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American History Hotline: Hunting Witches: What Started the Salem Witch Trials? · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Those people who are standing up and being good Christians
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  Speaker 1: and saying no, not guilty, not a which I don't
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: know why they're doing this. Tried, convicted, sentenced, executed. Meanwhile,
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  Speaker 1: those people who kind of play ball with the court,
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  Speaker 1: over a third of the people accused confess and they're
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: at least alive for the time being.
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  Speaker 2: You've reached American History Hotline. You asked the questions, we
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: get the answers, leave a message. Hey, they're American History Hotliners.
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  Speaker 2: Bob Crawford here, thrilled to be joining you again for
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: another episode of American History Hotline, the show where you
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: ask the questions. You know the drill by Now send
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  Speaker 2: your questions to Americanhistoryhotline at gmail dot com. That's American
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: History Hotline at gmail dot com. Okay, on to today's question.
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  Speaker 2: It comes from Eleanor in Flagstaff. She writes, I hear
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  Speaker 2: so much about witch hunts and the Salem witch trials,
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  Speaker 2: but I actually never learned this history. Why were women
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  Speaker 2: accused of being witches? And did they actually have trials?
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  Speaker 2: How do you defend against being a witch? I love
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  Speaker 2: this question, Eleanor, and here to help me answer it
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  Speaker 2: is Emerson Baker author of the book A Storm of Witchcraft,
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  Speaker 2: the Salem Trials and the American Experience pivotal moments in
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  Speaker 2: American history. Emerson, thank you for joining me today.
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  Speaker 3: Happy to be here, Bob.
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  Speaker 2: And a great question it is it is Emerson, there's
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  Speaker 2: so much to get into to start, can you give
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  Speaker 2: us the setting for all of this? Like when was
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  Speaker 2: this and what does America look like at this point?
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  Speaker 1: Sure, sixteen ninety two in Salem, Massachusetts. Massachuset since had
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  Speaker 1: been settled in sixteen twenty at Plymouth, and Salem was
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  Speaker 1: established in sixteen twenty six, so we're talking a couple
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  Speaker 1: of generations in from settlement at the time. We just
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  Speaker 1: have a string of settlements really from oh northern North
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  Speaker 1: Carolina on up into Maine sort of hug in the coastline,
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  Speaker 1: so it's the early days. Salem is one of the
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  Speaker 1: bigger settlements, which probably has a population of about twenty
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  Speaker 1: five hundred people, and it's a very active maritime port
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  Speaker 1: on the coast. But if you go interior a few
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  Speaker 1: miles to what was known as Salem Village, then you're
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  Speaker 1: there in sort of a rural, agrarian farming community of
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  Speaker 1: maybe about five hundred people. These people are devout Puritans
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  Speaker 1: who came to New England in the sixteen thirties for
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  Speaker 1: religious freedom to worship as they saw fit in the
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  Speaker 1: in the Puritan fashion, a fairly strict ranch of Protestantism.
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  Speaker 1: And I on to point out too that I think
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  Speaker 1: because of Salem people and the Puritans, people associate witch
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  Speaker 1: hunts with them.
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  Speaker 3: You know, witch hunts.
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  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, it's kind of like a universal thing that has
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  Speaker 1: taken place throughout time and place. Most societies have some
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  Speaker 1: version of of a witch hunt, and we know that
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  Speaker 1: in Europe the Great Age of witch hunts between about
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  Speaker 1: fourteen hundred and American Revolution in Europe and her colonies,
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  Speaker 1: about one hundred thousand people were tried as witches and
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  Speaker 1: about half of them executed. So Salem is sort of
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  Speaker 1: taking to a place towards the end of that. But
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  Speaker 1: this is it's a long, sad story of which Salem
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  Speaker 1: is just a small part.
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  Speaker 2: So witch trials, they're not you're right, Well, you have
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: this idea of witch trials being this New England thing,
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  Speaker 2: this thing that happened in the sixteen hundreds. But you're
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: telling us like witch trials, No, they were, They've always
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  Speaker 2: been around.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and in fact, they're frankly kind of still with
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  Speaker 1: us in a sad way.
