Speaker 1: It wasn't over yet. As powerful as the reprieve from
Speaker 1: Governor Phipps had been, it didn't close the books on
Speaker 1: the trials immediately. I wish it had. I wish all
Speaker 1: the fear and uncertainty and frustration just sort of evaporated
Speaker 1: into the wind like a puff of smoke. But it didn't.
Speaker 1: In the days between Stowton's signing of her death warrant
Speaker 1: on January and the February one message from the Governor
Speaker 1: that canceled it, Elizabeth Proctor gave birth to the baby
Speaker 1: she had carried throughout the ordeal. It was her pregnancy
Speaker 1: that had kept her alive the day her husband John
Speaker 1: had been led to the gallows and hanged, and now
Speaker 1: that safety net was gone, it can't have been an
Speaker 1: easy delivery. Months earlier and Procter, wife of Thomas and
Speaker 1: one of the afflicted who put so many others in jail,
Speaker 1: had delivered her own baby. She would have prepared groaning
Speaker 1: cakes and groaning beer, the traditional provisions laid out to
Speaker 1: refresh the women of the community as they gathered by
Speaker 1: her side, coaching and supporting her through the process of
Speaker 1: labor and birth. New clean linens would have been ready
Speaker 1: nearby as well to wrap the newborn. A family cradle
Speaker 1: would be in the room. Thomas Putnam would have stepped
Speaker 1: in among the women of the Salem Village church to
Speaker 1: bless his new child with a father's love, to share
Speaker 1: pride and joy with the weary mother, to receive the
Speaker 1: warm smiles and congratulations of his neighbors. Not for Elizabeth Proctor.
Speaker 1: Though her birthing experience that January was as cold and
Speaker 1: unfriendly as the jail cell she sat in, she more
Speaker 1: than likely would have labored on the bare dirt floor,
Speaker 1: and unless the people around her were no longer bound
Speaker 1: by leg irons and chains, she would have had to
Speaker 1: labor alone. There were no fresh linens to swaddle her
Speaker 1: newborn son, and her husband John was never going to
Speaker 1: walk through that door and share in her joy. He
Speaker 1: was gone now, so too was her protection from execution.
Speaker 1: There was little to look forward to, so she named
Speaker 1: him with an eye on the past, John, just like
Speaker 1: his father. Even though John would need his mother now
Speaker 1: more than ever, his birth signaled her death. Stoughton's death
Speaker 1: warrant now had power over her, and when the first
Speaker 1: session of the Superior Court convened on February one. She
Speaker 1: fully expected to be led away and never see him again.
Speaker 1: But then, of course, Phipps stopped all of that. But
Speaker 1: the governor's message didn't stop everything. After Stoughton abandoned the
Speaker 1: courts in an angry huff, Thomas Danforth took over and
Speaker 1: shouldered the unsavory task of wrapping up all the remaining
Speaker 1: open cases. He took over as Chief Justice and began
Speaker 1: to methodically work through them, And the most talked about
Speaker 1: of them all was that of Lydia Dustin. She was
Speaker 1: one of those individuals who had been hounded for years
Speaker 1: by accusations of witchcraft. When she was pulled into the
Speaker 1: chaos of she said very little in her own defense,
Speaker 1: which gave her the appearance of guilt in the eyes
Speaker 1: of the magistrates. But all of the evidence against her
Speaker 1: had been spectral. Tales of ghostly visitations were invisible attacks,
Speaker 1: and that was no longer permissible in the trials. The jury,
Speaker 1: of course, acquitted her, and she was ordered to pay
Speaker 1: her jail fees and go home. And one would hope
Speaker 1: that by now the community around her would have caught
Speaker 1: on and recognized an innocent woman when they saw one.
Speaker 1: But there were a number of complaints about the verdict,
Speaker 1: so many that Dan Fourth actually begged her to confess
Speaker 1: if she was truly guilty. She did not. She returned
Speaker 1: to the jail in Cambridge, where she had been staying
Speaker 1: and waited for her family to gather the necessary funds
Speaker 1: to purchase her freedom. While she was there, though, she
Speaker 1: became sick, and even after being brought home to be
Speaker 1: cared for, she was too old and frail to fight
Speaker 1: it off. She died on March tenth, the final victim
Speaker 1: of the Salem which trials. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: One other death that happened that winter was that of
Speaker 1: and Over rapist Timothy Swan. He had been one of
Speaker 1: the men to start the and Over accusations, claiming that
Speaker 1: he had been bewitched by some of the women in town,
Speaker 1: causing him to become sick. When he passed away on
Speaker 1: February second, it was the day after those women were
Speaker 1: released and sent home six months earlier. That sort of
Speaker 1: coincidence would have landed those women back in jail, but
Speaker 1: the tide had shifted. Most people saw his death as
Speaker 1: natural and expected. There were still doubts in the air
Speaker 1: in Salem, though yes, Lydia Dustin had been acquitted, but
Speaker 1: there were a handful of others still being held for trial,
Speaker 1: and everyone wondered if they would receive the same open
Speaker 1: minded treatment or if criminal charges awaited them, But they
Speaker 1: would have to wait because the Superior Court was needed
Speaker 1: in Boston to handle other matters of governance. On February six,
Speaker 1: just five days after Governor Phipps reprieve, Salem village minister
Speaker 1: Samuel Paris led a small committee of members from his
Speaker 1: congregation along the Ipswich Road to the home of Francis Nurse,
Speaker 1: husband of Rebecca, who had been executed months before. Along
Speaker 1: the way, they stopped at the home of their son,
Speaker 1: Samuel Nurse, as well as John Tarbell, Rebecca's son in law.
