1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Speaker 1: Our guest today is Jane Kamensky, Professor of history at 2 00:00:05,040 --> 00:00:08,360 Speaker 1: Harvard University. She's also the director of the slushing Er 3 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:10,960 Speaker 1: Library on the History of Women in America at the 4 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:15,000 Speaker 1: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. She's a historian of the 5 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:18,480 Speaker 1: Atlantic World and the United States, with a particular interest 6 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:22,119 Speaker 1: in the histories of family, culture and everyday life, you know, 7 00:00:22,640 --> 00:00:25,760 Speaker 1: the stuff that makes history feel more real. I had 8 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:28,160 Speaker 1: a chance to sit down with Professor Kaminski this past 9 00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:32,040 Speaker 1: summer and we had a wonderful conversation. So, without further delay, 10 00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:36,360 Speaker 1: let's get on with the show. This is the Unobscured 11 00:00:36,400 --> 00:01:12,560 Speaker 1: Interview series for season one. I'm Aaron Mankey. Hi, I'm 12 00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:15,960 Speaker 1: Jane Kamensky. I teach history at Harvard University, and I'm 13 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,080 Speaker 1: also the director of the Lessinger Library on the History 14 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:21,800 Speaker 1: of Women in the United States. I'm gonna start us 15 00:01:21,800 --> 00:01:24,959 Speaker 1: off with a really well, deceptively simple question, but it's 16 00:01:24,959 --> 00:01:29,520 Speaker 1: pretty complex. I'm sure what was a witch in um? 17 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:36,480 Speaker 1: Which was somebody who made unexpected things happen? Puritans lived 18 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:40,360 Speaker 1: in a world of portents and wonders and almonds. They're 19 00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:44,559 Speaker 1: always watching the sky, They're watching their earth Um there 20 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:48,520 Speaker 1: you know, Uh, God speaks to them. And I think 21 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:54,760 Speaker 1: a which was somebody who made almonds and portents and 22 00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:59,840 Speaker 1: signs happen in ways that um seemed to reside in 23 00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:05,240 Speaker 1: a appropriately in a human form, which is in purit. 24 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:08,400 Speaker 1: New England were not thought to wear black pointy hats, 25 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:12,240 Speaker 1: although they sometimes did ride around on brooms. Um. And 26 00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:16,680 Speaker 1: they acted in a whole manner of inappropriate ways or 27 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:23,000 Speaker 1: were present at times when inexplicable things happened. Um. Small 28 00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:28,079 Speaker 1: harms you know, milk curdling sour side or going sour. Um. 29 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:31,120 Speaker 1: Big harms. Uh you know, somebody saying, oh, what a 30 00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:36,840 Speaker 1: pretty child that is, and the child soon sickens and dies. Um. 31 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:40,399 Speaker 1: Women who spoke out of turn, uh you know who 32 00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:44,840 Speaker 1: whose tongues went on like fishwives in ways that um 33 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:47,360 Speaker 1: really seemed to sort of stick out of the fabric 34 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:52,200 Speaker 1: of conversation at the time. Um. People who said things 35 00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:58,160 Speaker 1: that later seemed to be ominous. Um. It's a world 36 00:02:58,320 --> 00:03:03,600 Speaker 1: in which, you know, science is quite primitive, and a 37 00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:09,840 Speaker 1: great deal of what unfolds in any given season is inexplicable. Right. 38 00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:15,240 Speaker 1: Crops fail, animals die, um, And sometimes in the search 39 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:21,160 Speaker 1: for supernatural explanations UM, which included God and the devil Um, 40 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:25,160 Speaker 1: which is as the handmaidens of the devil um were 41 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:31,359 Speaker 1: were faulted. It's hard to see looking backwards whether there 42 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:38,800 Speaker 1: were individuals who cultivated that reputation UM, who had sort 43 00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:44,240 Speaker 1: of family businesses in curative arts that flirted with the 44 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:48,480 Speaker 1: edge of of the supernatural. You know, there there are 45 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:53,280 Speaker 1: some instances in Salem where UM women are found with 46 00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:56,520 Speaker 1: poppets that seemed to be a little little cloth dolls 47 00:03:56,600 --> 00:03:59,200 Speaker 1: that seemed to be used in UM in some kind 48 00:03:59,240 --> 00:04:04,080 Speaker 1: of ritual. One thing that's quite different in UH in 49 00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:08,800 Speaker 1: the early New England witchcraft cases than in a lot 50 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:12,600 Speaker 1: of more ancient witchcraft cases is that Puritans are very 51 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,360 Speaker 1: concerned with the idea that some which is consort with 52 00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:19,040 Speaker 1: the devil um. You know, there's a there's a black 53 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:24,520 Speaker 1: mass that surfaces in accounts of Salem that's not typical 54 00:04:24,760 --> 00:04:29,240 Speaker 1: in run of the mill witchcraft cases UM, where it's 55 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:34,720 Speaker 1: where it's really more about livestock or about what we 56 00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:37,200 Speaker 1: would now think of as a nightmare. I woke up 57 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:39,760 Speaker 1: with a sensation of somebody pressing on my chest, and 58 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:41,479 Speaker 1: I thought of my neighbor, and it must have been 59 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:46,560 Speaker 1: her um bewitching me um so, a whole range of 60 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:52,919 Speaker 1: unexpected happenings that didn't have an easy narrative cause that 61 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:58,320 Speaker 1: could fasten on somebody who, for whatever reason um stuck 62 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:01,560 Speaker 1: out in a fabric of society that was supposed to 63 00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:07,080 Speaker 1: be smooth, very which brings us to the idea of gender, 64 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:11,280 Speaker 1: because when you talk about smooth society, there's orders and rules. 65 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:14,760 Speaker 1: There's a quote from George Webb who said the tongue 66 00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:18,400 Speaker 1: is a witch. What did he reveal about women's voices, 67 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:22,240 Speaker 1: how they were understood in in the seventeenth century society 68 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:24,400 Speaker 1: when he says that the tongue as a witch? Like, 69 00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:26,840 Speaker 1: what does that mean? Um? So? George Webb is an 70 00:05:26,839 --> 00:05:32,159 Speaker 1: Anglican cleric uh and um. He's one of a host 71 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:36,680 Speaker 1: of people at that time, Reformed Protestants of one kind 72 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:40,760 Speaker 1: or another um writing about the power of speech, um 73 00:05:40,839 --> 00:05:44,920 Speaker 1: and uh, and often about the power of women's speech 74 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:47,479 Speaker 1: in particular. This is what my first book, Governing the 75 00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:51,760 Speaker 1: Tongue was about. Um. Puritans are famously people of the 76 00:05:51,839 --> 00:05:55,560 Speaker 1: word uh. They are, you know, devotees of the Bible 77 00:05:55,640 --> 00:06:01,479 Speaker 1: and vernacular language. They take utterances very very seriously. They're 78 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:05,280 Speaker 1: over a hundred kinds of speech crime policing the boundaries 79 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:09,039 Speaker 1: of proper speech. In Puritan New England, everything from a 80 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:13,239 Speaker 1: child cursing a parent was technically a capital crime because 81 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,520 Speaker 1: it was a violation of the Fifth Commandment UM. Speaking 82 00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:21,479 Speaker 1: against authority in various ways slander, defamation, UM, scolding, railing, 83 00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:28,839 Speaker 1: and UH, and a significant number of speech in fractions UM. 84 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:33,320 Speaker 1: Ways of speaking out of turn hung on women. In particular, 85 00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:36,720 Speaker 1: the idea of of the scold as a female figure 86 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,560 Speaker 1: UM the railer as a female figure UM was was 87 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:46,440 Speaker 1: old in England and was highly salient in early New England. 