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166. The Salem Witch Trials · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not Your history class with me,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: And we are finally end of the last week of Witches, Witches,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Spooky Bitches. Now, originally when I'd planned to do this month,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it was not my intention to make it which trial
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: based specifically, but you know, here we are. It's what happened,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: and I am proud of it. That being said, I
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: was chatting to my friends a heart and I had
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to apologize because I was like, yeah, I'm sorry. I
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: feel like I could have been much meaner to John
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Cunningham in the last episode and I wasn't, but I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: feel like I should have been and I could have been. Now,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I do think I mentioned this in the last episode. Actually,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So the last few months, I've done like a specific
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: theme for each month, and I'm going to continue to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: do that still November because it's my birthday month, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: so the theme is just stuff Katie is interested in,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: which will probably make you very concerned for my mental
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: well being. But yeah, that's for next month. I'm going
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to do a few different topics, just stuff that yeah,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: they might not fit in other places, but maybe I've
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: really wanted to talk about for a while because I've
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: got a few in there that I've had ready. And
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: next month I'm busy. Next month I have so much
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: going on. I have an awards thing, a business awards thing,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: on one night, and the following day I'm in London
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: for my live show, which, by the way, if you
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: haven't got tickets yet, snap them up because I don't
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: know the next time I'm going to be in in
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the UK, let alone in London, so you may as
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: well grab your tickets, well you can. I don't think
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I'm really doing anything for my birthday this year either,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Like I don't have a plan like I've I've had
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff organized the last few years, but this
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: year nothing. Like a lot of my friends there either
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: another part of the country or they're in different countries,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and so organizing stuff hasn't really been much of an option.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: But I will probably at some point during the month
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: head to be Elfast and see my friend Paul, because
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: like every year, rund about my birthday will usually do
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: an escape proom and we go for a really fun
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: meal and it's all like themed and it's like a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: fun thing and any excuse to dress up dartlings, any excuse,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: which is wild because I I don't know where any
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: of my costumes are, so I don't have anything planned
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: for Halloween whatsoever. Either that being said, I'm pretty sure
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: with my actual clothes, I could probably just throw together
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: some kind of something, you know, I don't think it'd
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: be that hard. I mean, every girl has an Alexander
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Hamilton outfits somewhere. But yeah, I got I got options.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I got options in Christmas. I'm actually spending Christmas alone
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: this year. Like, I've made no plans for Christmas because
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I'm off all the way through from like the twenty third,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: all the way through till January and European holidays people
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and so like, I've got the kids for New Year,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: but Christmas, I don't know. I'm just going to be
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: chilling out on my own watching murder, she wrote, and
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: eating cheese. Unless any of my friends want to break
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: from the world come see me. It's fine. I'm all
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: good anyway. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Kerriie,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: we're three minutes then, can you please quite aljibbl jabba
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: in fact us in fact you why will, But first
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: we've got to get our source on. Our sources are
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Witchcraft and Sorcery in England and America fifteen fifty to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: seventeen fifty by Marion Gibson, Witchcraft and Demonism by You
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and See the Strange. The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Early Modern Europe and Colonial America by Brian Levac. Detestable
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and Wicked Arts New England and Witchcraft in the Early
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: modern Atlantic World by Paul Benjamin Moyer. A History of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Witchcraft by Geoffrey B. Russell. The History of Witchcraft and
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Demonology by Reverend Montague Somers. The Path of the Devil,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Early modern witch Hunts by Gary F. Jensen. Lude Women
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and Wicked Witches are Studying the Dynamics of male domination
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: by Marion Hester. The Puritan Tradition in America by Alden Vaughan.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases sixteen forty eight to seventeen
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: o six by George Lincoln Burke. The Devil Discovered Salem
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Witchcraft sixteen ninety two. Buy enders A. Robinson, Salem Witchcraft Trials.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: The Perception of Women in History, Literature, and Culture by
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Anna Kuchik to Cuba, Reluctant Witch of Salem, Devilish Indians
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and Puritan Fantasies by Allengi Breslau, Wayward Puritans, A Study
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: in the Sociology of Deviants by Kai Ericsson. Damned Women,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England by Elizabeth Rays.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: And of course we have our old favorites biography dot
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: com Andhistory dot com. Now as it in comfortably good,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: then let's begin. It's time to talk about the Salem
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: witch Trials. Now, the Salem witch Trials are quite probably
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the most famous witch trials in history. When in the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: year sixteen ninety two, the Massachusetts Bay Colony executed fourteen women,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: five men, and two dogs for witchcraft. So let me
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: just repeat that for you. They executed, They killed fourteen women,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: five men, and two dogs, two dogs for witchcraft. The
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: dog went on trial. Now this isn't actually like the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: surprising part actually, because back in the day, I think
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: even up to like the eighteen hundreds, as far as
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I can recall, animals have been put on trial, like
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you could try a dog. It's not uncommon. But I
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: just felt like it's weird that this is whole part
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: of it anyway, the oldest accused was nearly eighty years old,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and the youngest five a five year old child, was
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: accused of witchcraft. From January sixteen ninety two to September
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: that year, across twenty five villages in towns somewhere between
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: one hundred and forty four to one hundred and eighty
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  Speaker 1: five people were accused of and I quote wickedly, maliciously
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and feloniously engaging in sorcery. Family members accused each other,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: mothers against daughters and grandmothers, wives against husbands, cousins, against andy's, neighbors,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: against neighbors like. No one was safe right in towns
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  Speaker 1: like andover right, one in every fifteen people were accused
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of witchcraft, and the town's most senior minister found himself
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: related to at least twenty witches. Because remember, a lot
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of these towns were this family and then this family,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and that was how they spread and grew. Because it
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: wasn't just the way towns and cities are now where
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: there's just a lot of different people. No, No, there
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: are known families in these towns, and they are a
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: lot of them, right. So across this colony you have
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: this massive social panic fueled by religious zelatory, misogyny, racism,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and so on and so forth, producing a reign of
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: terror that affected the people of Massachusetts. But before we
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: get into that, we should definitely slip into some context.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: By sixteen ninety two, colonies have been established on the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: American continent for over a century by European powers, with
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: varying degrees of success. So the first English colony was
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Roanoke in fifteen eighty five, not the one you're thinking of,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: kind of the one you think, not really though, right,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: So the first colony back in fifteen eighty five, it
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: was a military outpost, which then got abandoned a few
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: years later because you know, it wasn't the easiest place
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to live. Then of course you've got the Lost colony
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: of Roanok. It was established in fifteen eighty seven, so
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: a year after abandoning the old one. So fifteen eighty
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: five they set up the military out post, fifteen eighty six,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it gets abandoned fifteen eighty seven they're like, yeah, let's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: make people live there. And so the lost colony, Right,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: there's this big mystery. Settlers disappear without a trace after
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: having no contact for two years it's played like a
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: big mystery, but it's just colonial whitewashing of history. I'll
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: actually cover this on episode forty three, so if you
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: want to, if you want to hear more about that,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: go listen to that one. Just remember episode forty three,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the Lost Colony of Roanoke. So these colonial settlements, they
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: happened during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the First, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: so this is her attempt Ara. You know, she's got
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the plantations over in Ireland. So Queen Mary had actually
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: started that, Mary the First, and then Elizabeth had built
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: onto that. And then this then gets pushed on more
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: by James. So King James the sixth of Scotland, first
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of England. Yes, him again, who has appeared in all
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: of these episodes this month thus far. Eventually I am
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: going to have to cover him on his own, but
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: we'll deal with him later. So he is King James
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the six of Scotland. His mother is Mary, Queen of Scott's,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and he is the heir up there. He is ascend
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to the throne, the British throne. So England, Scotland, all
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: that jazz, and so he's like, I want to keep
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: doing the colonial stuff, right, I want I want to
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: keep doing this. I want to give it a bash.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: And so Jamestown it is the next major colonial settlement.
