Salem, right is the

721
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,359
Speaker 1: witch city? So? And again to me, I think it's live.

722
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,200
Speaker 1: It has to do with this confluence of of things

723
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: coming together in this supposedly utopian Puritan place and that

724
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: we're we're sort of living, still living in many ways

725
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the the attraction to Salem is undeniable.

726
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: If there were a disneyland devoted to witchcraft, Salem, Massachusetts

727
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: would be it. Museums and tours and list shops and

728
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:05,280
Speaker 1: monuments all devoted to the idea of witchcraft. But outside

729
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 1: of Salem, that phrase witch hunt has an altogether different meaning.

730
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 1: In the run up to the Civil War, when Northern

731
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:17,879
Speaker 1: politicians were condemning slavery as evil and a curse, their

732
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: Southern counterparts used the events in Salem in their defense

733
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 1: of it. According to them, it was the ancestors of

734
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,760
Speaker 1: the North that burned witches by the cord. They claimed

735
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:31,879
Speaker 1: that Northern abolitionism was just another version of that same misguided,

736
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: fanatical movement, and said the witch hunt had simply shifted

737
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:39,280
Speaker 1: to slave owners, Setting aside the fact that no victims

738
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:43,839
Speaker 1: were ever burned in Salem. Those Southern politicians demonstrated just

739
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: how easy it was to take a specific concept and

740
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 1: apply it to anything we want. But just because someone

741
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,800
Speaker 1: claims to be the victim of a witch hunt doesn't

742
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: make it true. Even today, the term which is still

743
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: used as a slur, although there are some who wear

744
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: it proudly as a badge of honor. But it's the

745
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: underlying concept that's the most common, the belief that there

746
00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: are people in society who prey on our fears, who

747
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: represent that dreaded insider threat. We don't always do it intentionally,

748
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: but labeling someone the enemy is a lot easier the

749
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: more diverse the world around us becomes. Historical witch hunts

750
00:47:22,080 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: targeted the other in society, the people who didn't tow

751
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 1: the line or play by the rules. It singled out

752
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 1: the newcomers and the foreigners, the irreligious, and the poor.

753
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: It always happened in places where communities felt as if

754
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:39,360
Speaker 1: their worldview and identity were under attack, and when humans

755
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:44,439
Speaker 1: feel threatened, we look for scapegoats to target. If only

756
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 1: there was a way for us to leave the darkest

757
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 1: parts of our past behind us, or find some magical

758
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 1: elixir that would create the kind of well ordered, critical

759
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: thinking society that we all idealize. But if all the

760
00:47:56,480 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 1: lessons that Salem teaches us that one is the most bitter,

761
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: there is no easy solution. The events in Salem ended

762
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: over three years ago, but the reasons behind them have

763
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: never really gone away. They've never let go or lost

764
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: their powerful hold over us. The forces that led a

765
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: community to kill twenty innocent people and allow five others

766
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 1: to die in jail will never go away because they're

767
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: inside each and every one of us. In the end,

768
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:32,959
Speaker 1: all we can hope to do is remember and learn

769
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:38,360
Speaker 1: from the past. Nothing is guaranteed, but perhaps with a

770
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:45,360
Speaker 1: bit of humility and compassion, we can be better. And

771
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 1: that's it for Season one of Unobscured. I hope you've

772
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: enjoyed the journey as much as my team and I

773
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 1: have enjoyed creating it for you. If you love the show,

774
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: don't forget to head over to Apple Podcasts dot com

775
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: slash Unobscured to leave a written review and a star

776
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 1: rating to tell the world why they need to be

777
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,800
Speaker 1: listening to this show. But we're not finished just yet.

778
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: First season two is already in development, so be sure

779
00:49:10,680 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 1: to stay subscribed to the show so you don't miss

780
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: any announcements about that. Second, our six historians had a

781
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 1: lot more to say than we were able to fit

782
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: into the storytelling this season, and I really want to

783
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 1: share those conversations with you. Thankfully, we recorded all of

784
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: them and we're turning them into bonus episodes as I speak.

785
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 1: Starting on January second, we'll begin to publish those full,

786
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: complete interviews for you to listen to, one interview each week,

787
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: always on Wednesdays, just like the main show, and you're

788
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 1: gonna learn so much from them. In fact, if you

789
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 1: stick around after this brief sponsor break, I'll give you

790
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: a taste of what's to come next time on Unobscured,

791
00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:57,480
Speaker 1: you'd get these heroic words from these average people. And

792
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:01,239
Speaker 1: to me, that's so important. That is how this goes

793
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 1: off the rail is so quickly. Really, is that no

794
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 1: one is willing to raise his hand and say, but wait,

795
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: have you considered? Or but wait, that doesn't make sense.

796
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: People tend to think of it as spooky Halloween stuff,

797
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: especially in October. I like Halloween, but this is not that.

798
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:24,399
Speaker 1: How does the community heal after a period of mutual recrimination,

799
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: profound upheaval. It's not as though, especially in the wake

800
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 1: of nine eleven, that we are free from fears of

801
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 1: the mysterious unknown. How much of our liberties of our

802
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: faith are we willing to sacrifice to try to save

803
00:50:41,600 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: everything that we believe in? Unobscured was created and written

804
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey and produced by Matt Frederick and

805
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: Alex Williams in partnership with How Stuff Works, with research

806
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 1: by Carl Nellis and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn

807
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:59,240
Speaker 1: more about our contributing historians further reading material, resource archive

808
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 1: and links to our other shows at History Unobscured dot com.

809
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:10,359
Speaker 1: Until next time, thanks for listening, m HM.