Speaker 1: The committee consisted of Reverend Paris, Nathaniel Ingersoll, Old Bray Wilkins,
Speaker 1: and three Putnams, although not Chief Instigator Thomas Putnam. They
Speaker 1: made the trip out to the Nurse farm to make
Speaker 1: a complaint about the behavior of those families. Specifically, they
Speaker 1: were upset that the men had refused to come to
Speaker 1: church or partake in Holy communion, and if Reverend Paris
Speaker 1: was to be able to do his job as shepherd
Speaker 1: of the flock. They needed to come back. From what
Speaker 1: we know, each of the men received the message in
Speaker 1: stony silence. They didn't make excuses or explain themselves, probably
Speaker 1: because the reasons should have been clear enough. Paris helped
Speaker 1: stoke the community fears that led to the deaths of
Speaker 1: Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty, and they owed him no
Speaker 1: excuse for being angry about that. But they all did
Speaker 1: agree to come into the village the following day to
Speaker 1: meet the whole committee and discuss the matter. They extended
Speaker 1: the offer to Bray Wilkins grandson Thomas as well, and
Speaker 1: to Peter Klois, whose wife Sarah had somehow managed to
Speaker 1: outlive her sister's Rebecca and Mary. John Tarbell arrived two
Speaker 1: hours early and headed straight for the minister's parsonage. Paris
Speaker 1: led him upstairs to his study, where Tarbell raged at
Speaker 1: him for over an hour. He took months of frustration
Speaker 1: and pain and anger and swung it like a club,
Speaker 1: pointing all of the blames squarely on Paris. If not
Speaker 1: for the words and actions of Paris, he claimed, Rebecca
Speaker 1: Nurse would still be alive, as would so many others
Speaker 1: After he left, Samuel Nurse climbed the minister's stairs and
Speaker 1: did the act same thing. The only thing that saved
Speaker 1: Paris this time was the start of the one pm
Speaker 1: committee meeting, so both men left and walked over to
Speaker 1: the meeting house. Imagine they didn't walk together, though there
Speaker 1: would have been tensioned in the air between Paris and
Speaker 1: the others that borderlined on tangible. The group meeting was
Speaker 1: just as rough for Paris. They blamed him for everything,
Speaker 1: calling him the instrument of our miseries and the beginning
Speaker 1: and procureur of the sorest afflictions, not of this village only,
Speaker 1: but to this whole country. But Paris was quick to
Speaker 1: shift all the blame to God. It was God who
Speaker 1: sent the evil into their community to test and refine them,
Speaker 1: so Paris should be off the hook. Peter Cloy's didn't
Speaker 1: come to that meeting, but he did make a trip
Speaker 1: to Paris's house the following day. Once upstairs in the
Speaker 1: minister's study, he did the same thing as the others. Paris,
Speaker 1: he said, helped drive a community witch hunt that had
Speaker 1: claimed the lives of both of his wife's sisters. Was
Speaker 1: it any wonder that he and the others had refused
Speaker 1: to attend church and sit under his teaching and leadership.
Speaker 1: There would be more meetings, just like the first. Paris
Speaker 1: and the men of the Nurse family met again two
Speaker 1: weeks later, and then twice in March, twice in April,
Speaker 1: and then once again in May. Multiple meetings did nothing
Speaker 1: to calm their anger, though in fact, those same men
Speaker 1: began to lobby for the removal of Samuel Paris from Salem,
Speaker 1: and whether it was by their influence or the powers
Speaker 1: of other angry villagers, the rates committee continued to refuse
Speaker 1: to collect his salary, just as they had done for
Speaker 1: the previous two years. Things had changed in Salem. During
Speaker 1: March and April of a full year after the first
Speaker 1: afflicted girls frightened the village with their unusual fits, a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old servant girl named Mercy Short began to
Speaker 1: have her own seizures. Cotton Mother actually took the girl
Speaker 1: into his own home and cared for her, recording her
Speaker 1: condition and behavior, where she claimed that forces were pinching her,
Speaker 1: choking her, and tempting her with unheard whispers. But Mercy
Speaker 1: Short was the orphaned daughter of a family from Maine,
Speaker 1: where her parents had been killed in the violence of
Speaker 1: King William's War. She had been taken captive during the fighting,
Speaker 1: but when she was finally released, she moved south to Salem.
Speaker 1: Today we can see her as a grief stricken young
Speaker 1: woman dealing with the trauma of her past. But Mather
Speaker 1: diagnosed her with something different, demonic possession. That didn't stop
Speaker 1: the stories, though. Some people who visited her during her
Speaker 1: illness claimed they could smell brimstone in the room. Others
Speaker 1: said they could feel the air move, hinting at invisible
Speaker 1: spirits at work in the house. It was the typical
Speaker 1: spectral evidence we have all come to expect from Salem.
Speaker 1: But nothing ever came of it. No one took anyone
Speaker 1: to court over her sufferings. No names were named. Neither
Speaker 1: even wrote about her ordeal in a new pamphlet called
Speaker 1: A Brand Plucked out of the Burning, where he stated
Speaker 1: that Mercy's real recovery would happen when she learned to
Speaker 1: find safety and protection inside her new home in Salem.
Speaker 1: In other words, her torment wasn't the work of witches
Speaker 1: or spirits. It was nothing more than the cruelty of life.
Speaker 1: The Superior Court met again on May tenth of to
Speaker 1: hear the final cases against the last remaining which suspects.
Speaker 1: Danforth was back as Chief Justice, with no sign of
Speaker 1: William Stoughton. Thankfully, the majority of the cases were dismissed
Speaker 1: by the grand jury. While five of them went to trial.
Speaker 1: All of them were found not guilty and ordered to
Speaker 1: be released upon payment of their jail fees. One of
Speaker 1: the dismissed cases was that of the Paris family slave Tichiba.
Speaker 1: She'd been in jail for over a year, but unlike
Speaker 1: everyone else, he had yet to actually be indicted with
Speaker 1: a specific crime. But Paris, showing his true colors, once again,
Speaker 1: refused to pay her jail fees and secure her release.
Speaker 1: Here's Pulitzer Prize winning historian Stacy Schiff, you can't leave
Speaker 1: until you've paid your jail fees, and no one is willing,
Speaker 1: it seems to pay titibus until later. I think she's
Speaker 1: in jail for a year altogether. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the what the law would have been for a slave.
Speaker 1: They certainly didn't want her back, and we have very
Speaker 1: little sense of where she could have gone after that.
Speaker 1: By the way, I mean, it's interesting because she's so
Speaker 1: completely at the heart of this and therefore would have
Speaker 1: been very much spoiled goods. It turns out Titchiba was
Speaker 1: essentially confiscated by the state, like an abandoned piece of property.