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  Speaker 1: It's in like sixteen oh seven, and it's the big
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: one because it is the first permanent settlement. And that's
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: why it's like really well known that and you know
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that's where they cannibalized a teenage girl. So the settlements
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: they spread over the decades. Well, England lost and gained
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a monarchy. No, I'm absolutely serious. So yeah, for about
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: eleven years there was no British monarchy. King Charles the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: First was executed and Oliver Cromwell ruled the Commonwealth of England,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: which had gone full Puritan right, no celebrations, no joy,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: just a miserable religion. Really now, I think I say
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: this anytime I have to bring up the Puritans, I'm like,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: they'd miserable as sin, but sinning's not allowed. I think
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: they can remember the Presbyterians a wee bit because they soda.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: They could suck the color out of a rainbow. So
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the Puritan rule it would last eleven years until the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Stuart Restoration, in which Charles the Second, the merry monarch,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: he ascends to the throne, followed by his Catholic brother
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: James the Second, who would then lose his throne to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: his daughter Mary the Second and her husband William of Orange, who,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: fun fact, sidebar is the reason that you eat orange
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: carrots and not the other many varieties of carrot variations.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: They come in purple, right, they're just nice. Also, for
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the record, purple potatoes delicious. Actually sidebar. I'm going to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: talk about corn for his second, like actual corn, not
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: like spice merchant corn. So we don't really have Thanksgiving,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I say, we don't really have it. We don't actually
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: have Thanksgiving in Ireland because it's not an Irish holiday.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: But round about that time, I've noticed that a lot
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: of the sort of supermarkets they have rainbow corn on sale,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: but they're like, it's for decorative purposes only. So if
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: anyone who knows anything about rainbow corn specifically, can we
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: eat it? Is it okay to eat? Is it an
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: ice to eat? Like? Does it taste good? Like? These
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: are questions that I feel are important. Anyway, back to
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the Puritans, King Charles the First, he was given out
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: trattles to colonies because you needed permission from the king
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: to get land in the New World. So obviously this
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: is before he lost his head. No, not figuratively. Well,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I mean he was super into the whole divine right
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: of kings, which was really bred into him by King
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: James the first Like it's it's a whole it's a
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: whole thing. I can't go into it quite a bit
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in the the Villiols episode, which is, you know, King
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: James's boyfriend, in order to set yourself up in the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: New World, you needed a royal charter, and so a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: bunch of Puritans they get a royal charter and go
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: to Massachusetts and they form the Massachusetts Bay Company. Remember, like,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: keep us in mind, the only thing that this group
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: has in common is the fact that they are Puritans, right,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: That's what's keeping them together. That's the only thread in
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: this nothing else. Right. So they're they're really strict like Puritans.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: They really are joyless, like very severe in their religious beliefs.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Like it. Their lives are all based around just being
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: as unhappy as possible. And here's the thing. There's this
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: claim that the colonists were escaping religious persecution, but that's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: not actually the case. Basically, a bunch of them had
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: settled in the Netherlands, right, and they had been living
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: there for a while, but then they were worried that
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: their children were becoming too Dutch A shit, you not right,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and so plain old xenophobia, and they're like, we need
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: to make somewhere there is like Puritan but we can also,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you know, really reinforce those strong English values, allegedlies. And
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: so they have the Royal Charter and they bring their
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: miserable urses across the Atlantic to the New World, because
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: of course, what's the point of relocating if you can't
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: bring your prejudice with you. So the thing about the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Massachusetts Charter is it conveniently doesn't state where any meetings
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay or meetings of
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the governor had to be held. And so for whatever reason,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the King had effectively given them the Company the authority
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to govern Massachusetts. So they got more power than other colonies.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: They can put people on trial in the name of
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the colony, not only the name of the king. They
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: can even mint their own money, like this is a
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: big deal. So it's almost almost independent of London. And
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: when the Puritans set up their Puritan churches, there's this
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: independent society because you know, you follow two rules. You
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: follow the king and you follow your church. And here
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: when the Puritans have covered both of those base it
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: is really you're just following them and you have no
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: choice but to live within their paradigms. Yeah, and so
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a society is built by and around Puritan ideology with
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: little or no say from the monarch. Communities are built
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and by the time it's like fifty years later, it's
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: got its own etiquette and rules, a society separate from
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the colonial power. So this point you've got William of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Orange and Mary Second. They're on the British throne after
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: deposing King James the Second in the Glorious Revolution four
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: years prior. Like, it's really weird. You've got an English
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: king and a Dutch prince fighting for the British throne
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: on Irish soil. It's it's a bit of a clusterfuck,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: but that is what happened. So, Like, the funny thing
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: is when Parliament was like, hey, we need a ruler
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: and they have to be Protestant. We're not having any
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Catholics on the throne. And William of Orange, he's just
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: like a Prince of Orange. She's not like a king
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: anywhere else, and they're like, hey, yeah, you know what,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: you can totally be king, but only as long as
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: your wife is queen, Like you can only rule together,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: because like otherwise she would have just been Queen Mary
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the Second and he would have stayed Prince Vlume of Orange.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: But they were always styled together as William and Mary,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and that was just like how they did it. So
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: here we have a town evolved from the colonial force
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and steeped in religious feather. And on top of this,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: they have settled on a land that was already inhabited,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Like they weren't just out there claiming land that nobody
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: was on, like there were people there, right, it was
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: already inhabited by indigenous people. And unlike other colonies that
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: had earned the trust of local tribes, the Puritans saw
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the native people as akin to heretics. And yeah, so
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: they saw them as savages and pagans and so on
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: and so forth. And because the Puritans saw them as
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: such and other like, they're very again severe in their worldview,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: and so when they saw anyone that is different to them,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that has different beliefs, I mean again, they thought the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Dutch were making their children to Dutch and so they
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: left to another continent, like they do things in extremes.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So unsurprisingly, when they saw these people who looked different
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to them, talk different to them, and you know, had
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: an entirely different way of life that they saw as
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to is the term uncivilized, right, They're like, oh, no,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Like there had been conflicts over land, And by conflicts,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I mean that the colonizer stole land from indigenous people
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: and attax occurred as a result. Salem lost something like
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: ten percent of the male population to attax from Native Americans.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: The burdons are already a tense and serious bunge, and
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: now you've got an actual physical threat, a danger outside