88 00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:49,560 Speaker 1: So UM when I was when I was doing my 89 00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:54,520 Speaker 1: research on speech in New England society, UM, I focused 90 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:57,400 Speaker 1: on cases not just in Salem, but in the long 91 00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:01,360 Speaker 1: run of New England witchcraft from the sixteen parties forward, 92 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:06,640 Speaker 1: where UM some of what neighbors said about people accused 93 00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:10,040 Speaker 1: of witchcraft was UM ways in which they had spoken 94 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:13,080 Speaker 1: out of turn. UM. Women who were women who were 95 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:15,680 Speaker 1: saying things that they shouldn't have or in places they 96 00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:19,160 Speaker 1: shouldn't have, in tones that they shouldn't have. UM. A 97 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:25,280 Speaker 1: woman's role in Puritan society was a vitally important role UM. 98 00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:28,760 Speaker 1: But it was a vitally important role in a in 99 00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:33,240 Speaker 1: a marital partner, in a marital partnership, um as a 100 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:37,680 Speaker 1: help meet. UM. You know a uh, it's what what 101 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:43,160 Speaker 1: would now in evangelical rhetoric be called a complimentarian philosophy. UM. 102 00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:47,640 Speaker 1: Uh you know, the sort of uh yen to the 103 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:53,160 Speaker 1: husband's yang. Women who weren't married were anomalous. UM. You know, 104 00:07:53,240 --> 00:07:57,120 Speaker 1: there's a there's a significant number of women accused in 105 00:07:57,200 --> 00:08:02,160 Speaker 1: Salem who are either um postmarried or unmarried in uh 106 00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:06,160 Speaker 1: in some way, so helpmate who was a crucial partner 107 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:09,520 Speaker 1: in a marriage and in a household, but also the 108 00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:12,360 Speaker 1: junior partner, the non speaking partner, the partner who didn't 109 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:18,200 Speaker 1: serve on juries or vote. Um. Because male house headship 110 00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:22,680 Speaker 1: was thought to cover everybody in the house um, and 111 00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:26,840 Speaker 1: that interest was assumed to be indivisible. Um. There are 112 00:08:27,240 --> 00:08:34,439 Speaker 1: definitely suspects in Salem who rise to community notoriety because 113 00:08:34,559 --> 00:08:38,920 Speaker 1: the husband and wife are fractious against each other. UM. 114 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:44,400 Speaker 1: So uh there were I guess the channel for the 115 00:08:44,520 --> 00:08:49,480 Speaker 1: virtuous woman um was a pretty narrow channel. UM. At 116 00:08:49,559 --> 00:08:52,920 Speaker 1: the same time, and this is something other scholars have 117 00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:57,680 Speaker 1: dealt with as well. UM. Women had enormous generative power 118 00:08:57,840 --> 00:09:01,160 Speaker 1: in society. Right that if you're if or a uh, 119 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,720 Speaker 1: if you're a society that's unraveling mysteries, the mystery of 120 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:09,120 Speaker 1: birth is is profound right um, and is the the 121 00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:14,720 Speaker 1: sort of root stock of society. UM. So one thing 122 00:09:14,720 --> 00:09:19,040 Speaker 1: that which is are often accused of is processes that 123 00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:23,600 Speaker 1: UM that interrupt generation in one way or another UM, 124 00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:28,000 Speaker 1: things that are supposed to come to fruition that misfire UM. 125 00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:33,600 Speaker 1: Another scholar, Carol Carlson out at University of Michigan, found 126 00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:39,439 Speaker 1: UM that a significant number of suspects in New England 127 00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:44,719 Speaker 1: witchcraft cases were women who had unusually direct lines to 128 00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:48,719 Speaker 1: property holding, either because they didn't have living husbands, or 129 00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:51,800 Speaker 1: they didn't have sons, or they didn't have brothers. Some 130 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:58,199 Speaker 1: unusually direct relationship to property in Land. UM. John de 131 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:02,560 Speaker 1: Moss and his great work enter Attaining Satan tracked the 132 00:10:02,679 --> 00:10:09,360 Speaker 1: number of female witchcraft sub suspects who were post menopausal, 133 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:13,040 Speaker 1: who were through their childbearing years, so who had completed 134 00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:19,360 Speaker 1: their great function in Puritan society UM, but nevertheless persisted 135 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:25,200 Speaker 1: in ways that were UM uncomfortable or could get uncomfortable 136 00:10:25,360 --> 00:10:30,520 Speaker 1: for UM for their fellow townsfolk. About four out of 137 00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:35,160 Speaker 1: five witchcraft suspects in New England was female, so way 138 00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:39,880 Speaker 1: outscale for the proportion of the population. And when we 139 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:45,360 Speaker 1: look at the percentage tried and the percentage executed, um, 140 00:10:45,640 --> 00:10:49,600 Speaker 1: the predominance holds. I'm thinking of the story of Mary 141 00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:52,319 Speaker 1: Webster and Hadley in the I think the sixteen eighties. 142 00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:54,400 Speaker 1: She was accused of witchcraft, taken to Boston. It was 143 00:10:54,400 --> 00:10:56,000 Speaker 1: a quit and brought back. But you know, the complaints 144 00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:58,240 Speaker 1: were what you'd expect. She was, she was cranky, she 145 00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:01,800 Speaker 1: spoke out for herself, she wasn't religious. Um. And And 146 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:05,000 Speaker 1: there's a one of the themes that's popped up in 147 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:06,680 Speaker 1: all of the interviews we've been doing is that there's 148 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:12,040 Speaker 1: this what seems to be the tight normal focus on suspects. 149 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:15,920 Speaker 1: At the start, you know, the the typical other Sarah Good, 150 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:20,800 Speaker 1: Sarah Osburne um and obviously a slave Titsuba Um. You know, 151 00:11:20,840 --> 00:11:23,000 Speaker 1: Sarah Good was as you said, she was a mumbler. 152 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:25,800 Speaker 1: She was she would she would mutter things under her breath, 153 00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:28,800 Speaker 1: corn cob pipe exactly right. She didn't fit those norms, 154 00:11:28,800 --> 00:11:31,800 Speaker 1: and that bothered people. But but then that circle starts 155 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:34,439 Speaker 1: to get wider, and you you start to get people 156 00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:40,440 Speaker 1: like Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey, And do you have 157 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:45,920 Speaker 1: your own view on why that circle started to move 158 00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:48,199 Speaker 1: outside of the normal others and move on to people 159 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:50,120 Speaker 1: you wouldn't expect. I mean some of these were covenant 160 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:53,720 Speaker 1: members of the church, um, and it starts to spread 161 00:11:53,720 --> 00:11:56,079 Speaker 1: in a way that you wouldn't expect. Does that seem 162 00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:59,640 Speaker 1: to still follow these rules of women should be behaving 163 00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:02,160 Speaker 1: one way but now they're not? Or I you know, 164 00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:04,600 Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons we keep going back 165 00:12:04,679 --> 00:12:09,960 Speaker 1: and back and back to Salem um which um, I 166 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:11,840 Speaker 1: don't have the numbers at the tips of my fingers, 167 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:15,080 Speaker 1: but I think it's it's under ten percent of the 168 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:18,240 Speaker 1: people who are accused of witchcraft in the in the 169 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:21,000 Speaker 1: seventeenth century in New England. Right, it's a it's a 170 00:12:21,040 --> 00:12:24,600 Speaker 1: spasmodic incident. It's not the only uh, it's not the 171 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:27,680 Speaker 1: only spasm there's uh, there's one in hard for their 172 00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:30,440 Speaker 1: other you know, there are other clusters. But the reason 173 00:12:30,480 --> 00:12:32,559 Speaker 1: we keep going back and back and back to Salem 174 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:35,679 Speaker 1: is because of the ways that it jumps the tracks. Um, 175 00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:42,480 Speaker 1: it goes outside of the normal abnormal witchcraft suspects. UM. 176 00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:46,360 Speaker 1: There are a higher proportion of men suspected and UH 177 00:12:46,480 --> 00:12:50,600 Speaker 1: and tried and even executed in Salem than there are 178 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:54,000 Speaker 1: elsewhere at other times in the colonies. And it goes 179 00:12:54,080 --> 00:12:57,360 Speaker 1: up and up and up the social spectrum, touching eventually 180 00:12:57,520 --> 00:13:03,160 Speaker 1: even the governor's wife herself. UM. And that's one of 181 00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:06,040 Speaker 1: the reasons that people have looked so intensively at the 182 00:13:06,080 --> 00:13:11,920 Speaker 1: structure of that community. UM. The instability in church headship 183 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,120 Speaker 1: that we see both in Salem Town and Salem Village, 184 00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:19,400 Speaker 1: where that covenant community is fervent in the way that 185 00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:22,480 Speaker 1: many New England towns are, but is also repeatedly rocked 