Speaker 1: She would have been sold off to the highest bidder,
Speaker 1: although we have no record of that transaction, but the
Speaker 1: full picture of the dehumanization of a slave in colonial
Speaker 1: New England couldn't be more clear. Meanwhile, the conflict continued
Speaker 1: between Paris and the villagers who remembered his role in
Speaker 1: fanning the flames of fear. Let's be clear, Samuel Paris
Speaker 1: did not deliberately drive the chaos forward, and he didn't
Speaker 1: create the tension between feuding families in the area. But
Speaker 1: he did use his position to poke at those sore
Speaker 1: spots and draw attention to them. He didn't create the fear,
Speaker 1: but he certainly wielded it like a tool to advance
Speaker 1: his own causes. These people confronted Paris about his failures
Speaker 1: for over two years. Finally, in November of six Paris
Speaker 1: wrote an apology of sorts and read it out loud
Speaker 1: during a Sunday service. But it was too little, too late,
Speaker 1: and far from an actual apology. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: more of the same old blame shifting that he loved
Speaker 1: to engage in. This wasn't really his fault, he said.
Speaker 1: The events of six two had been a rebuke by
Speaker 1: God for events that had begun inside his house. Titchuba
Speaker 1: and John Indian were both to blame because they had
Speaker 1: helped Mary Sibley make the Yearine cake to ward off
Speaker 1: the devil. Magic had been used in his house to
Speaker 1: fight magic, and God was angry about that. In the end,
Speaker 1: his apology was really just a lot of excuses about
Speaker 1: why he wasn't to blame. It took two more years
Speaker 1: before Samuel Paris grew weary of the countless meetings and
Speaker 1: conversations about his failures in sixteen ninety two. In April
Speaker 1: of sixteen ninety six, he informed the village elders that
Speaker 1: he would be leaving his position as minister, much to
Speaker 1: the relief of many families in the area, but he
Speaker 1: held onto the parsonage until early sixteen ninety seven, when
Speaker 1: the church finally gave him his unpaid salary as a
Speaker 1: bribe to pack up and leave. He moved to Stowe,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts to take a position in a church there, but
Speaker 1: was quickly caught up in a dispute with the elders
Speaker 1: the issue his salary. Of course, another church experienced some
Speaker 1: change in January of sixty seven. As Samuel Willard was
Speaker 1: walking up the center aisle of Boston's Third Church, a
Speaker 1: hand reached out and handed him a letter. It was
Speaker 1: Judge Samuel Sewell, one of the men to sit on
Speaker 1: both the Court of Oyer and Terminer and the Superior Court,
Speaker 1: and the letter came with instructions to be read aloud immediately.
Speaker 1: It was an apology, not from the collective judges, just
Speaker 1: from him. But it was a real apology, standing in
Speaker 1: sharp contrast to the blame shifting that Paris had engaged in.
Speaker 1: Sewell expressed his deep regret for what had taken place
Speaker 1: under his supervision. He asked for the blame to fall
Speaker 1: on his shoulders, and begged for prayers of forgiveness. And
Speaker 1: he used a word that had been spoken seldom in
Speaker 1: regards to the actions of the Court sin. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just that they had made mistakes, but that they had
Speaker 1: committed crimes against God. Sewell's prayer was that the punishment
Speaker 1: for his own sin would stop with him, rather than
Speaker 1: spilling out onto the community and his own family. No
Speaker 1: other judges ever made the same sort of public apology,
Speaker 1: but others from different parts of the system joined him later.
Speaker 1: Thomas Fisk had been the foreman of the jury during
Speaker 1: the Oyer and Terminal trials, and he released a statement
Speaker 1: along with eleven other jurymen. They acknowledged that they had
Speaker 1: been led on by the judges to do horrible things
Speaker 1: that resulted in innocent blood spilled, and they begged for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: The public was beginning to feel more and more bold
Speaker 1: with their anger about the handling of the trials. In seven,
Speaker 1: Boston merchant Robert Caliph published a collection of papers from
Speaker 1: the trial that only he could have put together. Not
Speaker 1: only had he been a wealthy merchant, but he also
Speaker 1: served as a constable for a time, and that gave
Speaker 1: him access to documents and people that otherwise would have
Speaker 1: been out of reach. He titled his publication More Wonders
Speaker 1: of the Invisible World, a direct attack against Cotton Mather's
Speaker 1: own book of a similar title that had been written
Speaker 1: as a pr tactic defense of the trials. Half pulled
Speaker 1: no punches, making sure the utter failure of the Massachusetts
Speaker 1: leadership was on full display. He even took another stab
Speaker 1: at Cotton Mother by naming one of his chapters another
Speaker 1: brand plucked out of the Burning, referencing Mathers report on
Speaker 1: Mercy Short that I mentioned earlier. The book features interviews
Speaker 1: with Captain John Alden, Nathaniel Carey, and George Jacobs Jr.
Speaker 1: All of whom had escaped Salem in the chaos of
Speaker 1: the Fall of six two but had since returned, and
Speaker 1: he made it clear just how widely it was known
Speaker 1: that Sheriff Corwin was skimming from the confiscations, but in
Speaker 1: the midst of his attack on the judges and leadership,
Speaker 1: Caleff gives us one last glimpse into the story of Tichiba.
Speaker 1: In his book, Califf reveals her own testimony about what
Speaker 1: happened in six She confirmed that Paris had indeed beaten
Speaker 1: a confession out of her, and that he coached her
Speaker 1: on what to say and how to say it. The
Speaker 1: most surprising part of her interview with Caliph is that
Speaker 1: it takes place after she was sold by the state
Speaker 1: to pay for the jail fees. We still don't know
Speaker 1: the specifics of that sale or where she ended up,
Speaker 1: but apparently Caliph knew enough about it to track her
Speaker 1: down and speak with her. She might have been treated
Speaker 1: like a piece of property by many of the people
Speaker 1: in power, but to Robert Caliph, Titchiba was just one
Speaker 1: more reliable witness, a human being who had lived through
Speaker 1: hell and had valuable information to share. But it was
Speaker 1: nothing more than a snapshot of a wisp of smoke.
Speaker 1: After her brief mention in Caliph's book, that's the last
Speaker 1: we ever hear from her, Pitchiba has vanished from the
Speaker 1: public records forever. After every tragedy, community has to learn
Speaker 1: to stand back up and rebuild. We see this today
Speaker 1: after natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. We see it
Speaker 1: happen in war torn countries. We see it happen in
Speaker 1: our own lives. Storms bring damage, and that damage needs repaired.