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  Speaker 3: We know that, and they went.
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  Speaker 2: They I got to stop you there. Right, there's the
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  Speaker 2: word witch hunt has been overly used, or it's been
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  Speaker 2: used a lot the past ten years.
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  Speaker 3: Now, probably yes, in our recent history.
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  Speaker 2: So so let's just let's just get this out of
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  Speaker 2: the way, Like, what do you mean?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sorry, you know, I should have clarified. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not trying to go politically here on your bob.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's well, you may, you may if you want,
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  Speaker 2: or you don't have to whatever you want to do.
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  Speaker 1: That is that is to say that let's okay, let
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  Speaker 1: me back the basics. In large part, hunt, a witch
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  Speaker 1: hunt is largely escapegoating, right, It's like it's like someone
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  Speaker 1: someone if you have a big problem in your village,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: bad weather, crop failures, unexplained sickness, and in traditional villages,
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  Speaker 1: people are looking for someone to blame, right, someone who's
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  Speaker 1: Who's Who's the witch? And unfortunately, witch hunts continue today
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  Speaker 1: in part of the world, parts of southern parts of
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  Speaker 1: Africa and India, where if those sorts of things take place, mobs,
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  Speaker 1: you know, not not the justice system, because the justice
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  Speaker 1: system in those countries would not believe in witches. But
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: in local villages where people aren't particularly well educated, they
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  Speaker 1: literally will take the person that they think is causing
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  Speaker 1: the harm to the village lynch mob will round them
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  Speaker 1: up and and and actually kill them in rather terrible fashion.
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  Speaker 1: The way they do it in most places is that
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  Speaker 1: they actually it's called tiring people. You take someone and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: you know, you tie them up and you put it
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  Speaker 1: a tire over their neck, pour gasoline on them and
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  Speaker 1: set them on fire. So when I say witch hunter
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  Speaker 1: are real, I don't. I don't mean the frankly, the
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  Speaker 1: relatively mild stuff of American politicians sort of stiping at
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  Speaker 1: each other. I'm talking about life or death matters and
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  Speaker 1: part of the world so and again, you know, that's
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  Speaker 1: sort of the modern version of it. But it's they've
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  Speaker 1: been going on in one time or another. And again,
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  Speaker 1: pretty much every society bob around the world has some
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  Speaker 1: form of witch hunts. It's I hate to say this,
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  Speaker 1: but I think you know, as long as as long
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  Speaker 1: as we have serious disagreements, uh and and and you know,
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  Speaker 1: willing to scapegoat other people because they're different. In some
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  Speaker 1: way we're going to have it, unfortunately. But we know
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  Speaker 1: that in Europe, starting in like the fourteen hundreds and
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  Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, there were huge outbreaks and the one in
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  Speaker 1: Salem was the largest in American history. But it's pretty small.
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  Speaker 1: So give you an example. There was an outbreak in Cologne,
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  Speaker 1: Germany in the sixteen twenties. It lasted a decade and
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  Speaker 1: about two thousand people were burnt at the stake. And
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  Speaker 1: there's so many people that it's like round fuzzy numbers
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: because we don't have all the names in the statistics, right, So,
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  Speaker 1: and in some degrees it's funny to me that people
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  Speaker 1: sort of you know, but Salem is the most famous,
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  Speaker 1: right and that's the one that.
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  Speaker 3: People allow me to start.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, this is this is all amazing. And so
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  Speaker 2: you're telling me in Cologne in the sixteen twenties, Now
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: we're talking about the sixteen you know, nineties, like we're
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  Speaker 2: in the same period, right, Was this part of the Reformation?
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  Speaker 2: Is there a connection between the Reformation and witch hunts?
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely well, in part yes, but again which hunts indirectly?