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the town boundary. So you've got this fear both inside
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and out with the settlements. So there's going to be
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of pressure building up and anxiety and tension
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: that's just already on the surface, like in these in
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: these settlements and across the town of Salem and Salem
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Village which is now called Danvils because rebranding, I guess,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: all across these villages, towns and more throughout the Massachusetts
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Bay Colony. You've got this tension, You've got this fear,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: You've got all of this sort of internal politics, external dangers,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: all of it's just bubbling ready to boil over. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it's not just limited to Salem, it's just the town
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: that's most associated with it, more so Danvers actually. But again,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the witch hysteria begins with events in the house of
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Samuel Paris, a Puritan minister, because of course it is.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: This is the kind of thing, the kind of drama
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: which of course is going to happen under the nose
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: of a Puritan minister, and it's from his home, these
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: events involving two girls, which is going to result in
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the deaths of several innocent people, and it will leave
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: its mark on history. Samuel Parris was originally from London.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: He immigrated to the Colonies. He went to Harvard because
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of course he did, and he inherits a sugar plantation
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: in Barbados from his father. Now he's well educated, he's
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: inherited a plantation. He thinks he's going to be doing
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: really well for himself, like he's settled in and he
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: thinks he's going to have a very very comfortable life,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and that's the life he's expecting. However, natural gets in
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the way, so he's staying in Barbados for a while,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and he's kind of just living a life until the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: plantation is absolutely trashed by a hurricane, like everything is destroyed,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and he's like, fuck this for Game of Soldiers. He
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: can't handle the heat anyway because he's too English, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: so he's like, I got to get out of here,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: gets the heck at a dodge, and returns to the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: more temperate zone of Boston. Now, every time I try
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and do the Boston accent, Cidebar. Every time I try
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and do the accent, I can't. There's like a way
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that the mouth gets really wide and I can't seem
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to wrap around it in smat like at schmat and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: like like I'm obsessed with like learning this. I really
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: want to get that accent right, because I think it's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: really fun. So if any dialect coaches where anybody wants
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: to try and help me pronounce things in a Bostonian accent,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I would greatly appreciate it, because, on top of everything else, right,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I was given a basketball team to support the Boston Celtics,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and so I feel like I need to embrace that. Really,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I have also been given an American football team, So
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine lives a heart. It was a
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: herr again. She was like, yeah, your American football team
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: is the Philadelphia Eagles, because some of them didn't go
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to the president, and they have a handsome quarterback. I
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: don't actually know what the quarterback does. I don't know.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know the sport. Somebody will explain it to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: me one day and I may remember it. Him's to say. AnyWho,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: So Samuel Parris, he's loving in Boston for a while
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: and he's fine, it's not going great, but then he's
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: given the ministry in Salem Village. So Samuel, he's married
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to Elizabeth Edridge, who is, by all accounts, one of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the most beautiful women in the village. Like this, this
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: is documented, like this is a fact. Somebody took the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: time to write this down in the sixteen hundreds. They're like,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: we need everyone to know how hot this bitch is. Okay,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: thank you, he has an incredibly hot wife. Good day
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to you. So they're married and they have three children,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Thomas who's the oldest, Elizabeth who's like nine I think
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: she's known as Betty, and Susanna, who's the youngest. So
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: in sixteen ninety two, Samuel's twelve year old niece, Abigail Williams,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: is staying with them two, so he's taken her in
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: because now I'm not sure if he's just like the
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: closest relative or the only relative left, or whether he's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: just like the most like secure and stable, like if
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that's how that happened, or maybe it's one of those
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I'm a minister, look at how good I am. I
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: took in my orphaned niece. So there's there's illnesses spreading
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: through like at this point, like through New England and whatnot.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Remember all roads leaved to dysentery. So the power's household
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: also has two enslaved servants, right, which feels like a
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: weird phrase. And enslaved servant then, okay, so you've got Tetuba,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: who is a Native American woman who right, we actually
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: know a few bits about her because he inherited her,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: like she's registered as as property like back in Barbados,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: like as a child actually, So when his father dies,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: like she's listed, you know, and so he brings her
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: back with him. So he brings back two people that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: were enslaved. He brings them back with him, one of
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: them being a child. Which is to Cuba. So over
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the years, like her representation through media over the years,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: like she is presented as a black woman, Like this
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: has been a change in addition to the story. So
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: like it's literally century like at least a century later
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: with the story changes and they're like, oh, and she
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: was black and also she did voodoo, and it's like
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: a yes, And because I think it was easier that
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: idea and that portrayal, and it's sort of easier to
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: digest because when we talk about enslavement in America, our
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: major focus is on chattel slavery, which is the worst,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: by the way, Oh, you can't compare contrast, Yes, I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: fucking can't. I'm a historian. I specialize in historical misinformation
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and propaganda. I know my shit when it comes to
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: this specifically, right, So because that is the focus, it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: easy to draw the eye away and to overlook all
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of the other shit that happened, like the enslavement of
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: indigenous people, which was a common practice, especially women and children,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: right because they were seen as easier to take. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: so over the years, it was so easy to change
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the concept of who of who Tchuba was to also
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: fit a narrative and playing to the idea of sort
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: of ooh the Ebo black voodoo practices and all this
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: fucking bullshit, right, all of that, all of that just
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to demonize people that were already being demonized and oppressed.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And it's absolutely makes me mad. But yes, there were
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: two servants in the household, two enslaved servants. So you've
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: got to Tuba, and you also have a man called
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: John Indian. His race is unknown, but I feel like
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: we could take it guess as to what that is. Now,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: there was no documentation, there was no official anything that
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: shows that these two were married. But it does come
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: up like in the sources and it says like you
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: know that they were a married couple, that they were together,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: but there's nothing within their testimony together or within any
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: information about the two specifically that suggests that they were
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: actually a couple. Now, it would actually ben fit Samuel
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Paris to say that they were a couple, because it
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: meant that under the eyes of propriety, shall we say,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: they can share a room, So it means those two
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: are together, the enslaved people, they're in their own room,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and he doesn't need to have a separate room for
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: one and the other because like they can't share, like
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: they might be their Puritans, you know, they're like, you
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: can't do that. A man and a woman who are
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: unwed sharing a room. What next showing their ankles? Shocking?