186 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,920 Speaker 1: by ministers coming and going. UM. Some of the military 187 00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:31,280 Speaker 1: upheaval and economic upheaval that we see in the sixteen eighties, 188 00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:38,280 Speaker 1: the political upheaval UM around Massachusetts's response to UH England's 189 00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:41,360 Speaker 1: overreaching the dominion of New England that results in the 190 00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:46,240 Speaker 1: revocation of the first Charter. So UM, it's an it's 191 00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:51,680 Speaker 1: a a volatile place at an unstable moment um. We 192 00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:55,199 Speaker 1: know from Marybeth Norton's work that there are also particular 193 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:01,840 Speaker 1: UH familial connections between the traumas that are inflicted by 194 00:14:01,880 --> 00:14:06,760 Speaker 1: the Indian Wars, the the sort of backcountry frontiers of 195 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:12,480 Speaker 1: Britain's Imperial Wars. UM in the northeast. It's it's overdetermined 196 00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:16,760 Speaker 1: the reasons why, um, that community would be at risk 197 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:23,400 Speaker 1: in various ways. UM. And yet still uh, there's enough, 198 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:25,600 Speaker 1: there's enough mystery in it, right, you could do a 199 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,320 Speaker 1: control Well what are all the what are all the 200 00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:33,560 Speaker 1: places that have similar instability? And um? And why does 201 00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:36,200 Speaker 1: you know? Why aren't you know why isn't there a 202 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:39,760 Speaker 1: massive witch hunt in New Haven at the same time? 203 00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:45,880 Speaker 1: Or um? Uh, it's certainly not that people in Salem 204 00:14:46,040 --> 00:14:51,560 Speaker 1: are less learned than they are other places. Um. Their 205 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:56,320 Speaker 1: leadership is um is lacking right that that they have 206 00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:02,640 Speaker 1: hindsight is always um. You know, looking back, if you 207 00:15:02,760 --> 00:15:08,880 Speaker 1: had had a minister unlike Samuel Paris who had chosen 208 00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:13,280 Speaker 1: to preach on peace and love and quiet the flames 209 00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:18,440 Speaker 1: rather than to um poor, it wouldn't have been gasoline 210 00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:21,040 Speaker 1: for them. But you know, pine tar on a on 211 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:24,880 Speaker 1: a smoldering set of embers. Um you could have had 212 00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:28,200 Speaker 1: you could have had a different outcome. You can think 213 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:32,680 Speaker 1: of people who could have intervened all along the way 214 00:15:32,840 --> 00:15:36,440 Speaker 1: to say, but wait, isn't this God telling us to 215 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:41,120 Speaker 1: love one another or UM. You know, isn't this a 216 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:46,680 Speaker 1: call for um? The greatest of these is love or charity? UM? 217 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:51,200 Speaker 1: Should we look to this scripture instead of that scripture 218 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:56,840 Speaker 1: to guide us? UM. I don't think even Samuel Paris 219 00:15:56,840 --> 00:15:59,640 Speaker 1: thought from week to week. Oh, if I do this 220 00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:04,000 Speaker 1: this week, in two weeks, it's really gonna get going. UM. 221 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:09,680 Speaker 1: It's a It's an interesting instance of how UM, without 222 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:16,920 Speaker 1: I think, without any concerted malign action, UM, good people 223 00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:22,440 Speaker 1: failing to um to to step up can result in 224 00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:28,640 Speaker 1: a kind of conflagration UM. A conflagration only related to 225 00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:31,720 Speaker 1: its time and place. Right, It's it's hundreds of people, 226 00:16:31,800 --> 00:16:34,800 Speaker 1: not thousands of people who are drawn into its web. 227 00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:42,080 Speaker 1: Although UM, that conflagration is large enough and is late 228 00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:45,520 Speaker 1: enough in the history the long history of European and 229 00:16:45,600 --> 00:16:50,720 Speaker 1: Anglophone witchcraft that it sticks out almost immediately right that 230 00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:57,320 Speaker 1: by three UM, you have people knowing that Salem is 231 00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:01,800 Speaker 1: a is a black eye UM. For for the whole 232 00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:04,560 Speaker 1: New World experiment, that New England is going to be 233 00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:07,399 Speaker 1: called New witch Land is one of the first things 234 00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:11,879 Speaker 1: that's UM that's said ex post facto about it, and 235 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:15,679 Speaker 1: UM people continuing to write about it in the you know, 236 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:19,760 Speaker 1: in the seventeen forties, in the era of the American Revolution. 237 00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:26,679 Speaker 1: It very quickly enters the domain of metaphor. Why was 238 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:31,639 Speaker 1: why was the slave woman Titsuba's testimony so powerful to 239 00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:35,960 Speaker 1: this community? I would have, I mean, my my, looking back, 240 00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:38,679 Speaker 1: you know, twenty one century attitude is was she She 241 00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:41,240 Speaker 1: seems to be so far of an outsider that she 242 00:17:41,240 --> 00:17:43,439 Speaker 1: shouldn't have voiced at all, and yet here she is, 243 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:45,280 Speaker 1: and it seems to matter so much. Why do you 244 00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:48,520 Speaker 1: think that was? I think, um, I will answer your question, 245 00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:54,720 Speaker 1: particularly about Tichiba. I think what you've just said hangs 246 00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:58,040 Speaker 1: over the whole of Salem in general, right, like, why 247 00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:00,840 Speaker 1: are the most powerful men in the West tern hemisphere 248 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:05,800 Speaker 1: listening to these girls in their teen years, in their 249 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:10,240 Speaker 1: early twenties. There's a whole flipping of whose word counts 250 00:18:10,359 --> 00:18:15,240 Speaker 1: and who's doesn't. I think Tichubus speech, at least as 251 00:18:15,280 --> 00:18:18,040 Speaker 1: we have it come down to us, you know, through 252 00:18:18,640 --> 00:18:24,879 Speaker 1: a court clerk's hand, whose um probably uh to some 253 00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:31,600 Speaker 1: degree over exoticizing her dialogue, her dialect um. It's just 254 00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:38,399 Speaker 1: incredibly vivid, right, you know that she uh, she decides um. 255 00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:42,360 Speaker 1: You know, possibly tactically in some way. Oh you want 256 00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:45,600 Speaker 1: a witch. You know, here's you. You've told me to 257 00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:48,600 Speaker 1: sing like a canary. I Am going to sing in 258 00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:51,640 Speaker 1: the Song of the Tropics. It's gonna have it had 259 00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:54,800 Speaker 1: just if you just look through Tichubus speech for the 260 00:18:54,920 --> 00:18:59,200 Speaker 1: color um. You know, the the birds, the tawny man, 261 00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:05,960 Speaker 1: the uh. It's a scholars have studied UM. Here seems 262 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:10,359 Speaker 1: to be some fusion of what she must have picked 263 00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:15,880 Speaker 1: up of um New England lore, which in Paris's household 264 00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:19,440 Speaker 1: she would have had abundant access to. UM. She must 265 00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:23,040 Speaker 1: be hearing him walk around practicing his preaching even before 266 00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:26,000 Speaker 1: he's doing it UM, and what she's brought with her, 267 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:31,080 Speaker 1: we think from Barbados. UM. So you know, you could 268 00:19:31,119 --> 00:19:35,359 Speaker 1: have called central casting for somebody to make the riveting 269 00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:39,520 Speaker 1: intervention in a drama and not have conjured up somebody 270 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:43,560 Speaker 1: who could do so with more alan than she winds 271 00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:50,720 Speaker 1: up doing UM. At other points in New England jurisprudence, 272 00:19:51,440 --> 00:19:53,600 Speaker 1: I think it would have been quickly relegated to the 273 00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:58,600 Speaker 1: side like just just uh, it doesn't follow, it doesn't 274 00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:03,040 Speaker 1: follow conventions, right, um. Uh, there's a lot of leading 275 00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:06,000 Speaker 1: the witness, um is there this. Yes, there's that, and 276 00:20:06,080 --> 00:20:09,160 Speaker 1: let me give you a little more. Um. She plays 277 00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:15,399 Speaker 1: her role very well. And UM, it's it's interesting, I 278 00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:20,120 