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  Speaker 1: Which hunts take place in most religions? Again, whether Christian,
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  Speaker 1: non Christian, all parts of the world, Eastern Orthodox, you
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  Speaker 1: name it. And I think again, maybe sort of Puritans
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  Speaker 1: get a bad rap because for us we tend to
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  Speaker 1: think like, oh, it was those those stern people who
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: dressed in black and white and didn't have fun. Well, no,
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  Speaker 1: they weren't like that. But that's another that's another story. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: that's another question. But there is which hunts take place
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  Speaker 1: when there's tensions in society and in early modern Europe,
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  Speaker 1: you know, after yeah, after the Reformation, Martin Lutheran all that,
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  Speaker 1: you're talking about a couple hundred years of religious tension
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  Speaker 1: and warfare of people arguing over whether what is the
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: proper way to go to heaven and the proper way
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  Speaker 1: to worship God in the Christian fashion. And unfortunately we
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: know in some ways Christians can be can be maybe
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  Speaker 1: uh maybe maybe harsher on on fellow Christians sometimes than
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  Speaker 1: than than than others because they just agree with how
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  Speaker 1: you feel you should worship. So throughout the fifteen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: and sixteen hundreds, particularly in those areas that were torn
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  Speaker 1: by division between Catholics and Protestants over the Reformation and
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  Speaker 1: the counter Reformation, you see a lot of religious tensions
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  Speaker 1: that result in witch huns. And that doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 1: people are saying, oh, my next door neighbor is a Catholic,
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  Speaker 1: they're a witch, they need to be burnt at the stake.
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  Speaker 1: I really think most of these are much much more subtle, Bob.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's like things are going wrong in our village.
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  Speaker 3: Who do we blame.
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  Speaker 1: Well, there are those people next door, and they worship
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  Speaker 1: God a little differently than me, and they speak with
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  Speaker 1: an accent, and they dress funny. So maybe they're the problem,
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  Speaker 1: you see.
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  Speaker 3: And that's so it's in those senses.
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  Speaker 1: Is those kinds of tensions that result from the Reformation
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  Speaker 1: also too, some people say, some historians point to this
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is the time when sort of we're looking at the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: beginning of sort of the global economy and the evolution
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of what we now know is capitalism, and that you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: have so you have a lot of change going on,
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  Speaker 1: breakup of tradition, old medieval village life, and change is.
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  Speaker 3: Tough, Emerson.
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  Speaker 2: Change brings out the crazy in folks. Let's just let's
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  Speaker 2: just call it what it is, Okay, So the sixth
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about Salem in the sixteen nineties. Give us
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  Speaker 2: details of this particular witch hunt that we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: witch trials? What were some of the accusations? Sure set
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  Speaker 2: the scene for us.
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  Speaker 1: Well, first off again to just to point out quickly
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  Speaker 1: that there were about one hundred people accused of witchcraft
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  Speaker 1: in New England before sixteen ninety two, but usually it's
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  Speaker 1: only one or two people.
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  Speaker 3: Salem in sixteen ninety two.
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  Speaker 1: Is in New England, particularly Massachusetts, isn't a really precarious
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  Speaker 1: situation there are? Well, I call my book a Storm
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  Speaker 1: of Witchcraft to reflect that idea of the perfect storm,
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  Speaker 1: that you have a lot of bad things taking place,
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  Speaker 1: and when you do that in the age four science,
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  Speaker 1: people are looking to see how they've displeased God, right,
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  Speaker 1: because everything is a sign of God's pleasure or displeasure
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  Speaker 1: to puritan So how about people being concerned about to
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: bing religious fervor not as many people are attending worship
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  Speaker 1: as they should, and that attendance is dropping, and not
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  Speaker 1: as many people are joining the church. And add to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: that a war going on with the French and the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Wabnachi Native Americans in northern New England. And add to
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that what we now know was the worst weather in
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: hundreds of years, the worst the extremes of the little
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: ice age where you have horrible winters, hot, dry summers,
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  Speaker 1: crop failures. So and if you want to add to that,
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  Speaker 1: in the spring of sixteen ninety two, a new governor
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  Speaker 1: is arriving in Massachusetts with a new charter that is
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a new form of government, and all of these uncertainties, Right,
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  Speaker 1: how is this going to happen? What is going to
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  Speaker 1: happen to us? Is the new government going to work
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  Speaker 1: out are the are the attacks going to destroy our village?
