WEBVTT - S1 – 12: Making Amends 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:14.440 It wasn't over yet. As powerful as the reprieve from 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.400 Governor Phipps had been, it didn't close the books on 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.200 the trials immediately. I wish it had. I wish all 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:26.040 the fear and uncertainty and frustration just sort of evaporated 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.400 into the wind like a puff of smoke. But it didn't. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.680 In the days between Stowton's signing of her death warrant 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.720 on January and the February one message from the Governor 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.479 that canceled it, Elizabeth Proctor gave birth to the baby 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.400 she had carried throughout the ordeal. It was her pregnancy 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:47.800 that had kept her alive the day her husband John 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.440 had been led to the gallows and hanged, and now 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:55.120 that safety net was gone, it can't have been an 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.680 easy delivery. Months earlier and Procter, wife of Thomas and 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.680 one of the afflicted who put so many others in jail, 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.880 had delivered her own baby. She would have prepared groaning 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.959 cakes and groaning beer, the traditional provisions laid out to 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.800 refresh the women of the community as they gathered by 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.240 her side, coaching and supporting her through the process of 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.960 labor and birth. New clean linens would have been ready 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.480 nearby as well to wrap the newborn. A family cradle 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.440 would be in the room. Thomas Putnam would have stepped 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.120 in among the women of the Salem Village church to 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.520 bless his new child with a father's love, to share 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.800 pride and joy with the weary mother, to receive the 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:42.760 warm smiles and congratulations of his neighbors. Not for Elizabeth Proctor. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.920 Though her birthing experience that January was as cold and 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.320 unfriendly as the jail cell she sat in, she more 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.880 than likely would have labored on the bare dirt floor, 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.160 and unless the people around her were no longer bound 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.000 by leg irons and chains, she would have had to 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.320 labor alone. There were no fresh linens to swaddle her 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.840 newborn son, and her husband John was never going to 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.000 walk through that door and share in her joy. He 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.560 was gone now, so too was her protection from execution. 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.440 There was little to look forward to, so she named 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.320 him with an eye on the past, John, just like 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:27.079 his father. Even though John would need his mother now 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:31.280 more than ever, his birth signaled her death. Stoughton's death 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.960 warrant now had power over her, and when the first 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.720 session of the Superior Court convened on February one. She 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.040 fully expected to be led away and never see him again. 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.239 But then, of course, Phipps stopped all of that. But 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.840 the governor's message didn't stop everything. After Stoughton abandoned the 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.280 courts in an angry huff, Thomas Danforth took over and 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.720 shouldered the unsavory task of wrapping up all the remaining 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.560 open cases. He took over as Chief Justice and began 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:04.640 to methodically work through them, And the most talked about 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.720 of them all was that of Lydia Dustin. She was 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.440 one of those individuals who had been hounded for years 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:14.600 by accusations of witchcraft. When she was pulled into the 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.480 chaos of she said very little in her own defense, 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.040 which gave her the appearance of guilt in the eyes 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.919 of the magistrates. But all of the evidence against her 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.880 had been spectral. Tales of ghostly visitations were invisible attacks, 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:34.000 and that was no longer permissible in the trials. The jury, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.480 of course, acquitted her, and she was ordered to pay 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.720 her jail fees and go home. And one would hope 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.800 that by now the community around her would have caught 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.880 on and recognized an innocent woman when they saw one. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.800 But there were a number of complaints about the verdict, 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.640 so many that Dan Fourth actually begged her to confess 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:58.880 if she was truly guilty. She did not. She returned 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.080 to the jail in Cambridge, where she had been staying 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.240 and waited for her family to gather the necessary funds 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.840 to purchase her freedom. While she was there, though, she 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.200 became sick, and even after being brought home to be 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.040 cared for, she was too old and frail to fight 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:21.159 it off. She died on March tenth, the final victim 0:04:21.200 --> 0:05:01.120 of the Salem which trials. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.560 One other death that happened that winter was that of 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.080 and Over rapist Timothy Swan. He had been one of 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.200 the men to start the and Over accusations, claiming that 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.559 he had been bewitched by some of the women in town, 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.960 causing him to become sick. When he passed away on 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.560 February second, it was the day after those women were 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.000 released and sent home six months earlier. That sort of 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.240 coincidence would have landed those women back in jail, but 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.840 the tide had shifted. Most people saw his death as 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:35.039 natural and expected. There were still doubts in the air 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.800 in Salem, though yes, Lydia Dustin had been acquitted, but 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.680 there were a handful of others still being held for trial, 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.719 and everyone wondered if they would receive the same open 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:49.160 minded treatment or if criminal charges awaited them, But they 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.080 would have to wait because the Superior Court was needed 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.360 in Boston to handle other matters of governance. On February six, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.600 just five days after Governor Phipps reprieve, Salem village minister 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.000 Samuel Paris led a small committee of members from his 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.679 congregation along the Ipswich Road to the home of Francis Nurse, 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:13.119 husband of Rebecca, who had been executed months before. Along 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:14.800 the way, they stopped at the home of their son, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.360 Samuel Nurse, as well as John Tarbell, Rebecca's son in law. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:25.000 The committee consisted of Reverend Paris, Nathaniel Ingersoll, Old Bray Wilkins, 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:29.800 and three Putnams, although not Chief Instigator Thomas Putnam. They 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:31.920 made the trip out to the Nurse farm to make 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:36.440 a complaint about the behavior of those families. Specifically, they 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.520 were upset that the men had refused to come to 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.600 church or partake in Holy communion, and if Reverend Paris 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:44.960 was to be able to do his job as shepherd 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:49.400 of the flock. They needed to come back. From what 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.719 we know, each of the men received the message in 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.960 stony silence. They didn't make excuses or explain themselves, probably 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.599 because the reasons should have been clear enough. Paris helped 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.359 stoke the community fears that led to the deaths of 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.560 Rebecca Nurse and Mary Esty, and they owed him no 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.480 excuse for being angry about that. But they all did 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:12.800 agree to come into the village the following day to 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.280 meet the whole committee and discuss the matter. They extended 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.520 the offer to Bray Wilkins grandson Thomas as well, and 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.120 to Peter Klois, whose wife Sarah had somehow managed to 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:29.000 outlive her sister's Rebecca and Mary. John Tarbell arrived two 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:33.200 hours early and headed straight for the minister's parsonage. Paris 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.560 led him upstairs to his study, where Tarbell raged at 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.120 him for over an hour. He took months of frustration 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.679 and pain and anger and swung it like a club, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:47.400 pointing all of the blames squarely on Paris. If not 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.560 for the words and actions of Paris, he claimed, Rebecca 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.600 Nurse would still be alive, as would so many others 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.400 After he left, Samuel Nurse climbed the minister's stairs and 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.480 did the act same thing. The only thing that saved 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.040 Paris this time was the start of the one pm 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.240 committee meeting, so both men left and walked over to 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.040 the meeting house. Imagine they didn't walk together, though there 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.160 would have been tensioned in the air between Paris and 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:19.400 the others that borderlined on tangible. The group meeting was 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.640 just as rough for Paris. They blamed him for everything, 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:27.040 calling him the instrument of our miseries and the beginning 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:31.200 and procureur of the sorest afflictions, not of this village only, 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.800 but to this whole country. But Paris was quick to 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.600 shift all the blame to God. It was God who 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:41.120 sent the evil into their community to test and refine them, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.440 so Paris should be off the hook. Peter Cloy's didn't 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.600 come to that meeting, but he did make a trip 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.240 to Paris's house the following day. Once upstairs in the 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:55.640 minister's study, he did the same thing as the others. Paris, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.000 he said, helped drive a community witch hunt that had 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.120 claimed the lives of both of his wife's sisters. Was 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.800 it any wonder that he and the others had refused 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.079 to attend church and sit under his teaching and leadership. 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:13.240 There would be more meetings, just like the first. Paris 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:15.160 and the men of the Nurse family met again two 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.720 weeks later, and then twice in March, twice in April, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.720 and then once again in May. Multiple meetings did nothing 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.120 to calm their anger, though in fact, those same men 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.160 began to lobby for the removal of Samuel Paris from Salem, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.920 and whether it was by their influence or the powers 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.800 of other angry villagers, the rates committee continued to refuse 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.760 to collect his salary, just as they had done for 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:44.000 the previous two years. Things had changed in Salem. During 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.840 March and April of a full year after the first 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:51.440 afflicted girls frightened the village with their unusual fits, a 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.520 fifteen year old servant girl named Mercy Short began to 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.400 have her own seizures. Cotton Mother actually took the girl 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.240 into his own home and cared for her, recording her 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:05.280 condition and behavior, where she claimed that forces were pinching her, 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:10.960 choking her, and tempting her with unheard whispers. But Mercy 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.720 Short was the orphaned daughter of a family from Maine, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.240 where her parents had been killed in the violence of 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:20.160 King William's War. She had been taken captive during the fighting, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.160 but when she was finally released, she moved south to Salem. 