Speaker 1: think unknowable ultimately. UM. One of the things that happens 279 00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:26,960 Speaker 1: in Salem is the conventions of witchcraft trials and jurisprudence 280 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:32,960 Speaker 1: flip to some degree. So UM, in sixteen sixty in Boston, 281 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:37,320 Speaker 1: if you had made a heartfelt confession of your involvement, 282 00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:43,639 Speaker 1: uh in witchcraft, that would have perhaps yielded you absolution 283 00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:46,000 Speaker 1: in the world beyond. But what it would have yielded 284 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:50,280 Speaker 1: you in this world is death. UM. In Salem, confession 285 00:20:50,359 --> 00:20:55,840 Speaker 1: liberates people from the news. And UM, she can't know 286 00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:00,439 Speaker 1: that yet when she's testifying, she's testifying too early. UM. 287 00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:04,280 Speaker 1: You know, maybe that what she says is so narratively 288 00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:08,920 Speaker 1: compelling that she begins to set that pattern in motion. UM. 289 00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,400 Speaker 1: But that's one of the many things that goes topsy 290 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:14,400 Speaker 1: turvy in Salem. We're listening to people were not supposed 291 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,320 Speaker 1: to listen to. Um, And kinds of utterances that would 292 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:23,760 Speaker 1: get you killed ten years before. UM make you a 293 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:28,240 Speaker 1: sort of star of the confessional circuit in well, and 294 00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,640 Speaker 1: you mentioned the girls, the you know, the afflicted accusers 295 00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:34,280 Speaker 1: who are there at the front of the meeting house 296 00:21:34,480 --> 00:21:38,359 Speaker 1: and they're you know, going into convulsions, and and that 297 00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,239 Speaker 1: it's odd that they too are being listened to, you know, 298 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,600 Speaker 1: as opposed to the grown adults in the room. Right. 299 00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:47,359 Speaker 1: Is there a nuance to that or is is it 300 00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:49,200 Speaker 1: just more of the same. It's just more of the 301 00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,520 Speaker 1: conventions being flipped on its head, you know. I think 302 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,760 Speaker 1: that is to me the great mystery of the Salem 303 00:21:55,880 --> 00:22:01,880 Speaker 1: proceedings is how in a world that devalues women's utterances 304 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,439 Speaker 1: and that tends to keep um, maybe especially young women 305 00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:14,960 Speaker 1: within their channels. Uh, this group of UM adolescent that's 306 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:20,040 Speaker 1: anachronistic term, but UM, women in their teens and early twenties, 307 00:22:20,600 --> 00:22:24,199 Speaker 1: UM come to be this this sort of star witness 308 00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:30,439 Speaker 1: coterie UM is completely ineffable. UM. I think there is 309 00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:35,359 Speaker 1: pretty convincing evidence that they are to a certain extent, 310 00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:40,200 Speaker 1: coordinating with each other and engaging in deliberate fraud. UM. 311 00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:46,040 Speaker 1: This is what the scholar Bernard Rosenthal believes that UM. Uh, 312 00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:52,000 Speaker 1: you know, you can't A pin doesn't come out of nowhere, right, UM, 313 00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:56,840 Speaker 1: it's a there's a kind of stagecraft to what they're doing. 314 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:03,280 Speaker 1: UM that in the normal run of Puritan punishment and 315 00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:08,200 Speaker 1: social sanction, UH should land them in the stocks UH 316 00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:12,320 Speaker 1: in either private or public shaming right UM, either chastening 317 00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:16,639 Speaker 1: in their families or by their congregations UM, or punishment 318 00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:20,359 Speaker 1: for scolding and raillery and speaking against their betters, right 319 00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,280 Speaker 1: the speaking out of fifth commandment order the younger against 320 00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:28,600 Speaker 1: the older, UM, women against men, women against ministers in 321 00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:34,800 Speaker 1: some cases UM with George Burrows. So how that happens? 322 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:40,199 Speaker 1: You know, it seems like a moment where UM, the 323 00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:47,600 Speaker 1: normal sources of authority holds so poorly, and the need 324 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:54,000 Speaker 1: for answers to questions that seem profound UM feels so 325 00:23:54,160 --> 00:24:00,560 Speaker 1: urgent that UM people begin listening. Two unexpectedness is who 326 00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,239 Speaker 1: say they have answers. It's so out of it's so 327 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:07,399 Speaker 1: out of the ordinary. When you have magistrates, you know, 328 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,879 Speaker 1: the judicial rulers who are also the business rulers, and 329 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:17,119 Speaker 1: they're from families that have been cultural and social patriarchs. 330 00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,000 Speaker 1: But they're the leader in every aspect of life. And 331 00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,479 Speaker 1: yet they're deferring to these children in a sense, you know, 332 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:25,399 Speaker 1: tell me, tell me the truth, right, I mean, they 333 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:29,159 Speaker 1: wouldn't have seen themselves as deferring right, they would have 334 00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:35,480 Speaker 1: seen themselves as using these female youths as the conduit 335 00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:41,240 Speaker 1: to UM, you know, scouring into the marrow of God's justice. UM. 336 00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:46,840 Speaker 1: But if you look even a handful of years before UM, 337 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,960 Speaker 1: there's a possession case in Massachusetts, the case of Elizabeth Knapp, 338 00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:55,960 Speaker 1: which John de Moss writes about at length. She's a 339 00:24:56,040 --> 00:25:01,600 Speaker 1: young female servant in a minister's house, and UM undergoes 340 00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:08,680 Speaker 1: many of the same kinds of UM traumatic manifest manifestations 341 00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:13,959 Speaker 1: that the afflicted accusers do in Salem, including UM, you know, 342 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,280 Speaker 1: saying vile things to the to the minister, maybe even 343 00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:21,240 Speaker 1: speaking in a voice that sounds like UM, a voice 344 00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:26,199 Speaker 1: not her own. And you know, the the seal is 345 00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,239 Speaker 1: put on the box really fast. You know she is. 346 00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:36,479 Speaker 1: She's possessed, UM, not afflicted, not a witch herself. And UH, 347 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,080 Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna get her cured, and nobody's gonna 348 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:42,600 Speaker 1: listen to her. For Heaven's sake, you know, nobody is 349 00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,320 Speaker 1: going to listen to her. We're going to get her 350 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:48,359 Speaker 1: the help that she needs, UM, which in our time 351 00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:53,000 Speaker 1: would be some kind of psychiatric intervention, and in their 352 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:58,760 Speaker 1: time is a religious one. UM. That's that's a moment 353 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:03,240 Speaker 1: and a happening that extremely close in both time and place. Right, 354 00:26:03,280 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: it's not I think it's not a full ten years before. 355 00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:10,119 Speaker 1: I think it's the sixteen seventies. I think it's actually 356 00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,800 Speaker 1: sixteen seventy two. It's Willard, right, we're talking. I think 357 00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:17,720 Speaker 1: it's twenty years before. But Willard has his own connections 358 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,920 Speaker 1: to Salem as well. Yeah, but Willard is a skeptic. 