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  Speaker 1: Make people start to say this is clear that say
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  Speaker 1: that Satan has been set loose in our colony as
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  Speaker 1: a test for us of our of our Christian fervor.
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  Speaker 1: And clearly there are witches here and now we need
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  Speaker 1: to start rounding them up.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So who were the accused?
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  Speaker 1: Ah? So the accusers start off with you know, in witchcraft,
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  Speaker 1: it's like you know that famous lining Casablanca, round up
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  Speaker 1: the usual suspects, bob, Right, That's what it was. Witchcraft
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  Speaker 1: was normally a crime on the wrong side of the tracks. Right,
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  Speaker 1: there's the working class people, usually women, or start to
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  Speaker 1: someone will why whow why women?
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  Speaker 3: Why?
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  Speaker 1: Women? Okay, so let's go back to you know, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I have an amazing wife
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  Speaker 1: and two strong, wonderful daughters who've made it successfully into
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  Speaker 1: their thirties. So it hurts me to even think such
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  Speaker 1: things or to say such things. But people didn't always
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  Speaker 1: feel that way about women. Right in the seventeenth century
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  Speaker 1: and in the earlier times, they were considered to be
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  Speaker 1: and I'm putting this in quote marks, and you can
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  Speaker 1: see this, bob body as can't.
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  Speaker 2: Do I see these quote marks.
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  Speaker 1: I the air quart, the weaker vessel, not as not
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  Speaker 1: as I'm smart, more susceptible to Satan's wiles, you see,
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  Speaker 1: because Satan can tempt them with all kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: And men again not true, but they perceive men to
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  Speaker 1: be sort of smarter. Remember, women are made out of
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  Speaker 1: Adam's rib and so that's that's powerful stuff. So as
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  Speaker 1: it turns out, because of that, people immediately suspect women
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  Speaker 1: as witches. But again, it's not just this is not
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  Speaker 1: just a European early modern thing. Throughout time and space,
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  Speaker 1: most pre modern societies, you know, have their concerns about women.
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  Speaker 1: And so about three quarters of the people in Salem
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  Speaker 1: and pretty much every witch hunt are women. And it's
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  Speaker 1: worse than that, because they believe that witchcraft was passed
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: throughout families, So you could have husbands or sons of
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  Speaker 1: witches who.
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  Speaker 2: Are so you're saying it's like genetic.
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  Speaker 1: Well, they didn't understand genetics. You know, we're a long
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  Speaker 1: ways from genetics. But exactly they believed it was handed
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  Speaker 1: down from one member of the family to the other.
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  Speaker 1: And the other thing too, is well, what about a
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  Speaker 1: man who's not related? What about a neighbor? And he
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  Speaker 1: has the temerity to accuse a woman of not being
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  Speaker 1: a witch, saying, hey, no, you may have accused her,
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  Speaker 1: but this woman, I know her. She's a good neighbor,
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  Speaker 1: she's a good Christian, she's not a witch. And the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and and you know, we know what witch hunts are like.
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  Speaker 1: And under those circumstances, people can say, well, well that's funny.
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  Speaker 1: You seem like a good guy and we see you
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: at church on Sunday. But if your why on earth
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  Speaker 1: would you defend someone that we know is a witch?
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  Speaker 1: What Bob does that say about you?
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  Speaker 3: Are you one? Two? So you see, you see how
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: it grows.
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  Speaker 2: It's an impossible situation. Yes, it's it becomes like this
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: mob mentality. So put a face on that. Shi give
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: me a specific person who was accused.
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  Speaker 1: So the first three who are accused in Salem are
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the usual suspects. You have Sarah Good, who's a distempered
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: they describe me again probably woman who's poor, woman who's
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: mentally challenged. She's a pauper, she's homeless, she's going around
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: house to house begging door to door. Okay, so that's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: one she's accused, along with Titaba, who's a Native American
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: woman who's a enslaved by Reverend Paris, who's the minister
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: in the village. And there's also Sarah Osborne who's a
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: we might call her as a reasonably well to do
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: middle class woman, but she's been she's been widowed her husband,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and when after her husband dies, she has this apparently handsome, younger,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: indentured servant who's contracted to work for the family for
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: seven years, she decides to free him and marry him.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: And also too, he's not English, he's Welsh, which again
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: would make him a little bit stand out. So she
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: scandalized the family. So here you have people who sort
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: of scandalized people who might or poppers and distempered or enslaved.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So it really is those kind of usual suspects.