Speaker 1: Salem Village wasn't unique in that regard. Yes, their storm
Speaker 1: was unusual and unique among the pages of American history,
Speaker 1: and yes it was a storm crafted by the people
Speaker 1: who lived there. But regardless of all of that, they
Speaker 1: still had work to do if they wanted to move on.
Speaker 1: The departure of Reverend Samuel Paris left the position of
Speaker 1: Minister vacant in Salem Village, but they soon filled it
Speaker 1: Joseph Green was a brand new graduate from Harvard and
Speaker 1: a baby at just twenty two. Reports describe him as
Speaker 1: socially outgoing and gregarious, and apparently a bit more open
Speaker 1: minded than the former minister. One of the first things
Speaker 1: he did was institute the Halfway Covenant in the village
Speaker 1: church that meant people could become full members without the
Speaker 1: humiliation of public confession. He baptized the families that Paris
Speaker 1: had pushed out of the church, and even rearranged the
Speaker 1: seating chart for the Sunday service to place the Putnam's
Speaker 1: and the nurses on the same bench. By the early
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, the church in Salem Village was on the men.
Speaker 1: Reverend Green led the church in removing Martha Corey's excommunication.
Speaker 1: They founded a community school, built a brand new, larger
Speaker 1: meeting house, and instituted an annual Thanksgiving fundraiser to support
Speaker 1: the needy among them. They had transition from selfish, inward
Speaker 1: looking people to a community that cared about the outsider. Then,
Speaker 1: in August of seventeen o six, something amazing happened. Annie Putnam,
Speaker 1: daughter of Thomas and Ann Putnam, and one of the
Speaker 1: chief instigators of the spectral evidence, approached Reverend Green and
Speaker 1: asked to become a full member of the church. Here
Speaker 1: is one of the girls responsible for setting the village
Speaker 1: on fire with fear that took the lives of over
Speaker 1: two dozen people, and she wanted to sit beside her
Speaker 1: neighbors in church and be a part of the community.
Speaker 1: And Green agreed. He helped her craft her apology, which
Speaker 1: he then wrote down in the Minister's Record Book, a
Speaker 1: book that historian Richard Trask allowed me to hold. I
Speaker 1: see some like modern edges to the page. Know what
Speaker 1: this is is called leaf casting. What they did was
Speaker 1: they cast on new new paper on the old. And
Speaker 1: then this is the confession of and Putnam in the
Speaker 1: early seventeen hundreds. And she says, basically, I desire to
Speaker 1: be laid low in the dust of humility for accusing
Speaker 1: people that I now believe we're innocent. And it was
Speaker 1: her way of trying to give amends so that she
Speaker 1: could become a full church member. Is there is the
Speaker 1: confession that's in the book. Here's this in her handwriting,
Speaker 1: special signature dictated by her into the book, and then
Speaker 1: she signs it herself. That confession was also delivered to
Speaker 1: the congregation by Anne herself. She stood in her place
Speaker 1: in the meeting house on August and read the confession
Speaker 1: out loud. Here's historian Stacy Schiff. She says she was
Speaker 1: essentially led us stray right. It's a little bit the
Speaker 1: devil made me do it kind of excuse, but she
Speaker 1: does indicate that she was. She doesn't address how she
Speaker 1: came up with these spectral images. She simply says that
Speaker 1: she was misguided and deluded, and the congregation accepted her.
Speaker 1: She became a full member in the church and attended
Speaker 1: right alongside the families of the people she helped execute.
Speaker 1: It was a powerful symbol of the healing that needed
Speaker 1: to happen, but it also belies a darker undercurrent. The
Speaker 1: families of the victims were still in agony, and they
Speaker 1: were out to cry out for justice. The first place
Speaker 1: to start, in the minds of many was for the
Speaker 1: government to reverse the charges against the people who had
Speaker 1: been tried and convicted in Sixto, to restore their innocency,
Speaker 1: as they said, But they also wanted financial restitution. Remember,
Speaker 1: many of the people who were executed and convicted lost everything.
Speaker 1: If the husband was executed, every piece of his property
Speaker 1: was confiscated by the states, even if there was a
Speaker 1: widow and children left behind. Single women faced the same devastation,
Speaker 1: and many others experienced death blows to their business or
Speaker 1: personal finances. Something had to be done to fix it.
Speaker 1: In seventeen oh three, the convictions of Abigail Faulkner, Sarah Wardwell,
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Proctor were reversed, and then in seventeen ten,
Speaker 1: the Massachusetts legislature set up a committee to investigate what
Speaker 1: else they might be able to do. The members of
Speaker 1: that committee arrived in Salem in September of that year,
Speaker 1: and during their six day visit they received forty five
Speaker 1: petitions for restitution. Every one you might have expected was
Speaker 1: part of that list. Sarah Good's husband, William, the nurses
Speaker 1: and stes and carriers. Charles Burrows, the oldest son of
Speaker 1: the executed minister from Maine, added his name to the list,
Speaker 1: as did Philip English. In fact, he submitted a list
Speaker 1: of items stolen by Sheriff George Corwen and filed suit
Speaker 1: against the man. George Jacobs Jr. Who had returned from
Speaker 1: hiding elsewhere, also submitted a list. His included cows and pigs,
Speaker 1: sixty bushels of corn, a quantity of pewter bed rugs, blankets, pillows,
Speaker 1: and other furniture, all taken by Corwen. It took the
Speaker 1: committee more than a year to hand over a decision,
Speaker 1: but when they did, the General Court acted on it immediately.
Speaker 1: They reversed the property seizures of twelve executed witches, along
Speaker 1: with Jihles Corey and seven others who had been convicted
Speaker 1: but not killed. But if you're trying to do the
Speaker 1: math in your head to keep up, you might have
Speaker 1: noticed a gap. Seven convictions for witchcraft still remained in place,
Speaker 1: bridget Bishop Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, and pudiator Wilma Reid,
Speaker 1: Margaret Scott and Elizabeth Johnson, and while attempts were made
Speaker 1: over the years to address their cases, it wasn't until
Speaker 1: two thousand one that their convictions were finally reversed. Yes,
Speaker 1: I said two thousand one, three hundred years after the
Speaker 1: trials ended. Apologies and reparations aside, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of silence from the people who should have spoken out.