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's no actual evidence to suggest that the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: two were actually married, but in his handy for the reverend,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: if they are, and it's also a very convenient storytelling device,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: he has been and wife working together. No, so Samuel Paris,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: he's not exactly popular in Salem village. So he's paid
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: partly by the church and partly by the town. So
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: like the church pay like a certain portion of his wages,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and then the remainder of his wages is paid in firewood.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So I think it's like sixteen ninety one, there was
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: like a really bad winter. It's really chilly, it's really
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: it's really stark, and everyone really needs that firewood. Everybody
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: needs it, and he's out demanding it. So he's seen
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: us a bit miserly because he's taking firewood from other people.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: He doesn't like go out and chop his own obviously
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: is he's a redwood. And so like there's actually this
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: whole part of Toachoo his testimony where she talks about
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: trying to light fires in certain parts of the house
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and keep them going while using as little firewood as
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: possible so that they can actually, you know, hate the houses,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: but make it last. Like in the Power's household, firewood
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: had to be burned sparingly, like it's provided by the
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: church community, and sometimes he had to actually go and
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: beg for it because he had no access to firewood otherwise.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And so he's begging his congregation for firewood, and he
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: was very vocal about his displeasure regarding the situation. So
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: after that once other things aren't going great. In mid
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: January sixteen ninety two, Abigail, Samuel's orphan niece becomes ill,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: with a nine year old Betty falling ill soon after.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: And this isn't like, oh, they've got a cough for
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: his knees, Like weird shit is happening. The girls experienced
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: violent fits and convulsions. They are screaming and crying out
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: in pain. They say they feel like they're being pinched,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: poked and prodded. They think they're being choked. They're having
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: trances and they're speaking nonsense. They're hiding under furniture like
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: they're hiding under furniture and they're saying they're being pulled
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: by like spirits and sort of ghostly apparitions. They're barking
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: like dogs and they're shrieking, right, And so these fits
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: just kind of happen sparingly and then they get worse.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: So they're happening in like quick succession. At this point,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: they are just happening more and more and more, and
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Abigail is the worst affected. So there's one tale of Abigail,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Like she's in the kitchen and she's making noises and
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: she's flapping her arms and running around in a circle, right,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: and the whole thing is like as if she's going
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to take flight. Now, this is the one part that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: I found the sort of odd in the whole thing. So,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: like Abigail, I don't think I'd been living with them
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: for too long before this, but she's there and she's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: flapping her arms, right, And like my first thought when
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I hear that, when I hear a child is running
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: around flapping their arms, I think of self regulation, because
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: like that is a really really common thing for autistic
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: children to do, and that's the arm and hand flapping,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: like it's a form of regulation, like you see you
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: see it even with it. I call it like when
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you and girls and each other and they're like, oh
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: my god, and they're jumping up and down and they're
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: like wave flapping, flap in the hands, like that's part
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of it. That's a regulation thing, right, That's that's actually
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: trying to calm yourself down. And yeah, like so my
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: brain's like, what if it's just stemming, Like a lot
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: of this could actually be answered by stemming, like for
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Abigail specifically, where it's like, oh, she needs to like
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: move her body a certain way in order to feel
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: certain pressures on it. The vocal stimming, which is like
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the noises and the barking, and then the flapping like
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: that could be part of it. Or something else I
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: thought of when I was reading this was it's just
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: kids playing about. But obviously Puritans don't believe in childhood
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: or fun or playing, so they're just like, oh, it
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: must be bewitchment. And so you've got Abigail doing this,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and then Betty follows suit because Betty is younger and
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: there's always the possibility of learned behavior. But yeah, naturally,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: because again they're like clearly something's wrong here, a doctor
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: is called, right, because everyone's freaked out and the doctor's called.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And she basically looked at the children and went, yep,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that's a case of the witchcraft. The doctor couldn't find
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: anything physically wrong with either of the girls and came
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to the conclusion that Betty and Abigail were cursed. It
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: was clear to the reverend that they just needed to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: pray the sickness away, because that works. Historically, Reverend Samuel
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Parris believed that prayer and religious devotion would banish any
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: evil magics or spirits that were cast upon the two
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: girls under his roof. However, some members of the town
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: thought a different approach would be better. The best way
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: they thought to fight magic was with magic, So, without
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: his knowledge or consent, a woman came to the Paris residence,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Mary Sibley, and with her she brought old English folk magic.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: She shows up deltemine to lift the curse through folk magic.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: You're not the good kind, and she explained that the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: cure involved baking a witch cake, which is actually more
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: like a biscuit or a cookie. Ingredients include rye flour
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: and the urine of those afflicted. You heard me right.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: So Mary Sibley instructs to Tuba to make the witch cake.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: So the girl's pea was to be mixed with the
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: rye flour, baked into a cake slash biscuit, and then
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: fed to the dog. The idea would be that the
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: dog would then become ill, and this would be a
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: transference of the ailment and all the witchy sort of
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: stuff that goes with it. And after this it would
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: show who had cost the girls, like a sniffer dog,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: but for because remember well, dogs were often recruited as
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: witches familiars and they would naturally be able to find them. Unfortunately,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the dog eats the cake and that's it. Not happens,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: there's no change. The fits continue and the children are
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: still cursed. What it does do, though, is intrigue the town.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: So the news of the witch cake spread throughout the
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: village and the reverend finds out and is absolutely ill livid.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: He is absolutely pissed that this has happened under his
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: roof pul choicer once I think AnyWho. He is mad
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: about this. He's mad that the children were involved in
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: this ritual. He's mad the sort of folky, witchy stuff
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: was happening and alwayso I think because he was so
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: self involved and he really believed that he should be
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: held to a higher standard, the fact that nobody came
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to him to like ask his permission would have made
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: it hurt, like so much worse. You know, he would
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: have been so mad. So they're not cured. But what
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: happens is another girl is affected. So within a day
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of this happening, right, a third girl starts like showing
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: these same strange symptoms because obviously people are talking about
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: it now, right, people are chatting about it, and the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: news is spreading, right. And the next girl is a
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: friend of Abigail and Betty's. This is Anne Putnam Junior.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: She is the daughter of one of the most powerful
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Salem families who are also like super into the Reverend. Like,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of big families in Salem, and
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I say that there's two and there I want to say,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say rivals, except I do want
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: to say rivals. But you've got Ann Putnam Junior. She's twelve,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and she also shows signs of bewitchment and possession. But wait,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: there is more. Elizabeth Hubbard, a seventeen year old girl
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: who lives with the doctor, right, the one who came
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and like diagnosed the witchcraft. She's number four in this.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: She is an orphan, she lives with a doctor. She's
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: basically a servant. I say, basically, she is a servant,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and she lives there, right, she's doing all the chores.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: She's living a very strict puritan life. And next thing
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you know, she's bewitched. She's in this so because she's
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: seen as a woman. She's seventy, so she's seen as
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: more grown up than the other three. This makes it
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: stand out more because they're like, oh, it's spreading to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: adults now, and this affliction like this, this carries more
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: weight than what happens to the girls. And so she
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: says right that she she recognizes the demons that are
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: tormenting her, and she recognizes them as sort of these
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: spectral goals, that they are manifestations of people from the village,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: which naturally in the superstitious, very religious, I don't want
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to say closed off, but also I do within this
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: sort of boiling pot. This sets people on edge, right,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: and it also brings suspicion and paranoia, and this spreads
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: to other girls they're having convulsions. They're being haunted by
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: spectral ghouls who pinch them, bite them, and the community
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: no one questions the cause they're like witches. It's witches.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: And of course they have to be found out. They
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: got to sniff them out, they have to be hunted,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: and they have to be destroyed by the end of February.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: The fits, they're all common knowledge, Like sermons are being interrupted,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: they're falling in the streets. Right, It's happening in front
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: of people in public, not just behind closed doors in
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: people's houses, right, it's everywhere. And so people are freaking out.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: They're getting angry, and they want a twisted form of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: justice and they want this done. No one more so
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: than Reverend Samuel Paris. So he is like a dog