359 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:25,320 Speaker 1: I mean Willard is a thorough going skeptic. UM. I 360 00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:30,080 Speaker 1: think Willard is one of the people who represent a 361 00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:37,320 Speaker 1: kind of um secularizing is too strong, but who represent 362 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:42,840 Speaker 1: a kind of cosmopolitan urbanity UM that is nibbling at 363 00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,239 Speaker 1: the edges of Salem. I I did a piece of 364 00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,720 Speaker 1: work at one point that I never published, UM about 365 00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:53,520 Speaker 1: the image of the Devil's Book in the Salem, which trials, 366 00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:55,560 Speaker 1: you know, what does it look like? Oh, it's it's 367 00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:57,720 Speaker 1: you know, it's small and they hide and it's red. 368 00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:01,800 Speaker 1: It's not read. Um and looking at the book trades 369 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:05,399 Speaker 1: in New England at the time where um, you know, 370 00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:08,080 Speaker 1: this is a moment in the late sixteen eighties and 371 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:16,840 Speaker 1: early sixteen nineties where small secular print materials, um, you know, histories, geographies, satires, 372 00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:22,840 Speaker 1: joke books, playing cards, UM are coming into the bookstores 373 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:27,760 Speaker 1: in the ports cities, and UM are undermining the kind 374 00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:34,200 Speaker 1: of unitary authority that ministers who had less of the 375 00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:40,280 Speaker 1: urbanity that Willard uh happened to have UM had experienced before. 376 00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:47,280 Speaker 1: UM at the same time increasing Cotton Mather, UM, who 377 00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:51,080 Speaker 1: were fundamental to Salem unfolding the way it did. We're 378 00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,680 Speaker 1: also part of that urban world. You know. Cotton Mather 379 00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:59,560 Speaker 1: was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, UM. You 380 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,320 Speaker 1: know was it was a fancied himself, a scientist of 381 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:12,840 Speaker 1: international connection. UM. So it's not education or intellect that 382 00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,879 Speaker 1: explains where people came down and and how because Cotton 383 00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,840 Speaker 1: Mather at the same time would publish works collecting supernatural 384 00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,439 Speaker 1: occurrences and treat them in that sort of scientific and 385 00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,600 Speaker 1: historian minded view of well, here's this thing that happened. 386 00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,600 Speaker 1: Let's let's not do that, right. Well, I mean this 387 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:38,560 Speaker 1: is a world in which UM, science and religion and 388 00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:46,240 Speaker 1: UM ghost stories all are are very much of a piece. UM. 389 00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,800 Speaker 1: I've been reading in the last week or so the 390 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,960 Speaker 1: first volume of Deborah Harkness is All Souls Trilogy, which 391 00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,520 Speaker 1: is called a discovery of which is Um. I started 392 00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,160 Speaker 1: reading it, you know, I thought, I had thought, these 393 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,040 Speaker 1: are books about which is in vampires? This is not 394 00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:07,680 Speaker 1: something I'm going to read. And I did a panel 395 00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:09,800 Speaker 1: with her a couple of weeks ago. She's an early 396 00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:13,120 Speaker 1: modern historian of science, and she said that the conceit 397 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,320 Speaker 1: of the books was what if the world actually works 398 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:19,360 Speaker 1: the way that people thought it did in the fifteen 399 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,240 Speaker 1: and six and much of the seventeenth century. And I thought, 400 00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:27,360 Speaker 1: that's a great conceit. Um. You know, they had they 401 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,760 Speaker 1: had a particular cosmology, parts of which we believe we 402 00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:35,920 Speaker 1: have proved wrong. Um, we also have a cosmology right 403 00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:41,120 Speaker 1: that there are certainly things in our conceptions of science 404 00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:45,080 Speaker 1: are totalizing conceptions of science that people in two hundred 405 00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,240 Speaker 1: or three hundred years will wonder, how on earth did 406 00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,000 Speaker 1: they believe that? How did they think? You know, this 407 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,680 Speaker 1: is something that we're already starting to question. How do 408 00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,200 Speaker 1: they think that bombarding the body with poison was going 409 00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,400 Speaker 1: to cure cancer? Right? I mean I one of the 410 00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: things that we can take from a Salem into the 411 00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:06,000 Speaker 1: present day are what are the things that we believe 412 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:12,880 Speaker 1: ardently and with the backing of all of our um 413 00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:17,840 Speaker 1: scripture and science and uh and learning that are just 414 00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:23,520 Speaker 1: going to be revealed as wrong. So yes, science and 415 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:28,640 Speaker 1: magic and almonds and portents and a message in every 416 00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:33,160 Speaker 1: eclipse would have been true for mother, you know, who 417 00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,640 Speaker 1: lives on the edge of the world of Newton. Absolutely 418 00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:40,720 Speaker 1: side note. What I love about Elizabeth knapp story is 419 00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,560 Speaker 1: that she moves on and she marries a man named 420 00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:48,880 Speaker 1: Samuel Scripture. Well, how can I redeem my name as 421 00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,920 Speaker 1: best as I can? His last name is Scripture. I 422 00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,680 Speaker 1: think he was the slave next door. In your book 423 00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:00,160 Speaker 1: Governing the Tongue, you argued that which hunting was in 424 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:05,600 Speaker 1: part of policing of speech. Well, young me said that 425 00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,120 Speaker 1: I don't know whether old me would say that, so, 426 00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:12,760 Speaker 1: um was witch hunting in part of policing of speech? 427 00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,080 Speaker 1: I mean I think that, um, the ways that social 428 00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:18,080 Speaker 1: norms are policed is that there are a set of 429 00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:24,400 Speaker 1: consequences when um, when people overstep or um or misspeak 430 00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:31,200 Speaker 1: and um. The you know, most witch hunting is informal, right, UM, 431 00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:36,720 Speaker 1: so saying to a neighbor UM or complaining in church 432 00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:41,320 Speaker 1: or taking to court an accusation that um that somebody 433 00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,680 Speaker 1: has done something to make you very uncomfortable, and that's 434 00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:48,080 Speaker 1: something gets the name of witchcraft. UM is a way 435 00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:51,800 Speaker 1: of enforcing norms. I want to shift over to the courtroom, 436 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,200 Speaker 1: the meeting house at least this. You have this unique 437 00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,080 Speaker 1: thing happening in the first examination with Sarah Good and 438 00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:02,840 Speaker 1: Sarah Osborne. How they're husbands are brought in and give 439 00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:07,320 Speaker 1: testimony against them, um. And it might be coerced out 440 00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,880 Speaker 1: of them, they might be freely giving it. I'm not sure. 441 00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:15,040 Speaker 1: But how would their testimony against their wives have have 442 00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:19,080 Speaker 1: matched up with I guess expectations for the Puritan husband, 443 00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,520 Speaker 1: you know, the type of role that they're supposed to have, 444 00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,280 Speaker 1: you know, with this kind of testimony against a spouse 445 00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,400 Speaker 1: have been unusual in a courtroom. UM. I think that 446 00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:34,000 Speaker 1: the goal of puritan a goal of parent religion, and 447 00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:38,920 Speaker 1: a goal of jurisprudence in a place like Massachusetts where 448 00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:43,160 Speaker 1: it's an inquisitorial system not an advocacy system. UM. So 449 00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,240 Speaker 1: the goal of a proceeding is to get to the truth, 450 00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,400 Speaker 1: not to defend one side against the other. UM. I 451 00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:55,360 Speaker 1: think those are instances where the charges at hand and 452 00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:01,440 Speaker 1: the testimony of neighbors had made people questioned the behavior 453 00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:04,920 Speaker 1: of those they lived with intimately, and it would have 454 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,520 Speaker 1: been expected in the community that they would come forward 455 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:12,720 Speaker 1: with their doubts. Um. You know there's UM, there's a 456 00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:17,240 