Speaker 1: Part of that was pride. William Stoughton, for example, never
Speaker 1: apologized and continued to believe for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: that he had done everything right. Others might have felt shame,
Speaker 1: but they atled it up and kept quiet to avoid
Speaker 1: the attention. But there were others who began to do
Speaker 1: something more sinister. They covered up their tracks. Here's Stacy
Speaker 1: shifted once again. There's deafening silence all around, and it's
Speaker 1: almost a conspiracy. And when you look at when you
Speaker 1: begin to look at the record, the diaries have been
Speaker 1: purged from those years. The congregations book, as you know,
Speaker 1: Paris pulls out those entries for those months, so that
Speaker 1: we don't have those entries. The court records are missing.
Speaker 1: Even Samuel Willard, who is one of the great Boston ministers,
Speaker 1: we have his compendium of sermons, which is an enormous volume,
Speaker 1: but missing are the sermons from that summer. So there's
Speaker 1: clearly a sense of shock to the system and a
Speaker 1: sense of regret, and I think of tremendous guilt at
Speaker 1: what has happened. There seems to be a realization that
Speaker 1: no one really articulates until Samuel Sewell, one of the judges,
Speaker 1: finally does, But there does seem to be this Could
Speaker 1: we cover this up as quickly as possible? Could we
Speaker 1: make it go away feeling. And it wasn't just personal
Speaker 1: records that went missing. There were more than thirty witchcraft
Speaker 1: trials held by the Superior Court in early and we
Speaker 1: have all of those court records. But it's the Oyer
Speaker 1: and Terminer, the court that ran through most of six
Speaker 1: that seems to have fallen off the books, and what's
Speaker 1: happened to them has never been discovered. Of course, researchers
Speaker 1: stumble upon new items from time to time. That's the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that historian Richard Trask keeps his eye
Speaker 1: out for. Once in a while. Um, we find some
Speaker 1: of the documents. Often we've just not looked hot enough
Speaker 1: within the traditional sources that they located there. Other times
Speaker 1: something pops up that became an archival astray centuries ago
Speaker 1: and it comes back in when the witchcraft was over.
Speaker 1: Many of these documents Scott Scattered that was a governor
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts during the pre Revolutionary period, Thomas Hutchison who
Speaker 1: wrote a history of Massachusetts, and he actually was given
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of these very important documents. And Hutchison
Speaker 1: was a Tory and during the Stamp Act Crisis of
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty five, when the American provincials were mad at England.
Speaker 1: They attacked his house, and they scattered all of his
Speaker 1: papers outside on the ground, and so forth. Some historians
Speaker 1: have seen the missing documents as an attempt to erase
Speaker 1: a terrible mistake, to save the leadership of Massachusetts from
Speaker 1: the shame that came with the aftermath. Nineteenth century author
Speaker 1: Charles W. Upham wrote the book Salem Witchcraft in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven that pushes just such a notion, and it's
Speaker 1: a popular take on a historical mystery. These missing records
Speaker 1: weren't lost, they say they were deleted. We also have
Speaker 1: three centuries of descendants involved with a lot of these cases.
Speaker 1: One of the judges in both the Oil and Terminer
Speaker 1: and the Superior Court was wait Still Winthrop. He was
Speaker 1: a prolific letter writer who traded correspondence with his brother
Speaker 1: fitz John Winthrop all through the sixteen eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: But letters from sixteen ninety two and ninety three are missing,
Speaker 1: and many historians believe that was the work of later
Speaker 1: generations who wanted to hide their family shame. Even Samuel
Speaker 1: Parris did a bit of track covering. He kept extensive
Speaker 1: notes of his observations of the afflicted girls and their
Speaker 1: spectral visions, as well as records of other witness testimony.
Speaker 1: And yet only one page from one of those notebooks
Speaker 1: still exists, suggesting that Paris destroyed the collection before it
Speaker 1: could be seized or found. But of course, time went
Speaker 1: on in Salem Village. In the seventeen fifties, nearly a
Speaker 1: century after they began to ask for their independence from
Speaker 1: Salem Town. That freedom was granted. They changed their name
Speaker 1: to Danvers and have become a very distinct community from
Speaker 1: their neighbors in Salem over the past two and a
Speaker 1: half centuries, and they're very proud of that. Some people
Speaker 1: who suffered through the events of sixteen ninety two were
Speaker 1: less proud, though. Sarah Klois had lost both of her sisters,
Speaker 1: Mary st and Rebecca Nurse, and couldn't bear to stay
Speaker 1: in the village. Afterward, she and her husband Peter moved
Speaker 1: south towards modern day, framing him setting off a sort
Speaker 1: of minor exodus. My seventeen hundred, just eight years after
Speaker 1: they'd left, they found themselves in the center of a
Speaker 1: community of roughly fifty former Salem neighbors. Peter and Sarah
Speaker 1: became central figures in this new neighborhood of framing him
Speaker 1: known as Salem end one more interesting side note that
Speaker 1: I just can't leave out of the story. Historian Richard
Speaker 1: Trask is a Danvers native and descended from multiple victims
Speaker 1: of the sixteen ninety two which trials. He's lived within
Speaker 1: this historical narrative his entire life, but also with the
Speaker 1: unique perspective of literally living in the neighborhood where much
Speaker 1: of it began. According to him, even up until in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, there was an isolated group of neighbors in
Speaker 1: the area of Center Street and Danvers that had held
Speaker 1: onto the old Salem village accent. Trask refers to it
Speaker 1: as the Center Street Twang. Just one little artifact among
Speaker 1: so many others that gives texture and character to what
Speaker 1: took place there over three d twenty five years ago.