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: of the bone. He wants to find out what's happening
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to his daughter. Right, And at this point, this child
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: is fully convinced that she is cursed, Like she's exhausted,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: she's anxious, and she's terrified, and she confesses to her dad,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: you know, that her and Abigail had done this like
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: divination trick with a glass and an egg. And he
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: is enraged that they did like this silly little like trick. Right,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: it's one of those things, you know, like to find
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: who's my future husband going to be? And you like
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: peel and apple is with you know, in one goal
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and however you like throw it and it lands in
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: the floor of the initial is going to be your
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: your husband's initial. Did nobody ever do that? Am I
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: just like one of the three people that did that?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Or is that a common thing? That being said? It's
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: kind of curly, so chances are it is going to
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: end up as an S. Right, sometimes a J. But
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: don't don't date people whose name begins a J. It's
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: not good for you. So he is filled with fury,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: like fire in brimstone fury, and he is so angry,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: and you know he's he is the minister. He's doing
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: this in his home and bery this is what leads
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: her to make the first accusation. You know, who could
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: have done this to you? And she points at the
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: nearest person who the enslaved women in their home to Cuba,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: This terrified child, desperate to give an answer, accuses the
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: nearest person who doesn't fit in with the puer tanical
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: way of being to Cuba because she's not a churchgoer.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: She doesn't believe in the Christian religion. She's very much
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: holding on to the belief system she had in Barbados,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: which is very much steeped in superstition and folklore. Like
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: that's how she lived her life, and she looked different
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: to everyone else. She sounded different to everyone else, her
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: culture was different, her religion was different. She was enslaved,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: so she didn't have anyone to fight for her, and
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: she was low in status, a convenient scapegoat. Once Betty
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: has pointed the finger to Cuba, the other girls follow suit. Abigail,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: she's like, this is definitely it, followed by Anne Putnam
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Junior and Elizabeth Hubbard. Like Tutuba now has been blamed
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: for cursing four women and girls. Right, she is like,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: her fate is sealed, right, She's in danger. But the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: girls go on to accuse two more women from the village.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: One a homeless woman who is clearly not following the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: standards of the Puritanical society because not only she's homeless,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: she's got a four year old daughter and she's pregnant.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Sarah Good. Sarah was homeless, She lived on the streets
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: of Salem, and she didn't go to any of the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: sort of the church meetings because it was seen as
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: indecent and wrong to go there and not be dressed correctly.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: And she didn't have appropriate clothes. She was too poor
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: to have clothes for church, and she would go begging
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: from door to door, another convenient target. The third person
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: they name is Sarah Osborne, and just like the other
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: two accused, she doesn't exactly meet the standards of the
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Puritan lifestyle. Now, Sarah Osborne, she's an old lady, she's elderly,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: she's frail, but she has a scandalous history. So like
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: she was originally married to like this wealthy landowner, and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: this guy was related to the Putnam family, which is
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: like one of the big families in Salem. And so
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: when he dies, she inherited his land, so because she
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: gets it because their sons were too young, so they
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: weren't old enough to inherit. So she marries again, and
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: so because she's married, all of her property becomes the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: property of her husband, who is a former indentured servant. Right,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: so because he had come over as an indentual servant,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: this was seen as like a very low class thing
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to do because she was married to this like esteemed gentleman,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: and it was seen as shocking because to marry below
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: her is one thing, like that's bad, right from this perspective,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: they don't like that. But on top of that, like
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: he then this low guy gets the land that belongs
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to the family. So yeah, there's this like issue the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: sort of their conflict between the Putnham family and Sarah Osborne.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: So shockingly enough, she's one of the people who's named
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: by Anne Putnam junior. So they're all different. They're all
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: very different, you know, ones younger, one has kids, one
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: is older, like, one's enslaved. They're all outsiders, you know,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: they're all out with what society deems acceptable. So like
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: these accusations, they're first sent to the people who are vulnerable, right,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: who pose a threat in some way to the Puritan culture. Right.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: And so what happens is the reverend like he's got
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: these allegations now, so he turns the civil court of
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: nearby Salem, so like the actual Salem town is opposed
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: to Salem Village, right, he turns to that court with
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: the help of the Putnam family, reaches out to them
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: to deal with this because he's he's a preacher, right,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: so he can only you know, give moral guidance. But
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the magistrates from Salem town, Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorn,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: they actually held the authority to investigate and prosecute crimes,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: including the felony of witchcraft. So Jonathan Corwin his family
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: are powerful, their merchants, and they're connected to, you know,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the elite of the region. And then you've got John Hawthorne,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: who is basically a rich landowner and a very staunch
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Puritan who saw himself as a defender of the faith.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: And as far as the Putnams and of course Reverend
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Paris are concerned, these two gentlemen are the perfect choices
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: to lead the witch inquiry. And so on February twenty ninth,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: oh a leap year sixteen ninety two, the magistrates receive
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: formal complaints like official like it's stamped about these three
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: women from Salem village. So the arrest warrants are issued
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: and to Tuba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne are all
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: taken into custody and brought before the magistrates in the
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Salem Meetinghouse for questioning. So from the start, Hawthorne's interrogations
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: are aggressive, demanding that these women confess, like he has
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: made a name for himself as a ruthless prosecutor. And
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: so Sarah good. So that's the homeless woman who's pregnant. Right,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: she has a reputation for being sort of argumentative, like
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: she'll snap back at you, right, And so she denies
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the charges. She's like, absolutely not, and then she is like,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: not me, it must be Sarah Osborne. So when Sarah
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Osborne then has to be interrogated, she also claims to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: be innocent. And shockingly, Hawthorne's attention turns to the only
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: women left to Chubah, who was questioned twice. The first
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: time she denies it, and the next day she doesn't.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: She confesses. And there is a lot of evidence that
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: suggests that in between these two confessions, right, she was tortured,
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: like she got a beating and she was beaten until
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: she would give them the answer that they wanted. And
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: so not only in this confession does she like admit
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to seeing and speaking with the devil who threatened to
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: hurt her if she did not harm the children. Like
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: on top of that, she also claimed that in Salem
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: there was a conspiracy of witches another one, right, just
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: like the Berwk witch trials back in Scotland. So she's
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: like four or five witches, like they're in Salem. One
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: of them is a man. And she can't name them, right,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: she can't name these people because like she's like, I
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: didn't speak to them, I don't know their names. But
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: she does point out, like she identifies Sarah Good and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Sarah Osborne as being the witches who were using their
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: spirits to like attack the girls. Right, So you have
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: this like isolated community, right, You've got Reverend Paris sort
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of spinning this paranoia. You have these adolescent girls living this,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: you know, very patriarchal, hierarchical, strict, staunch life in this
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: high pressure environment. Right, You've got this, and you've got
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: this woman who is completely vulnerable. She's got no social power.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: She's enslaved, and she is threatened and beaten and tortured.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: And to confessing, she says that she didn't want to
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: be a witch, but they made her become one. And
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: so she brings in this idea of this conspiracy of witches,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: and this confirms everyone's worst fear. You know, witches are real,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: they're working together and they're here in Salem. And so
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the denial by Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, now they
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: mean nothing like Hothorne's, Like it doesn't matter now because
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: she confessed so to Chuba Good in Osborne, they are
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: interrogated for an entire week before being thrown into a
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: prison to await trial. But now because there's an idea
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: of this conspiracy, the witch hunt is only just beginning.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: Now more children are showing these same symptoms that Betty,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Abigail Ann and Elizabeth had, and so they start having
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: these symptoms and then they start naming new suspects. So
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: you've got Martha Corey, who is seen as a scandalous
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: women in Salem because she has quote a sharp tongue
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: and a strong will. Now she's been married twice the
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: first time, she gave birth to a baby boy whose
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: skin tone was less like his father's and more like
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: that of indigenous Americans, and so like, adultery is bad
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: in Salem because you know Puritans. But also what's worse,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: they're like, you did it with someone who wasn't white,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and like that is just more rage, right, So she's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: kicked out to the Martal home and it's just and
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: it's a huge fucking scandal. Right. She does end up
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: remarrying a few years later to Jills Corey and becomes