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.800 Today we can see her as a grief stricken young 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.880 woman dealing with the trauma of her past. But Mather 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:36.000 diagnosed her with something different, demonic possession. That didn't stop 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.080 the stories, though. Some people who visited her during her 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.440 illness claimed they could smell brimstone in the room. Others 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.400 said they could feel the air move, hinting at invisible 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.240 spirits at work in the house. It was the typical 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.600 spectral evidence we have all come to expect from Salem. 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.000 But nothing ever came of it. No one took anyone 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.760 to court over her sufferings. No names were named. Neither 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.880 even wrote about her ordeal in a new pamphlet called 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.200 A Brand Plucked out of the Burning, where he stated 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.120 that Mercy's real recovery would happen when she learned to 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:12.760 find safety and protection inside her new home in Salem. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.240 In other words, her torment wasn't the work of witches 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.800 or spirits. It was nothing more than the cruelty of life. 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.360 The Superior Court met again on May tenth of to 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.960 hear the final cases against the last remaining which suspects. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.640 Danforth was back as Chief Justice, with no sign of 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.480 William Stoughton. Thankfully, the majority of the cases were dismissed 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.360 by the grand jury. While five of them went to trial. 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.319 All of them were found not guilty and ordered to 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:51.760 be released upon payment of their jail fees. One of 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.559 the dismissed cases was that of the Paris family slave Tichiba. 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.800 She'd been in jail for over a year, but unlike 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.160 everyone else, he had yet to actually be indicted with 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:06.720 a specific crime. But Paris, showing his true colors, once again, 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.319 refused to pay her jail fees and secure her release. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.360 Here's Pulitzer Prize winning historian Stacy Schiff, you can't leave 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.360 until you've paid your jail fees, and no one is willing, 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.480 it seems to pay titibus until later. I think she's 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.680 in jail for a year altogether. I don't know what 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:26.440 the what the law would have been for a slave. 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.079 They certainly didn't want her back, and we have very 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:30.680 little sense of where she could have gone after that. 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:32.360 By the way, I mean, it's interesting because she's so 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.240 completely at the heart of this and therefore would have 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.480 been very much spoiled goods. It turns out Titchiba was 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:43.880 essentially confiscated by the state, like an abandoned piece of property. 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.360 She would have been sold off to the highest bidder, 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.840 although we have no record of that transaction, but the 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.439 full picture of the dehumanization of a slave in colonial 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:59.080 New England couldn't be more clear. Meanwhile, the conflict continued 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.040 between Paris and the villagers who remembered his role in 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:06.040 fanning the flames of fear. Let's be clear, Samuel Paris 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.440 did not deliberately drive the chaos forward, and he didn't 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:13.000 create the tension between feuding families in the area. But 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.720 he did use his position to poke at those sore 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.360 spots and draw attention to them. He didn't create the fear, 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.320 but he certainly wielded it like a tool to advance 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:27.280 his own causes. These people confronted Paris about his failures 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:32.400 for over two years. Finally, in November of six Paris 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.920 wrote an apology of sorts and read it out loud 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.400 during a Sunday service. But it was too little, too late, 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.760 and far from an actual apology. In fact, it was 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.280 more of the same old blame shifting that he loved 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.640 to engage in. This wasn't really his fault, he said. 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.760 The events of six two had been a rebuke by 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.839 God for events that had begun inside his house. Titchuba 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.880 and John Indian were both to blame because they had 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.640 helped Mary Sibley make the Yearine cake to ward off 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.520 the devil. Magic had been used in his house to 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.360 fight magic, and God was angry about that. In the end, 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.199 his apology was really just a lot of excuses about 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.280 why he wasn't to blame. It took two more years 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.559 before Samuel Paris grew weary of the countless meetings and 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:23.160 conversations about his failures in sixteen ninety two. In April 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.200 of sixteen ninety six, he informed the village elders that 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.200 he would be leaving his position as minister, much to 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.120 the relief of many families in the area, but he 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.880 held onto the parsonage until early sixteen ninety seven, when 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.000 the church finally gave him his unpaid salary as a 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.040 bribe to pack up and leave. He moved to Stowe, 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.120 Massachusetts to take a position in a church there, but 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.680 was quickly caught up in a dispute with the elders 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:55.920 the issue his salary. Of course, another church experienced some 0:14:56.000 --> 0:15:00.120 change in January of sixty seven. As Samuel Willard was 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.240 walking up the center aisle of Boston's Third Church, a 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.520 hand reached out and handed him a letter. It was 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.120 Judge Samuel Sewell, one of the men to sit on 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.280 both the Court of Oyer and Terminer and the Superior Court, 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.800 and the letter came with instructions to be read aloud immediately. 