Speaker 1: But the Salem witch Trials could never stay local. The
Speaker 1: events were immediately attractive to writers and historians, and word
Speaker 1: about the tragedy spread. In seventeen twenty, the first regional
Speaker 1: history of New England to include the witch trials was
Speaker 1: published in London by Daniel Neil. It gave prominence to
Speaker 1: the events and helped a wider audience learn about what
Speaker 1: took place in sixte Neil does an admirable job of
Speaker 1: helping people see logic over superstition. The Trials happened because
Speaker 1: of human error and misjudgments, not a satanic plot to
Speaker 1: overthrow a Puritan community. But he also put on paper
Speaker 1: of view that has clouded the public perception of the
Speaker 1: Trials ever since, that it was purely a battle between
Speaker 1: credulous bigots on one side and the advance of reason
Speaker 1: and science on the other. But Neil's approach paints in
Speaker 1: black and white a picture that had a lot more
Speaker 1: nuance than he would admit. Those anti science religious leaders
Speaker 1: were actually very pro science. Sure, there were a few
Speaker 1: who muddied the water men like Cotton Mother come to mind,
Speaker 1: of course, but most of the ministers in Massachusetts were
Speaker 1: also the most interested in modern science. Here's historian Maryland
Speaker 1: k Roach. I think people generally see the sale in
Speaker 1: which trials is something so bizarre they can't really identify
Speaker 1: with it. That it's something foolish people did because they
Speaker 1: didn't know any better. They didn't have computers, they didn't
Speaker 1: have this, They didn't know that. And we're smarty than there.
Speaker 1: But they were educated people and well intentioned people who,
Speaker 1: even by the lights of their own philosophy in their
Speaker 1: own time, include to have figured out that things were
Speaker 1: not proceeding as they should without converting to twenty one
Speaker 1: century skepticism. For example, the Harvard Professor of American History
Speaker 1: Jane Kamensky agrees and sees the truth as a call
Speaker 1: to humility. These are the best minds of their generation.
Speaker 1: These are the most educated, the most advanced thinkers and scientists,
Speaker 1: the philosophers who have access to the latest findings and
Speaker 1: ways of thinking morally and ethically, acting morally and ethically
Speaker 1: in their universe. They cannot be laughed off. They are
Speaker 1: the smartest, most privileged people of their times. Confronted with
Speaker 1: something that is awful to them, and they act in
Speaker 1: ways that come to seem, even within a couple of years,
Speaker 1: almost miraculously terribly um and yet they do it with
Speaker 1: the best of intentions and the sharpest of tools. If
Speaker 1: that doesn't encourage a kind of radical humility and second
Speaker 1: guessing and checking in with each other about who's doing
Speaker 1: what to when, whom, why, I don't know what? Does
Speaker 1: it might sound like I'm making a big deal out
Speaker 1: of a little thing. But Neil's position influenced almost two
Speaker 1: centuries of public opinion, which contributed to how the events
Speaker 1: had become so misunderstood over time. Even more dangerous, though,
Speaker 1: his attitude about Salem lulls us into a false sense
Speaker 1: of safety, because if Neil was correct, then the events
Speaker 1: in Salem were a product of an earlier time when
Speaker 1: superstition ranked higher than reason. And since we've grown up
Speaker 1: since then, and science has brought new advancements and pushed
Speaker 1: away the shadows of superstition, it would be easy to
Speaker 1: think that we as a culture have outgrown such a
Speaker 1: tragic failure. But oh how wrong we would be. Technology
Speaker 1: and advancements and science only gives us tools. How we
Speaker 1: use those tools is guided by human nature. It's important
Speaker 1: to remember that advancements in ship building and cartography allowed
Speaker 1: the exploration of the New World, but also empowered the
Speaker 1: Transatlantic slave trade. Social media connects us, but it also
Speaker 1: poisoned the well. Science alone can't save us again. We
Speaker 1: are very hard in the people of I think if
Speaker 1: you look back on on our on our perspective, in
Speaker 1: three years, people may be heard on us and again,
Speaker 1: despite the best intentions of people to create a good, orderly,
Speaker 1: godly society. Bad things happen, and I think the lesson
Speaker 1: is if we can just try to be understanding you
Speaker 1: kind of people, you know, and try to get through
Speaker 1: it as best we can, and try to look towards
Speaker 1: the good and human nature and try to avoid those
Speaker 1: sort of base reflexes as much as possible. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a happy ending, and we just hope people
Speaker 1: learn from it. Historians might have spent centuries dissecting the
Speaker 1: Salem which trials and placing the blame at the feet
Speaker 1: of various notions, but there's one thing everyone can agree on.
Speaker 1: Popular culture loves to retell the story. Arthur Miller's The
Speaker 1: Crucible immediately comes to mind for many, and it's certainly
Speaker 1: a powerful piece of entertainment. Here's Marilyn kay Roach once
Speaker 1: again atha Miller's play, which is creative fiction, but definitely
Speaker 1: on the part about not being believed when you're telling
Speaker 1: the truth, so you lie and then they believe you.
Speaker 1: That's that hits the nail on the head. Yes, Miller
Speaker 1: helped bring attention to the Salem events, but he also
Speaker 1: borrowed fictional elements from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Speaker 1: treating legend as fact. He even blended individual details from
Speaker 1: the trials into new chimera, like moments that didn't actually
Speaker 1: take place and details are just playing wrong. In The Crucible,
Speaker 1: Miller portrays Dan Fourth as the chief Justice hell bent
Speaker 1: on executing as many which is as possible, while in
Speaker 1: truth that man was William Stowton. Of course, Dan Fourth
Speaker 1: and Stowton aren't the only figures from Salem to receive
Speaker 1: a massage treatment from storytellers and historians over the years.