Speaker 1: unity of husband and wife as a UM, as a 457 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:23,120 Speaker 1: political person, as an economic person. UM. But I think, UM, 458 00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:28,720 Speaker 1: you know, in spiritual manners like that, if there UM, 459 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:33,000 Speaker 1: if there is a need to delve into error, UM, 460 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,520 Speaker 1: you know they I think they don't realize at that 461 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:38,680 Speaker 1: moment that they're on the leading edge of a mortal 462 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:43,360 Speaker 1: battle that's gonna encompass scores and then hundreds of people 463 00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:47,320 Speaker 1: and and bring all the towns around it. Um. You 464 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,040 Speaker 1: would have joined the court in uh, trying to get 465 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:55,320 Speaker 1: to the bottom of a search for error. UM. In 466 00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,680 Speaker 1: a perfect world, I mean in a you know, UM, 467 00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:01,520 Speaker 1: I haven't done the research to be able to say 468 00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,080 Speaker 1: husbands in x percentage of cases would demure when asked 469 00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:13,320 Speaker 1: about about their wives in discretion. But UM, in theory, 470 00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:17,120 Speaker 1: that's the way jurisprudence in an inquisitorial system should work. 471 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:22,880 Speaker 1: And and when brought before magistrates or whether we're talking 472 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:25,920 Speaker 1: you know, the meeting house kind of village trial, or 473 00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:27,919 Speaker 1: we go to oy or in termin or where things 474 00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:31,440 Speaker 1: get very serious, is there a difference in gender with 475 00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:36,680 Speaker 1: how people are represented. Just thinking about about the dynamics 476 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,520 Speaker 1: of gender. When a suspect or accused is brought into 477 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,320 Speaker 1: the courtroom, is it different for a man or a woman. Well, 478 00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:50,000 Speaker 1: I think, Um, the situations in a place like seventeenth 479 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:53,479 Speaker 1: century Massachusetts where a woman would have been called upon 480 00:34:53,600 --> 00:35:00,959 Speaker 1: to speak publicly and officially for herself are are extremely few. Um. 481 00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:05,600 Speaker 1: Uh you know, there's a pretty lively debate in Puritan 482 00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:09,200 Speaker 1: meeting houses about whether women should narrate their own conversions. 483 00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:13,880 Speaker 1: Um you know when they're when they're uh you know, 484 00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,600 Speaker 1: when they're describing how they experienced in dwelling grace to 485 00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:22,240 Speaker 1: become full members of the congregation. And um some uh 486 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:24,880 Speaker 1: as I recall dimly when I did this work on 487 00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,799 Speaker 1: seventeenth century New England. Um, some ministers preferred to take 488 00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:33,920 Speaker 1: those narratives in longhand um or in chambers in some 489 00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:39,080 Speaker 1: way to having a woman come in and profess openly. Um, 490 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:44,200 Speaker 1: you know, famously in New England and Hutchinson in sixteen 491 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:48,400 Speaker 1: thirty six, not all that long ago, right from sixto 492 00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:53,360 Speaker 1: uh is banished from the colony for um preaching to 493 00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:59,879 Speaker 1: mix audiences. Um. You know, women, women in uh can 494 00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:05,320 Speaker 1: enticles that did Bible study, woman on woman, UM, women 495 00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:10,719 Speaker 1: in birthing chambers, women in household working groups would have had, 496 00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,279 Speaker 1: you know, very free speech in front of each other. 497 00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:17,239 Speaker 1: But the number of times that you would call a 498 00:36:17,400 --> 00:36:23,400 Speaker 1: female speaker to depose herself in any official proceeding would 499 00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:27,440 Speaker 1: be UM would be you know, pretty rare. A defendant 500 00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,880 Speaker 1: in a court trial, UM, a witness sometimes in a 501 00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:36,440 Speaker 1: court trial, a jury person, never a preacher, never UM, 502 00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:42,960 Speaker 1: a political candidate or giver of a political opinion, never UM. 503 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:47,279 Speaker 1: A poet on occasion. Right, Ann Bradstreet has published her 504 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,439 Speaker 1: poetry in England and it has come back and been 505 00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,400 Speaker 1: republished in New England by the same time that Salem 506 00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,560 Speaker 1: breaks out and Um speaks in those poems. Got those 507 00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:06,000 Speaker 1: beautiful poems mostly on the combination of domestic and spiritual matters, 508 00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,200 Speaker 1: but takes up even in poetry the question of um 509 00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:16,360 Speaker 1: am I obnoxious to each carping tongue who says um, 510 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:21,080 Speaker 1: a woman's hand better needle than a pen fits UM. 511 00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,080 Speaker 1: So this this, you know, this question of speaking out loud, 512 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,160 Speaker 1: writing out loud, beyond the domestic context, it would have 513 00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:31,880 Speaker 1: been an extraordinary scene. Well, you know, it's interesting. We were, um, 514 00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,680 Speaker 1: we were at the Pvody Institute library and Damer's talking 515 00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,680 Speaker 1: to Richard Trusk and he has a number of things 516 00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:41,120 Speaker 1: in the vault, one of which is the he has 517 00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:45,319 Speaker 1: the Minister's notebook, which you can watch things such as 518 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,520 Speaker 1: the handwriting of Samuel Parris Degrade over eight months, you know, 519 00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:51,320 Speaker 1: from Neaton Clean to he's just trying to get everything 520 00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,240 Speaker 1: on the page. But there's the church notebook as well. 521 00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,879 Speaker 1: And evidently after Reverend Green came in and took over 522 00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:02,080 Speaker 1: for forever in paris Um and Putnam, one of the accusers, 523 00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:04,840 Speaker 1: one of the afflicted accusers, wanted to become a member 524 00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,719 Speaker 1: in the church and had to confess, you know, and 525 00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,920 Speaker 1: apologize because so many people in that congregation been affected 526 00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:16,600 Speaker 1: by her words. And so there's this large book that 527 00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:18,480 Speaker 1: we can still open up. And he opened up the 528 00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:22,040 Speaker 1: page right to us, and and her confession has been 529 00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:25,239 Speaker 1: written out by Reverend Green, not by her, it's but 530 00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,200 Speaker 1: it's been it's been recorded, Longhand like you said, and 531 00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:31,399 Speaker 1: then there's her signature, that's hers, it's in a different hand. 532 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:34,719 Speaker 1: So he just hands her the pen and she she 533 00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,200 Speaker 1: signs her name. Well, she probably couldn't have written anything 534 00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:41,920 Speaker 1: of that degree of elaboration, right, So UM, reading and 535 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:47,000 Speaker 1: writing are separately taught skills at the time, UM and uh. 536 00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:52,080 Speaker 1: Women in in Puritan New England have an unusually high 537 00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:56,960 Speaker 1: level of reading literacy UM because it's thought to be 538 00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:59,400 Speaker 1: so important for everybody to be able to read the 539 00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:01,160 Speaker 1: Bible and for mothers to be able to read the 540 00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,840 Speaker 1: Bible to their children. UM. But they have a pretty 541 00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,960 Speaker 1: low level of what's called sign literacy. UM. So she 542 00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:13,560 Speaker 1: can sign her name. She has some rudimentary UM written literacy, 543 00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,680 Speaker 1: but probably not the fluency to write an entire document. 