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: a church member. But yeah, so she's like, you know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: gossiped about on the regular. Right, she's seen as still
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: an outsider because she's not following like the very prim
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: and proper life that you know, a good Puritan woman should.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: And on top of this, right, so she dismissed like
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the fits. She's like, all these kids are having fits,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Like that's not real. And she thought the witch trial
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: thing was stupid, right, because she's like, they're just doing it.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: It's silly. And because she was mocking it and she
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: saw it as nonsense, like that was enough for her
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: to be picked. Her husband, Giles, would also be accused
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: within that month. Then the next was a seventy one
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: year old pillar of the community, Rebecca Nurse. Right. She
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: had a large family, she was well known, she was
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: respected by many, you know, not the Putinams though, because
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: she had been in this very long dispute with them
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: land and so then they're like, she's definitely part of it.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: And of course the next person is Bridget Bishop. Right.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: She was yet not well received by the Puritans. Because
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: she wore a bright red bodice instead of a black one,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: and she was married twice. She owned a tavern and
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: held drinking parties late into the night. And also she
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: had been like suspected of witchcraft before. Oh she's beguiling people.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Now she's just selling them booze pal By April, the
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: jail cells are full, but they're they're like arresting more
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: people daily. You've got the former Salem minister George Barrows
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: right like this is getting ridiculous because like the scale
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: of this is threatening to overwhelm the magistrates. Like and
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: so because they're accusing so many people, they need like
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to fast track the legal process to get people brought
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: to trial. In May, the Governor William Phipps, he establishes
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: the Court of Oil in Termina, so this means to
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: hear and determine. So you've got Chief Justice William Stotton
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: presiding over it. Shockingly enough, another very staunch Puritan, and
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: he was super convinced of the devil's power. So he's
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: oh God, like he studied theology in England. He's also
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Harvard educated, because of course he is. And now he
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: is Lieutenant Governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony and a
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: very very well respected public. So along with the magistrates,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: he's got you know, like jurors mainly sort of landowners
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: from Salem and the surrounding areas. So his trials they're
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: not ordinary trials because you've got like little to no evidence.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: You're basically relying practically almost entirely on like the victims testimony.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: And so you've got the girls who are there and
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: they sit in and they watch every single trial like
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: they make absolutely sure, like that there is no doubt
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: about this. So the each girl would be examined, they
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: would take a statement from one and they would be like,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: oh goody, Osborne would send this creepy shape into her
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: window and torture me at night. And then so like
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: they would do that, they'd bring the witch up and
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: then they'd be like what do you say about this?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And they're like, I didn't, I don't know. And so
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: when sort of the accused, which shall we say, was
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: speaking the girls and sort of in the court that
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: you know, they afflicted like they would shake, some would scream,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: like they would have like a visceral reaction to it.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: Now this could just be literally fear and just like
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: if you think someone attacked you and you see them
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: like your body shakes, that could be it. So like
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: they would talk about, oh, I've seen this familiar or
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I'm being precked with pins, and they would do these
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: performances at every single examination. So they would just you know,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: claim that they would say like the apparitions or the familiars,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and they would be choked and and stabbed, and these
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: dramatic scenes happening in the court. They were taken as fact.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: And so the first to stand trial under this system
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: was Bridget Bishop. And so when she's brought out the girls,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: they start doing these like fits and whatnot, and whenever
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: she speaks, they claim that her words caused them pain,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: like real, actual physical pain. And even though they're like,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: she's hurting me when she talks, right, the judges they
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: force her to confess. So like Bridget, obviously she denies
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: any wrongdoing, and then her neighbors come in right and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: they're like, you know, she cursed her crops and killed
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: her livestock and even appeared as like a ghoul in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the night. It's sort of the same accusations that you've
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: seen throughout the witch trials. It's like she made my
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: cowsick and now it doesn't produce milk. Oh, the butter
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: isn't churning, or my beer has gone bad. Like that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: is it's a consistent thing, you know, these crimes they
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: were cused of. It is like they're so like explainable
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: in so many other ways, but they just didn't have
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: a way to explain it at the time. And in
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Salem's Cauldron of Fear, these like minuscule acts, right, they
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: become significant all of a sudden, these are curses of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: an agent of the devil. Right, So like her home
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: is searched, so Bridget Bishop, and you know, there's these
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: little fabric dolls in there, like they're called a poppet.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: There's been a sort of like a voodoo doll kind
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: of thing, and they're like, oh, these were there. Now
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: we don't actually know if they were act found in
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: our house or whether they were planted, but as far
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: as they're concerned, they're like these are real. And so
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Bridget Bishop is found guilty of witchcraft, and on the
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: tenth of June sixteen ninety two, she is taken to
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: Gallows Hill and hanged, and becomes the first women to
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: be officially executed in the Salem witch trials, but she
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: is not going to be the last. So as the
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: trials like really start getting momentum, so you've caught like
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: neighbors turning on each other. There's like past disagreements like
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: being attached to these claims. However, there are some accused
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: that are so well liked in their community, by their friends,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: by their neighbors, that they just won't stand by and
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: let them be like accused, Like they'll testify in their defense.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: So Rebecca Nurse is one of these people. So on
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: the twenty ninth of June sixteen ninety two, you know,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: the whole village they have shown up to the meetinghouse
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: in Salem because they want to see what's going to
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: happen to seventy one year old Rebecca Nurse. As Rebecca
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: is brought into the courthouse in shackles, right, she's elderly,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: she's frail. She's in this like really simple dress and
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: she's sort of shuffling in and loads of people there
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: are there to support her. But the girls there in
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: their like usual spot, and they just start like acting out. Immediately,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: You've got Ann Putnam screaming Abigail, she's screaming one whales
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: that she's like being pinched. And Rebecca she's like pleading
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: her innocence, right, like she's claiming to be, you know,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: not a fucking witch. She's just a grandmother, right, and right,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: one by one people come forward, like some are like
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: there too, you know, oh she looked at my cow,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: funny ones, but more people come to her defense. More
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: than thirty nine of them, right, have signed a petition
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: swearing to her good nature. And because of the amount
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: of like support she has. Right, the jury, who are
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: usually just like witch done, they actually have to go deliberate, right,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: So they go and by the time they come back, right,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Rebecca Nurse, she's exhausted, she's terrified. Right, And the jury
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: come back with their their verdict, Rebecca Nurse is not guilty.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: And you've got this like moment where this sort of
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: relief sort of fills the court, and it is it
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: does not last very long because after this, right, the
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: girls just go absolutely mental. Right. They're like shrieking and
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: screaming and like you know, having convulsions, and they're like
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Satan is smiling and every that's like the worst they've
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: ever seen and so the Chief Justice, right, William Staton, like,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: he tells the jury they have to reconsider because of
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: this just fucking drama that is being performed in the courtroom, right, right,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: he tells the jury to reconsider. And so the jurors
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: like whisper amongst themselves and were turned back with guilty,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: and she is condemned to hang. Right now, I understand that,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: like there's a bunch of psychological reasons that this could
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: be happening, but these little shits, right, I'm so mad
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: at these girls. I'm so mad. Like a lot of
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: them don't know what they're doing, but it feels a
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: little bit to me, like you know, when you've done
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: something and you've leaned into the lie a little too much,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: and now you have to do that, Like you meet
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: someone and you pretend to have an accent that you
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: don't have, and then every time you meet them, you
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: have to pretend to have that accent. Yeah, like that.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Rebecca is then led away and then she
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: goes back to the meetinghouse on the third of July
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: for her public excommunication. And this is a deeply religious woman, right,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: who's lived her whole life by these rules, but and
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: for her, what's going to happen is she's excommunicated, right,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: which for her is a fate worse than death, because
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: for her, that's eternal damnation. It's worse than death to her.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: And like just over two weeks later, like she and
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: four other convicted women, you know, they are carted through
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: the town on the way to the execution site. And
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: even before she dies, she protests her innocence. Sarah Good,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: she's there too, but she is defiant as ever. Now
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: she had had her baby, like she'd given birth, now