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.280 It was an apology, not from the collective judges, just 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.840 from him. But it was a real apology, standing in 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.160 sharp contrast to the blame shifting that Paris had engaged in. 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.120 Sewell expressed his deep regret for what had taken place 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.320 under his supervision. He asked for the blame to fall 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.760 on his shoulders, and begged for prayers of forgiveness. And 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.280 he used a word that had been spoken seldom in 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:46.440 regards to the actions of the Court sin. It wasn't 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.680 just that they had made mistakes, but that they had 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:53.080 committed crimes against God. Sewell's prayer was that the punishment 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.000 for his own sin would stop with him, rather than 0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:00.680 spilling out onto the community and his own family. No 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.240 other judges ever made the same sort of public apology, 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.160 but others from different parts of the system joined him later. 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.640 Thomas Fisk had been the foreman of the jury during 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.720 the Oyer and Terminal trials, and he released a statement 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:17.000 along with eleven other jurymen. They acknowledged that they had 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.480 been led on by the judges to do horrible things 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.480 that resulted in innocent blood spilled, and they begged for forgiveness. 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.160 The public was beginning to feel more and more bold 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:32.240 with their anger about the handling of the trials. In seven, 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.120 Boston merchant Robert Caliph published a collection of papers from 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.080 the trial that only he could have put together. Not 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.560 only had he been a wealthy merchant, but he also 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.240 served as a constable for a time, and that gave 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.440 him access to documents and people that otherwise would have 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:52.240 been out of reach. He titled his publication More Wonders 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.800 of the Invisible World, a direct attack against Cotton Mather's 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.440 own book of a similar title that had been written 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:02.720 as a pr tactic defense of the trials. Half pulled 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.400 no punches, making sure the utter failure of the Massachusetts 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.760 leadership was on full display. He even took another stab 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:13.880 at Cotton Mother by naming one of his chapters another 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.439 brand plucked out of the Burning, referencing Mathers report on 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.359 Mercy Short that I mentioned earlier. The book features interviews 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:25.480 with Captain John Alden, Nathaniel Carey, and George Jacobs Jr. 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.399 All of whom had escaped Salem in the chaos of 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.560 the Fall of six two but had since returned, and 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.320 he made it clear just how widely it was known 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:40.000 that Sheriff Corwin was skimming from the confiscations, but in 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.400 the midst of his attack on the judges and leadership, 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.240 Caleff gives us one last glimpse into the story of Tichiba. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.240 In his book, Califf reveals her own testimony about what 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.960 happened in six She confirmed that Paris had indeed beaten 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.520 a confession out of her, and that he coached her 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.720 on what to say and how to say it. The 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.480 most surprising part of her interview with Caliph is that 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.200 it takes place after she was sold by the state 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.919 to pay for the jail fees. We still don't know 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.960 the specifics of that sale or where she ended up, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:14.719 but apparently Caliph knew enough about it to track her 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.199 down and speak with her. She might have been treated 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.399 like a piece of property by many of the people 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.200 in power, but to Robert Caliph, Titchiba was just one 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.600 more reliable witness, a human being who had lived through 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:31.439 hell and had valuable information to share. But it was 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.280 nothing more than a snapshot of a wisp of smoke. 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:40.240 After her brief mention in Caliph's book, that's the last 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:44.480 we ever hear from her, Pitchiba has vanished from the 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:55.080 public records forever. After every tragedy, community has to learn 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.240 to stand back up and rebuild. We see this today 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:02.879 after natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes. We see it 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.399 happen in war torn countries. We see it happen in 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:11.800 our own lives. Storms bring damage, and that damage needs repaired. 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.440 Salem Village wasn't unique in that regard. Yes, their storm 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:21.439 was unusual and unique among the pages of American history, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.080 and yes it was a storm crafted by the people 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.560 who lived there. But regardless of all of that, they 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.080 still had work to do if they wanted to move on. 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.879 The departure of Reverend Samuel Paris left the position of 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.080 Minister vacant in Salem Village, but they soon filled it 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.080 Joseph Green was a brand new graduate from Harvard and 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.960 a baby at just twenty two. Reports describe him as 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:51.119 socially outgoing and gregarious, and apparently a bit more open 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.240 minded than the former minister. One of the first things 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:58.200 he did was institute the Halfway Covenant in the village 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.840 church that meant people could become full members without the 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.040 humiliation of public confession. He baptized the families that Paris 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.800 had pushed out of the church, and even rearranged the 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.480 seating chart for the Sunday service to place the Putnam's 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:17.119 and the nurses on the same bench. By the early 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.520 seventeen hundreds, the church in Salem Village was on the men. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.160 Reverend Green led the church in removing Martha Corey's excommunication. 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.280 They founded a community school, built a brand new, larger 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.680 meeting house, and instituted an annual Thanksgiving fundraiser to support 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:37.600 the needy among them. They had transition from selfish, inward 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:43.400 looking people to a community that cared about the outsider. Then, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:48.800 in August of seventeen o six, something amazing happened. Annie Putnam, 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.600 daughter of Thomas and Ann Putnam, and one of the 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:56.480 chief instigators of the spectral evidence, approached Reverend Green and 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.760 asked to become a full member of the church. Here 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.719 is one of the girls responsible for setting the village 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.240 on fire with fear that took the lives of over 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.560 two dozen people, and she wanted to sit beside her 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.840 neighbors in church and be a part of the community. 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.880 And Green agreed. He helped her craft her apology, which 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.840 he then wrote down in the Minister's Record Book, a 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:24.440 book that historian Richard Trask allowed me to hold. I 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.040 see some like modern edges to the page. Know what 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.199 this is is called leaf casting. What they did was 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:35.040 they cast on new new paper on the old. And 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:42.679 then this is the confession of and Putnam in the 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:47.359 early seventeen hundreds. And she says, basically, I desire to 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:52.840 be laid low in the dust of humility for accusing 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.040 people that I now believe we're innocent. And it was 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.320 her way of trying to give amends so that she 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.240 could become a full church member. Is there is the 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:05.440 confession that's in the book. Here's this in her handwriting, 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:09.800 special signature dictated by her into the book, and then 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:14.800 she signs it herself. That confession was also delivered to 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.200 the congregation by Anne herself. She stood in her place 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.800 in the meeting house on August and read the confession 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:25.919 out loud. Here's historian Stacy Schiff. She says she was 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:28.520 essentially led us stray right. It's a little bit the 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.320 devil made me do it kind of excuse, but she 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.359 does indicate that she was. She doesn't address how she 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.480 came up with these spectral images. She simply says that 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.879 she was misguided and deluded, and the congregation accepted her. 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:45.840 She became a full member in the church and attended 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.119 right alongside the families of the people she helped execute. 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.000 It was a powerful symbol of the healing that needed 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.000 to happen, but it also belies a darker undercurrent. The 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.600 families of the victims were still in agony, and they 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:03.840 were out to cry out for justice. The first place 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.159 to start, in the minds of many was for the 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.159 government to reverse the charges against the people who had 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:13.560 been tried and convicted in Sixto, to restore their innocency, 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:18.960 as they said, But they also wanted financial restitution. Remember, 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.560 many of the people who were executed and convicted lost everything. 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:26.080 If the husband was executed, every piece of his property 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:28.840 was confiscated by the states, even if there was a 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:33.160 widow and children left behind. Single women faced the same devastation, 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:36.840 and many others experienced death blows to their business or 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:40.639 personal finances. Something had to be done to fix it. 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:46.360 In seventeen oh three, the convictions of Abigail Faulkner, Sarah Wardwell, 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:50.720 and Elizabeth Proctor were reversed, and then in seventeen ten, 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:54.520 the Massachusetts legislature set up a committee to investigate what 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:57.199 else they might be able to do. The members of 0:23:57.240 --> 0:23:59.960 that committee arrived in Salem in September of that year, 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:03.400 and during their six day visit they received forty five 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:08.000 petitions for restitution. Every one you might have expected was 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:12.159 part of that list. Sarah Good's husband, William, the nurses 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:16.399 and stes and carriers. Charles Burrows, the oldest son of 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:19.960 the executed minister from Maine, added his name to the list, 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.520 as did Philip English. In fact, he submitted a list 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:26.800 of items stolen by Sheriff George Corwen and filed suit 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:31.199 against the man. George Jacobs Jr. Who had returned from 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:36.160 hiding elsewhere, also submitted a list. His included cows and pigs, 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:42.760 sixty bushels of corn, a quantity of pewter bed rugs, blankets, pillows, 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:47.119 and other furniture, all taken by Corwen. It took the 0:24:47.119 --> 0:24:49.680 committee more than a year to hand over a decision, 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:53.080 but when they did, the General Court acted on it immediately. 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:57.679 They reversed the property seizures of twelve executed witches, along 0:24:57.680 --> 0:25:00.639 with Jihles Corey and seven others who had been convicted 0:25:00.680 --> 0:25:03.679 but not killed. But if you're trying to do the 0:25:03.720 --> 0:25:05.560 math in your head to keep up, you might have 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:09.960 noticed a gap. Seven convictions for witchcraft still remained in place, 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:16.240 bridget Bishop Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, and pudiator Wilma Reid, 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:21.200 Margaret Scott and Elizabeth Johnson, and while attempts were made 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:24.680