544 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:19,239 Speaker 1: I guess one of the things that I find fascinating 545 00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:24,600 Speaker 1: about that um uh post hoc confession around Salem. I mean, 546 00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:27,920 Speaker 1: uh so people remember, right how what a what a 547 00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,400 Speaker 1: terrible uh scar on the community it's been in her 548 00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:36,360 Speaker 1: role in it. UM. But she's kind of able to 549 00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:39,920 Speaker 1: sew it up and resume a normal life, if I 550 00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,560 Speaker 1: recall correctly, she goes on to Mary's. UM. You know, 551 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:48,120 Speaker 1: you would think that you would have um a sort 552 00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:54,279 Speaker 1: of lifelong staying on your reputation and on the informal 553 00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:59,640 Speaker 1: um economy of the marriage market. UM. You know, social 554 00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:04,880 Speaker 1: life ability to speak kindly to your neighbor and vice versa. 555 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:11,280 Speaker 1: Um and um, you know, I think some of them 556 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:16,960 Speaker 1: remain unmarried, but not in a not in an extreme proportion. Um. 557 00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:20,000 Speaker 1: So the ability and and this is Puritanism as it's 558 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,920 Speaker 1: supposed to work, to write, the ability to make a 559 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,920 Speaker 1: heartfelt repentance and um and go on in forgiveness no 560 00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,799 Speaker 1: matter how big the no matter how big the mess 561 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,040 Speaker 1: up was. We tind to look back at Salem and 562 00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:39,200 Speaker 1: kind of snicker at them for their obsession over witchcraft 563 00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:44,680 Speaker 1: and things like that. But Monty Python, yeah right, yeah, Um, 564 00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:50,120 Speaker 1: but how different are we today? Well, I mean we're, um, 565 00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:52,520 Speaker 1: we're at a moment where I think we're looking for 566 00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:56,719 Speaker 1: others under every rock, right. Um, We're we're acutely sensitive 567 00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:03,280 Speaker 1: to um uh to threats from the outside to American civilization, 568 00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:08,399 Speaker 1: whatever that is. Um. I think we're uh, we're an 569 00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:16,680 Speaker 1: extremely tribal moment in American politics and public life. Um uh. 570 00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:19,440 Speaker 1: I'm you know, I think we're at a moment where 571 00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:24,879 Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to see how the wheels come off 572 00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,880 Speaker 1: the bus of society, right um, and to begin wondering 573 00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:34,080 Speaker 1: about questions like how does the community heal after a 574 00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:42,319 Speaker 1: period of UM mutual recrimination, profound upheaval UH shifts in 575 00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:46,840 Speaker 1: the dynamics of power that seem unpredictable and anomalous in 576 00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,880 Speaker 1: the UH. In the span of history that you can 577 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,200 Speaker 1: look at closely with the tools that you have to 578 00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:56,719 Speaker 1: look UM, you know what will our UM confessions and 579 00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:02,200 Speaker 1: uh UM reconciliation look like. UM. I think one of 580 00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:05,839 Speaker 1: the things that makes Salem so perennially interesting UM that 581 00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:10,799 Speaker 1: brought hundreds of thousands of people to UM, the sort 582 00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,960 Speaker 1: of makeshift UM memorial that was created for the three 583 00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:21,400 Speaker 1: anniversary in UM. I hope one of the things that 584 00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:25,440 Speaker 1: brings them is a humility around how close to the 585 00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:29,920 Speaker 1: surface such moments of spasmodic intolerance are. It's easy to 586 00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:31,680 Speaker 1: feel smug, right, you know, how do I know she 587 00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:33,680 Speaker 1: was a witch? She turned me into a new UM? 588 00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:38,279 Speaker 1: I got beta right, UM. It's it's easy to um 589 00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:42,840 Speaker 1: UH to put them in high hats and UM shoes 590 00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,400 Speaker 1: with buckles and and put it in the back then. UM. 591 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:48,920 Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons that we come back 592 00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,359 Speaker 1: and back and back to it after three centuries is 593 00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:58,760 Speaker 1: because UM the idea of of such of the danger 594 00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,400 Speaker 1: of society tearing its helpful part um being so close 595 00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:08,239 Speaker 1: to the surface. Um is it's a perennial absolutely. If 596 00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:12,080 Speaker 1: there's one thing that you hope people can walk away from. UM. 597 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:14,359 Speaker 1: Sort of the takeaway, you know, as as you learn 598 00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,799 Speaker 1: about the whole experience, what is there a lesson every Yeah? 599 00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,560 Speaker 1: I mean I the the um. The lesson that I 600 00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:25,600 Speaker 1: think a lot of popular history misses and that calls 601 00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:29,839 Speaker 1: for humility and empathy in all of us, is that 602 00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:35,719 Speaker 1: many of the accusers, especially as um uh, many of 603 00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:40,880 Speaker 1: the accused, that many of the accusers, as the conflict 604 00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:45,319 Speaker 1: ripples from beyond Salem Village eventually to bring in the 605 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:49,000 Speaker 1: great minds of of Boston and New England. Um. These 606 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,959 Speaker 1: are the best minds of their generation, right. Um. These 607 00:43:53,040 --> 00:44:00,000 Speaker 1: are the most educated, the most advanced thinkers and scientists. Um. Uh, 608 00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:05,320 Speaker 1: the philosophers who have access to the latest findings and 609 00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,760 Speaker 1: ways of thinking morally and ethically, acting morally and ethically 610 00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:15,200 Speaker 1: in their universe. Um. They cannot be laughed off. Um. 611 00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:23,240 Speaker 1: You know they are the smartest, uh, most privileged people 612 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:28,840 Speaker 1: of their times. Confronted with uh, something that is awful 613 00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:32,319 Speaker 1: to them, and they act in ways that come to 614 00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:37,680 Speaker 1: seem even within a couple of years. Um, almost miraculously, 615 00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,400 Speaker 1: terribly Um. And yet they do it with the best 616 00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,960 Speaker 1: of intentions and the sharpest of tools. If that doesn't 617 00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:51,960 Speaker 1: encourage a kind of radical humility um. And uh second 618 00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:57,120 Speaker 1: guessing and um uh you know, checking in with each 619 00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:02,080 Speaker 1: other about who's doing what to win who why? Um, 620 00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,719 Speaker 1: I don't know what does. So that's that's the thing 621 00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:13,480 Speaker 1: I think is easiest to miss. Hey, folks, it's Aaron here. 622 00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,719 Speaker 1: I hope that today's interview helped deepen your understanding of 623 00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,719 Speaker 1: everything involved in the Salem witch trials. But we're not 624 00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:23,480 Speaker 1: done yet. We've got more interviews to share with you, 625 00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:26,759 Speaker 1: so stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear 626 00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:34,480 Speaker 1: a preview of next week's interview. I'm Stacy Chiff. I'm 627 00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,520 Speaker 1: the author of The Witches, um in narrative history of 628 00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:40,480 Speaker 1: what Happened at Salem, to which I came because I 629 00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:42,640 Speaker 1: was surprised by how little most of us really know 630 00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:46,320 Speaker 1: about what happened in Um Salem, which trials seemed like 631 00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:49,239 Speaker 1: a shorthand, but none of us really understands to what 632 00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,439 Speaker 1: it is a shorthand. UM. I had written a book 633 00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,319 Speaker 1: about Cleopatra before this and it was the same kind 634 00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:55,520 Speaker 1: of dynamic of just a name that