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: that the infant didn't survive. Shockingly enough, giving birth in
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: prison isn't you know, the easiest thing to do in
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: the seventeenth century. But yeah, so Rebecca nurse, Sarah Good
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: and two others are hung that day. And here's the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: worst part about these gallows as well, is that they're
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: not properly made, and so those hanged like they're there
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: for minutes, like they are strangled as opposed to having
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: the short drop in sudden stop of the neck break,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and so they hang there being strangled slowly like it's
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: it's awful. So after they're executed, they're thrown into shallow
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: graves like they're just dumped in. Now Rebecca and Nurses family,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: they sneak in, right, and they retrieve her body from
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: the shallow grave and they bring it back to their
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: family land and bury her there instead like giving her
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: as proper a burial as she can have. And it's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: actually her conviction and execution, which is like the worrying
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: one because she's a pious, you know, respectable woman, Like
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: if she was convicted, like, who's safe. Right, So summer
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: of sixteen ninety two goes on, and you've got the
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: alleged victims are in they're in there, and they're continuing
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: to do this performance, right, Like this is where doubt
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: starts to creep in a little bit, like because after
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: the execution of Rebecca Nurse, some people can't really believe
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: that it happened or that, you know, they actually did it.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: And it's after this the accusations really start to go
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: like out of control. So it's not just you know, outcasts, outsiders,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: just people who aren't you know, following the rules of
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: the Puritan society of you know, the staunch church goer,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: Like everyone is fair game at this point, so respected
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: members of the community, you know, prominent affluent. You know,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: these people are the ones that are that are being accused.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: In August John Proctor, who's very affluent and also a
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: very outspoken critic of the trial, like he goes to
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: the gallows, and so him the preacher George Burrows, who
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: shocks everybody because he recites the Lord's prayer just before
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: his death. Like there was this belief that a witch
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: could not, you know, could not recite the Lord's prayer.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: They couldn't do it because you know of their like
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: devil connection. And so when Proctor, Burrows and two other
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: men when they are hanged that day, when this happens,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: it always the seeds of doubt in people's minds, you know,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: the idea is floated that perhaps, you know, this isn't
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: exactly a righteous purge after all, because of all of
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: these you know, very you know, prominent people with influence
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: and resources. If they're the ones being attacked, perhaps this
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: is something more political as opposed to religious. So a
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: lot of these, like higher ranking families, they flit like
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: out of fear or out of like worry, you know,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: of of like a member being accused. And so while
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: this happens, the public confidence in this whole process is
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: starting to wither away, but the trials aren't done yet,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: and this is going to be this is going to
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: be a hard one. On the nineteenth of September sixteen
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: ninety two, in this field, opposite the jail, there is
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: a man lying flat on his back, eighty year old
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Giles Corey. That's right, Martha's husband, second husband. He's laying
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: on his back. He's there on the ground, his arms
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: are splayed, and across his chest there is a rough
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: plank of wood, and on top of the plank there
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: is a pile of heavy rocks. And so for two days,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Sheriff Corwin has been demanding, you know, a confession from him,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: one way or the other, and Giles has been refusing,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: and every time he does, another heavy stone is added.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: The whole point of this actual torture is to press
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: the pla from this suspect. So this young man is
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: holding this big rock and he is yet again told
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: to drop it onto the chest of this eighteen year
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: old man, so it thuds on him. At this point,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: his skin is pale and his lips are blue like
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: this man is like his lungs are being crushed. And
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: so John Corwin, he's demanding. He's demanding this confession and
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: sort of jitles. His mouth starts to move and he
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: leans into him and in what I could only say
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: the best fuck this for a game of soldiers, his
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: words are more weight because see, he has to play
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: guilty or not guilty. If he doesn't played one way
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: or the other, he can't be like, he can't be tried, right,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: but if they try him, he's gonna be found guilty
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and everything in his quite considerable estate will be seized.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: But by not pleading and not being tried, it means
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: that his lands, like, instead of being seized, will go
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: to his sons, like they will inherit it. Right. This
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: is this is not great for Corwin because he's been
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: doing really well financially accusing people of witchcraft because he's
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: been you know, getting his goods in. And so the
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: fellow who's holding rocks, he's getting ready to put the
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: last one on because he's like more weight. And this
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: shows you what a sadistic motherfucker this guy Corwin is. Right,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: So instead of dropping another rock on him, right, he
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: steps on the board that is on this eighty year
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: old man's chin, which is also again, let this we
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: forget covered with rocks. Right, so he ends up like
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: shifting you know, his weight, demanding a plea from this
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: this guy. And like there was Onlo Guercy or people
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: are watching this happen and they are fucking shocked, right,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: and yeah, people are praying, some people like can't watch
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: it anymore. And then, unsurprisingly, because his lungs are fucking crushed,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Giles Corey dies. So he's got no conviction of witchcraft.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: His estate isn't seized and his sons managed to get it.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: And this pisces of the accusers so much like everyone
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: knew who Giles Corey was, right, and he stopped the
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: court's ability to charge him. He refused to recognize their
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: authority over them, right, he defied them effectively, and after
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: the hanging of Rebecca Nurse, right, Giles Corey being pressed
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: is just it's a flashball moment for the village's attitude
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: to the trials, Like there was a massive turn at
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: this point. But yet you know, the gallows are still
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: seeing victims swinging, because like three days after Giles Corey
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: is pressed. So the twenty second of September sixteen ninety two,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: seven women and one man are hanged at Gallows Hill.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: One of them is Martha, right, Martha, who again was
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: mocking the whole idea of the witch trials. She had
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: refused to attend them, called the girl's liars and basically
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: spoke out about it. Right, So yeah, I feel like
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: her execution was more of a revenge because they couldn't
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: get the husband to stop. Now Martha, she is hung
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: along with the sister of Rebecca, nurse Mary Easty, who
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: is like play season and shockingly enough, no they don't.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: So when they are executed. The Salem Death told rises
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: to twenty two. So you've got nineteen who were hanged,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: two died in prison, and one was crushed to death
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: by stones. There are so many people still awaiting trial.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: You've got some who had been found guilty and were
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: waiting for their execution date. And like, this was getting
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: huge and it was becoming very difficult for the wider
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: community to live with. One of the people struggling to
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: stomach the trials at this point was Increase and Cotton,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: mother like two of the most influential ministers in New England,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: this father and son duo. They're just like getting very
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: uneasy with this right, so increase mother, Like he's seen
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: this as chaos, Like he is publicly condemning the use
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: of quote spectral evidence, Like he says, it's better that
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: ten suspected, which you should escape, than one innocent person
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: being condemned. Like he even appeals to the governor directly,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: So Governor Phipps, he's like begging him to put an
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: end to this madness. Like he'd been away though, because
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: he'd been away on this like awful brutal military campaign
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: in Quebec, because there's this war with the French with
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: King William so as in William and Mary, and so
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: he comes back and the colony is just it's wild, right,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: his special court has executed dozens of people, mainly on
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: nothing more than sort of wild accusations by children. Because
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: like these trials kept happening. There wasn't an end in sight,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Like it wasn't slowing down. It was supposed to like
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: read the Town of Evil, but it just seemed to
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: be snowballing, and like it didn't really seem to like
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: be as huge of a problem until the governor's wife
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: was accused. So like on top of this, it was
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: too expensive, right, it was expensive to keep doing this,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: and it was attracting too much attention. And there were
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: like a couple hundred people in the prison like at
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: this point, and that's a substantial percentage of the population,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: and that's not including those who had already been put
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: to death. So first thing Governor Phipps does is he
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: stops the use of the spectral evidence because he's like,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: this can lead to miscarriage justice, right, So he needs,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: you know, physical reliable evidence, and without that, it's very
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: difficult for the court to convict. And so these cases
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: fall apart and trials collapse. He disbands. The second thing
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: he does is he disbands the Court of Oier and Terminer,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: removing the authority of the judges, many of him have
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: been a bit too zealous in the post of witches.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: In its place, he creates a new court to review
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: the cases, effectively ensuring that no more innocent people are condemned.