Speaker 1: In fact, it maybe the most mysterious one of them
Speaker 1: all that has received the most attention. Tichiba. The most
Speaker 1: obvious transformation we see in modern retellings of the Salem
Speaker 1: events happens when storytellers saw that Tichiba was a slave,
Speaker 1: and because they identify slavery with blackness, she was pushed
Speaker 1: into that mold. In the process, the role of indigenous
Speaker 1: people's in the tale are reduced or removed completely. Other
Speaker 1: layers have been added over the years as well, giving
Speaker 1: Tichiba actual powers of witchcraft or voodoo, sometimes going as
Speaker 1: far as to put the full responsibility for what happens
Speaker 1: square early on her shoulders. I remember hearing the story
Speaker 1: of the Salem witch trials for the first time decades ago,
Speaker 1: and whoever it was that recited it to me did
Speaker 1: just that, stating as a fact that it was all
Speaker 1: Titchuba's fault. After twelve episodes, though, I think all of
Speaker 1: us know just how wrong that was. But the most
Speaker 1: common question historians are asked, hands down, is what they
Speaker 1: think the real cause was for the witchcraft panic. It's
Speaker 1: a good question, and it comes from a place of
Speaker 1: genuine interest, but it also hints at the misconception that
Speaker 1: the events in Salem can be boiled down to one
Speaker 1: single reason, like a magic pill that covers all the symptoms. Sadly,
Speaker 1: there is no such simple answer. A lot of people
Speaker 1: like to bring up the hypothesis that the entire community
Speaker 1: fell victim to ergot poisoning. Ergot, you see, is a
Speaker 1: fungus and under the right conditions, it can grow on
Speaker 1: rye and other grains. If humans ingest the erga with
Speaker 1: the grains, it can cause medical conditions such as convulsions
Speaker 1: and fits. But history professor Mary Beth Norton disagrees. I
Speaker 1: don't see or good even if it's possible, um, which
Speaker 1: I think is very unlikely, is a real explanation. I
Speaker 1: researched for my book cases in England and America before
Speaker 1: six in which young children began to have what were
Speaker 1: described as fits that were then attributed to witchcraft, and
Speaker 1: I discovered that it was a not unusual pattern. It
Speaker 1: was it wasn't necessary, it was common, but it was known.
Speaker 1: It was a known pattern, and it was a pattern
Speaker 1: when children were in intensely religious households, as indeed they
Speaker 1: were in the household of Samuel Paris. Social and cultural
Speaker 1: norms aside. There are even medical reasons why er goot
Speaker 1: poisoning misses the target, because urgotism presents with certain symptoms
Speaker 1: depending on whether or not the patient has a vitamin
Speaker 1: A deficiency. If they lack vitamin A, they might have convulsions.
Speaker 1: If not, it's most likely to present as gang green
Speaker 1: and a great source of vitamin A, it turns out,
Speaker 1: is fish. Considering the fact that Salem was a support
Speaker 1: community and many of the afflicted were from wealthy families,
Speaker 1: it's unlikely that their diets lacked vitamin A, so no
Speaker 1: no matter how attractive the idea might be, er goot
Speaker 1: poisoning was not involved. Others have suggested encephalitis, which is
Speaker 1: an infection in the brain that causes inflammation. Honestly, there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of theories. Tomorrow someone might suggest
Speaker 1: a different illness altogether, but all of them fail to
Speaker 1: explain the actual experience of the afflicted girls. Nothing covers
Speaker 1: the hallucinations and the convulsions, all while the girls were
Speaker 1: observed by countless people around them to be healthy and fit.
Speaker 1: The less sexy answer is that the afflicted girl, and
Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, the rest of their community, we're
Speaker 1: all suffering through the intense fear and trauma of a
Speaker 1: war that was creeping closer to their homes. They lived
Speaker 1: in a world where politics and religion were creating bitter
Speaker 1: rivalries and driving wedges between neighbors, where the line between
Speaker 1: truth and lies was becoming increasingly blurry. In the end,
Speaker 1: people were just really scared. Don't get me wrong, There's
Speaker 1: nothing inherently bad about bringing fresh eyes and new perspectives
Speaker 1: to the table. New questions about the problems inside Salem
Speaker 1: help us move the study of it all forward. That's
Speaker 1: why we now consider King William's War to be an
Speaker 1: essential component of the Salem story, but we have to
Speaker 1: be careful to not become clouded by popular ideas that
Speaker 1: ignore the real facts. Today, if you mentioned the sale
Speaker 1: in which trials most people conjure up images of victims
Speaker 1: burning at the stake, of women being tied to stones
Speaker 1: and tossed into water to see if they'll float. We
Speaker 1: imagine crowds of villagers with pitchforks and torches, and people
Speaker 1: pulled out of their beds in the middle of a night.
Speaker 1: And none of that ever happened in Salem. At the
Speaker 1: same time, what did happen in Salem, to some degree,
Speaker 1: keeps happening in our own world over and over again.
Speaker 1: They might not always involve accusations of witchcraft, but we've
Speaker 1: come to think of them all as witch hunts. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: here's Richard Trask. You have to confront your own period
Speaker 1: of witch hunts with clear vision and bravery, because this
Speaker 1: is not something that happened back in It's almost always
Speaker 1: with us. From the interment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps,
Speaker 1: to the Army McCarthy hearings, the Red Scare to time
Speaker 1: and time again, these kinds of things happen. We can
Speaker 1: spend the story of Salem however we want. We can
Speaker 1: look for outside forces like illness or drug induced to
Speaker 1: lucin nations, or point to the age old battle between
Speaker 1: superstition and science. We can invent any number of excuses,
Speaker 1: but none of it comes close to the most obvious
Speaker 1: answer on the table, the Salem which trials happened because
Speaker 1: humans were involved, and we have a very long track
Speaker 1: record of making a mess of things. History is safe
Speaker 1: because it sits in the past. It happened, and now
Speaker 1: there's distance between us and the tragedy. After over five years,
Speaker 1: we talked more about witch hunts in the metaphorical sense
Speaker 1: than the literal, But the truth is long after Salem,
Speaker 1: real witch hunts were still threatening innocent lives. In seven
Speaker 1: there was a case in Philadelphia involving a woman who
Speaker 1: was accused by her neighbors of being a witch. An
Speaker 1: angry mob brutally murdered her out of fear. In seventeen nine,
Speaker 1: another woman was suspected of being a witch in York, Maine,
Speaker 1: and she was viciously attacked because of it. In the
Speaker 1: second half of the nineteenth century, a Methodist minister named
Speaker 1: James Monroe Buckley traveled across the United States and interviewed
Speaker 1: people about their beliefs, and witchcraft was a common feature
Speaker 1: of many of their tales. According to Buckley, there were
Speaker 1: more than fifty lawsuits involving witchcraft in the eighteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Old beliefs. It seems we're far from gone. Those later
Speaker 1: witchcraft accusations were always pointed at the usual suspects, the
Speaker 1: outsiders in society. Irish Americans accused their New Scottish immigrant neighbors,
Speaker 1: German American communities accused immigrants from Eastern Europe, and most
Speaker 1: common of all, white colonizers and settlers accused the Native
Speaker 1: Americans around them. But Salem still sits on the pedestal
Speaker 1: for most people. It's become the popular icon of witch
Speaker 1: hunts in most people's minds. Then Professor of history Emerson
Speaker 1: Baker sometimes wonders why that is why Salem, Because by
Speaker 1: European standards, Salem unfortunately is a fly speck. You know,
Speaker 1: in the Great Age of witch hunts over several hundred
Speaker 1: years in Europe, we know that about a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people were prosecuted and about half of them were executed
Speaker 1: for witchcraft, you know, in in in in Cologne, Germany.