a name brand, 635 00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:58,840 Speaker 1: something that everyone recognizes without really having any grasp of 636 00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,360 Speaker 1: the actual history. Well, when you talk about the misunderstanding, 637 00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,759 Speaker 1: I think the place to start here is almost the 638 00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,880 Speaker 1: most obvious question, what was a witch in Salem? And 639 00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,080 Speaker 1: you're right, that's the question over which we stumble because 640 00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,520 Speaker 1: our definition, the twenty one century definition of a which 641 00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,279 Speaker 1: is not the seventeenth century definition of a witch. So 642 00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:20,080 Speaker 1: so which at the time witchcraft is a Biblical construct 643 00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,760 Speaker 1: and which at the time has a concrete reality because 644 00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:25,880 Speaker 1: she's mentioned in he or she has mentioned in the Bible, 645 00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:29,280 Speaker 1: and which is understood to be any figure male or female, 646 00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,600 Speaker 1: but primarily female, who is in league with the devil, 647 00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:34,759 Speaker 1: and who works his or her magic by means of 648 00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,080 Speaker 1: little imps or a menagerie of little animals who can 649 00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:39,759 Speaker 1: do his or her bidding. Um. And that was something 650 00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:42,680 Speaker 1: that was imported to the colonies from England. It was 651 00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,200 Speaker 1: an extremely rampant It was extremely common concept in in 652 00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:49,360 Speaker 1: the Old World and actually throughout the Old World, although 653 00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:53,959 Speaker 1: by the idea of witchcraft has pretty much fallen out. 654 00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,319 Speaker 1: Um in Europe, the colonies are in a little bit 655 00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:58,880 Speaker 1: of a time work of their own, and they haven't 656 00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:02,440 Speaker 1: quite got the message that this this the witchcraft concept 657 00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:04,879 Speaker 1: is a little antiquated by now, Um, but you see 658 00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,000 Speaker 1: it throughout the colonial record there, which is really from 659 00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,600 Speaker 1: the very beginning of New England. And the only difference 660 00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,400 Speaker 1: with two is that um is the prosecution, is that 661 00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:17,640 Speaker 1: you get this um feverish set of accusations and you 662 00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,000 Speaker 1: get a real onless prosecution. In earlier cases, UM, there 663 00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,239 Speaker 1: had been tremendous leniency. Often someone who brought in a 664 00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:26,640 Speaker 1: charge of witchcraft was accused of lying and was sent 665 00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,720 Speaker 1: home with a whipping. Um. Things were not necessarily taken seriously. 666 00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:34,280 Speaker 1: In obviously the opposite happens. Going back to these differences 667 00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,759 Speaker 1: in our perception, there's how we imagine it to be 668 00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,239 Speaker 1: and there's the reality of it. How do some of 669 00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:41,400 Speaker 1: the common symbols of witchcraft that we have today, like 670 00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:44,680 Speaker 1: flying on a broomstick or black cats, connect with the 671 00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:48,560 Speaker 1: sale which trials or do they? One of the one 672 00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,319 Speaker 1: of the most interesting to meet pieces of this is 673 00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:54,239 Speaker 1: how the flight gets into um, the entire panic, the 674 00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,200 Speaker 1: entire delusion in there had not been um, there had 675 00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:01,719 Speaker 1: not been flying, which is in New England for um, 676 00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,480 Speaker 1: and it would see and they were not flying, which 677 00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:06,000 Speaker 1: is an English witchcraft either. So this is really an 678 00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:08,840 Speaker 1: import from the continent. And it would seem that we 679 00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:11,960 Speaker 1: get that idea UM from a narrative that cotton Mouth, 680 00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,080 Speaker 1: by one of the most influential ministers at the time, 681 00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,360 Speaker 1: includes in an earlier text of his, and he writes 682 00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,239 Speaker 1: about a Swedish witchcraft epidemic in which a little girl 683 00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,480 Speaker 1: UM is on her way to a satanic meeting to 684 00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:26,360 Speaker 1: two young children in fact set off this witchcraft crisis, 685 00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:29,399 Speaker 1: and a little girl falls off her broomstick. He writes 686 00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:31,439 Speaker 1: about all these wonderful details which we will then see 687 00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,160 Speaker 1: transpost to Massachusetts. But he writes about things that had 688 00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:37,439 Speaker 1: never before happened in New England, a satanic meeting UM 689 00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,200 Speaker 1: in a meadow at which people signed satanic pacts into 690 00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,560 Speaker 1: which they fly on sticks. Um. And that is really 691 00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:45,920 Speaker 1: there were French flight French flying, which is before six 692 00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:48,440 Speaker 1: nine two there had never really been English flying witches. 693 00:48:48,760 --> 00:48:51,640 Speaker 1: So that's pretty pretty much seems to be where that 694 00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:54,640 Speaker 1: aspect of it comes from. Black hats. I spent a 695 00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:56,319 Speaker 1: lot of time I live with a black cat, so 696 00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:58,480 Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time on black hats, and 697 00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:00,279 Speaker 1: they seem to have been the devil since in Quddy. 698 00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,799 Speaker 1: They've we've had a bad wrap all along. And if 699 00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:06,200 Speaker 1: you look at the Salem testimony, the court testimony, you 700 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,000 Speaker 1: see a tremendous number of cats. They're translucent cats, they're 701 00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:11,520 Speaker 1: gleaming cats, they're black cats, they're red cats. They're all 702 00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,040 Speaker 1: over the place. And it does it does seem to 703 00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:17,320 Speaker 1: be it's a seductive creature. It's a female seeming creature 704 00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,120 Speaker 1: in many many people's minds, and a black cat will 705 00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:23,279 Speaker 1: detach itself from the darkness without any warning, and it's 706 00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:25,920 Speaker 1: a cat is unpredictable. So there's that sense that you 707 00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,120 Speaker 1: can caress a cat and be rewarded with scratches, and 708 00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:31,000 Speaker 1: all of those things seemed to add up to something 709 00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:34,360 Speaker 1: that people are very uncertain about and often taken aback by. 710 00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:36,600 Speaker 1: So there are many number of theories as to how 711 00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,399 Speaker 1: black cats get get wrapped up in the witchcraft, but yes, 712 00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:50,360 Speaker 1: that is a constant from day one. This episode of 713 00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:54,840 Speaker 1: Unobscured was executive produced by me Matt Rederick and Alex Williams, 714 00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,960 Speaker 1: with music by Chad Lawson and audio engineering by Alex Williams. 715 00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,480 Speaker 1: The Unobscure website has everything you need to get the 716 00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,680 Speaker 1: most out of the podcast. There's a resource library of maps, charts, 717 00:50:06,760 --> 00:50:10,439 Speaker 1: and links to Salem document archives online, as well as 718 00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,279 Speaker 1: a suggested reading list and a page with all of 719 00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:18,040 Speaker 1: our historian biographies. And as always, thanks for supporting this show. 720 00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,399 Speaker 1: If you love it, head over to Apple podcasts dot 721 00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:25,040 Speaker 1: com slash Unobscured and leave a written review and a 722 00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,360 Speaker 1: star rating. It makes a huge difference for the show's growth, 723 00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:32,160 Speaker 1: and as always, thanks for listening.