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: And so the executions are over and the panic fades away.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: And so you've got these people questioning the whole validity
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: of the process, and like you've got some who are like,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: we've still done the right thing by Salem, Like you've
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: got these two two sides. One is clearly right and
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: one is clearly batshit fucking crazy. They're like, it's totally
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: okay that we murdered all these people without any actual
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: evidence whatsoever. So like in the years that followed, like
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: a few of the judges would apologize for the part
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: they played, Like they'd be like, oh, whips, we accused
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: all these women. What they wouldn't do, though, is like
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: deny witchcraft. They're like, on a, witchcraft is real. We
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: just may have accidentally, you know, killed a few innocent
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: people on the way. Then of course you have this
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: very important apology from Anne Putnam junior, because like she
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: was the one who accused the most number of people,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: like especially those who were put to death. So like
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: in her mid twenties, she stands up in front of
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: her congregation and says that she wants to lie in
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: the dust for the part that she played in the
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: witch trials. Right, so she's unmarred in a mid twenties,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: which in the purity in existence is uncommon, and so
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: she feels like her involvement in this has resulted in
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: her life not going as planned. And so a decade
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: after the Salem witch Trials, the Massachusetts General Court declares
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: the trials to be illegal and overturns the convictions of
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: those sentenced. And then nine years after that, so almost
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: twenty years later, right, a formal act of restitution has
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: passed to compensate some of the families of those affected.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: But like this is twenty years on, right, These these apologies,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: thesese honerations, they're coming like for too late, right, you know,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: you're closing the door after the horse has bolted. Like
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: that being said, this like marks the last ever execution
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: for witchcraft on us soil. And like we don't know
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: like why the girls made these allegations, right, we don't
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: have that now, So this could be hard mentality. This
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: could be you know the nature of the life in
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: which they grew, that sort of that pressured, staunch existence
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: and a genuine fear of the occult, And they might
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: not understood why like this was happening, and you know,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: you've got this sort of mass hysteria happening. But there's
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: also this there's also this theory like they all went
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: mad from like what is it a mushroom or something?
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: There is there is a theory on that causing it particularly,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: but I feel like that's been I need to look
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: into this. But something I also want to do at
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: some point is I want to cover specific people who
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: were accused, Like I want to do like a whole
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: episode on Oh Goodie Procter or like Goodie Nurse and
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff and take the time to
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: discuss what happened to these people a because I think
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: it's fair, because it's too easy to just one event
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: that's all bunched up, is just a thing, and to
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: forget the people who were hurting it, people who lost
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: their families, their lives, their livelihoods, all of it. And
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: I really want to do that at some point. But
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about Salem because you can't talk
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: about witch trials and not mention Salem at one point
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: because it's the most famous one. But you know, centuries later,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: we're still talking about it. But yeah, I want to
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: go deeper into it and really and really, you know,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: give them the respect that they didn't have in life, clearly,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: But so ends my story of the Salem watch Trials.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: If you liked my retailing of this, feel free to
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: waiting review of five stars. If you didn't like it,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: you can shut your mouth. Ah. Now, I've actually been
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: struggling to get this episode written because I had to
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: pare down so much information to make it shorter, and
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: I'm still an hour and a half in, right, and
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: that's with me cutting it down and I'm using scraps
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: of notes because Yeah, so my mom came to visit,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: and she's not been well since she came to visit.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: So she was supposed to be doing the kids Halloween
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: costumes and I would do the helping part, so I'd
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: do the wee bits. But because she's not well, she's resting,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: and I've done I'm gonna I'm gonna apologize to every
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Cause player who has ever made anything ever when I
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: share this, which I eventually will, you're gonna see how
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: bad a job I did. But I've spent the weekend
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: trying to make costumes, and I even helped so much
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: glue and spray paint over the last couple of days
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: that I'm worried for my own health. Insanity, Like I
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: can feel myself losing breath. So like if I've sounded
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: like I was running out of breath through this, yep,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: that's been happening in the past. I'm fine, I'm fine,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: and so it was a bit of a struggle to
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: get this finished. And anyway, I look forward to doing
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff next month with you, and uh yeah,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: let's give some women some fucking justice. You can catch
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: me on all of the socials and let's do. Let's do,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: let's do, let's do some recommendation time. I'm gonna recommend
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: for reading the Defense of Witches by Mona schole Choly. Holy.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to pronounce that surname, but it
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: is a name. So we've got that for reading. For listening,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: you know what, I've been listening to a lot of
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: Sabrina Carpenter this week, and I was listening to Tears actually,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: and all I keep thinking of is how funny it is,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: because it's like do the bare minimum. Wow, I'm so
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: amazed by it. And I get that to the joke,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: but it's fucking funny to me. And so finally, for watching,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: you know what I was watching this week is I
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: was watching not The House in Haunted Hill, which also
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of watch onus. Go watch the House on
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: Haunted Hill. That is a good thing to watch. You
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: can watch the Vincent Price version or the later version
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: which is also good. But I it's one of my
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: favorite horror movies. Actually, but I've been watching The Haunted House,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: the Not Blind Man or the other one. It's the
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: name the Haunting of Hell House. It's the Haunting of
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: Hell House. Okay, that is that? I yeah, so thank you.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: Uh it's it's it's eleven o'clock. I need to go
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: to bed. I've been up very early. I'm very tired.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: And the and the clocks went forward anywhore. I look
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: forward to seeing you all soon. Adios au revoir a
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: wa them my friends, Bye bye,