Speaker 1: There was a tenure witchcraft outbreak from the sixteen twenties
Speaker 1: to the sixteen thirties where hundreds and hundreds of people
Speaker 1: lost their lives. And I've been I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've been a clone. It's a beautiful city, but no
Speaker 1: one calls it the witch city. So and you know,
Speaker 1: why is it that that's that? Salem, right is the
Speaker 1: witch city? So? And again to me, I think it's live.
Speaker 1: It has to do with this confluence of of things
Speaker 1: coming together in this supposedly utopian Puritan place and that
Speaker 1: we're we're sort of living, still living in many ways
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the the attraction to Salem is undeniable.
Speaker 1: If there were a disneyland devoted to witchcraft, Salem, Massachusetts
Speaker 1: would be it. Museums and tours and list shops and
Speaker 1: monuments all devoted to the idea of witchcraft. But outside
Speaker 1: of Salem, that phrase witch hunt has an altogether different meaning.
Speaker 1: In the run up to the Civil War, when Northern
Speaker 1: politicians were condemning slavery as evil and a curse, their
Speaker 1: Southern counterparts used the events in Salem in their defense
Speaker 1: of it. According to them, it was the ancestors of
Speaker 1: the North that burned witches by the cord. They claimed
Speaker 1: that Northern abolitionism was just another version of that same misguided,
Speaker 1: fanatical movement, and said the witch hunt had simply shifted
Speaker 1: to slave owners, Setting aside the fact that no victims
Speaker 1: were ever burned in Salem. Those Southern politicians demonstrated just
Speaker 1: how easy it was to take a specific concept and
Speaker 1: apply it to anything we want. But just because someone
Speaker 1: claims to be the victim of a witch hunt doesn't
Speaker 1: make it true. Even today, the term which is still
Speaker 1: used as a slur, although there are some who wear
Speaker 1: it proudly as a badge of honor. But it's the
Speaker 1: underlying concept that's the most common, the belief that there
Speaker 1: are people in society who prey on our fears, who
Speaker 1: represent that dreaded insider threat. We don't always do it intentionally,
Speaker 1: but labeling someone the enemy is a lot easier the
Speaker 1: more diverse the world around us becomes. Historical witch hunts
Speaker 1: targeted the other in society, the people who didn't tow
Speaker 1: the line or play by the rules. It singled out
Speaker 1: the newcomers and the foreigners, the irreligious, and the poor.
Speaker 1: It always happened in places where communities felt as if
Speaker 1: their worldview and identity were under attack, and when humans
Speaker 1: feel threatened, we look for scapegoats to target. If only
Speaker 1: there was a way for us to leave the darkest
Speaker 1: parts of our past behind us, or find some magical
Speaker 1: elixir that would create the kind of well ordered, critical
Speaker 1: thinking society that we all idealize. But if all the
Speaker 1: lessons that Salem teaches us that one is the most bitter,
Speaker 1: there is no easy solution. The events in Salem ended
Speaker 1: over three years ago, but the reasons behind them have
Speaker 1: never really gone away. They've never let go or lost
Speaker 1: their powerful hold over us. The forces that led a
Speaker 1: community to kill twenty innocent people and allow five others
Speaker 1: to die in jail will never go away because they're
Speaker 1: inside each and every one of us. In the end,
Speaker 1: all we can hope to do is remember and learn
Speaker 1: from the past. Nothing is guaranteed, but perhaps with a
Speaker 1: bit of humility and compassion, we can be better. And
Speaker 1: that's it for Season one of Unobscured. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed the journey as much as my team and I
Speaker 1: have enjoyed creating it for you. If you love the show,
Speaker 1: don't forget to head over to Apple Podcasts dot com
Speaker 1: slash Unobscured to leave a written review and a star
Speaker 1: rating to tell the world why they need to be
Speaker 1: listening to this show. But we're not finished just yet.
Speaker 1: First season two is already in development, so be sure
Speaker 1: to stay subscribed to the show so you don't miss
Speaker 1: any announcements about that. Second, our six historians had a
Speaker 1: lot more to say than we were able to fit
Speaker 1: into the storytelling this season, and I really want to
Speaker 1: share those conversations with you. Thankfully, we recorded all of
Speaker 1: them and we're turning them into bonus episodes as I speak.
Speaker 1: Starting on January second, we'll begin to publish those full,
Speaker 1: complete interviews for you to listen to, one interview each week,
Speaker 1: always on Wednesdays, just like the main show, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna learn so much from them. In fact, if you
Speaker 1: stick around after this brief sponsor break, I'll give you
Speaker 1: a taste of what's to come next time on Unobscured,
Speaker 1: you'd get these heroic words from these average people. And
Speaker 1: to me, that's so important. That is how this goes
Speaker 1: off the rail is so quickly. Really, is that no
Speaker 1: one is willing to raise his hand and say, but wait,
Speaker 1: have you considered? Or but wait, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: People tend to think of it as spooky Halloween stuff,
Speaker 1: especially in October. I like Halloween, but this is not that.
Speaker 1: How does the community heal after a period of mutual recrimination,
Speaker 1: profound upheaval. It's not as though, especially in the wake
Speaker 1: of nine eleven, that we are free from fears of
Speaker 1: the mysterious unknown. How much of our liberties of our
Speaker 1: faith are we willing to sacrifice to try to save
Speaker 1: everything that we believe in? Unobscured was created and written
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey and produced by Matt Frederick and
Speaker 1: Alex Williams in partnership with How Stuff Works, with research
Speaker 1: by Carl Nellis and original music by Chad Lawson. Learn
Speaker 1: more about our contributing historians further reading material, resource archive
Speaker 1: and links to our other shows at History Unobscured dot com.
Speaker 1: Until next time, thanks for listening, m HM.