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  Speaker 2: Who with the easy target.
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  Speaker 1: He's low target, low hanging fruit, isn't it exactly exactly?
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  Speaker 1: And these are the people too, you can see though,
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  Speaker 1: who might be really susceptible to Satan's temptations. Oh, you
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: promise me wealth, you promise me a good life, you
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: promise me a rich reward in the afterlife. And so
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: those traditionally are the victims. But in Salem is where
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: it gets insidious. Is before long, even good church members
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: are being accused, even leaders of the colony.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: In the end, you have.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Almost one hundred and seventy people arrested and charged with witchcraft.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Of those, nineteen will be executed. One who refuses to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: cooperate with the court is literally pressed to death. They
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: pile rocks on top of him and try to press
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: out a plea. And five people die in prison because basically,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: think of the word dungeon. So if you're locked up
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: there for like a year before trial, five people died.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: But before it's over, Bob. And here's the thing. It
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: basically ends months later when the governor of Massachusetts calls
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a halt to the proceedings after.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Who was the governor at this time.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Governor Sir William Phipps was a wealthy man who the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: first American to be knighted by the King of England.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: But his wife, he's off fighting, trying to fight the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: war in Maine and lead the army, and when he
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: gets home in October, he finds out that someone has
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: accused his wife of being a witch, at which point
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: he writes the King and Queen and says, yeah, there's
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: been some witch hunts here, but I've now brought the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: proceedings to a halt because there are people that I
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: know for a fact are not witches. So okay, no
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: jokes about his wife, but seriously, you know it took
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: something like that for him to say, Wow, something's gone
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: off the rails here, I guess because I know my
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: wife and her best friend are not witches, and her
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: best friend is the wife of the leading minister of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the colony. We know these women are above reproach and
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: are not witches. So it's only when things go that
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: far wrong, after nineteen people have been executed that do
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: things finally come to an end. And even then, when
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: he stops them, some people are saying, like the Chief
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Justice is very upset. He's so upset when the trials
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: come to a halt. At one point, he basically storms
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: out of the courtroom and won't come back for a week.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: This is American History Hotline. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Today.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: My guest is Emerson Baker, author of the book A
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Storm of Witchcraft, the Salem Trials and the American experience
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: pivotal moments in American history. We're talking about witches in
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: a kangaroo court. That's right, the Salem witch Trials. But hey,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: we can talk about whatever you want next week. If
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: you have a question about American history, send it our way,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: record yourself using the voice memo app on your phone
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: and email it to American History Hotline at gmail dot com.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: That's American History Hotline at gmail dot com. Now back
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: to the show, Emerson, I want to kind of dig
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: in here a little bit where I want to looking
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: at the accusers, right, and how this thing spreads. Okay, so,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: so it seems like first you're accusing the people in
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the fringes of society, right, the enslaved woman, the woman
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: who who has is struggling mentally. Uh, the woman who's
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: not traditional, who's been widowed, who maybe has taken on
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: a you a younger man, right, he was indentured. She's freedom,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: like you said, the low hanging fruit. But this works
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: its way all the way up to the wife of
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: the governor and her friend and the chief Justice wants
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to keep Okay, So just talk about how the accusations spread.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So what's really unusual in Salem is the accusers tend
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to be largely teenage girls. There are a couple of
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: older women. There's a boy and a man involved too,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: but the core group of about a dozen are mostly
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: between the ages of about thirteen and twenty. Okay, they
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: tend again, they tend to be sort of most of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: them tend to be sort of at the fringes, though
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: some of them are not. Some of them are leaders
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: in the community. The daughter the first to be afflicted,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the daughter and niece of the minister, the most respected,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: most about, most Christian.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So how does that happen?
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So again I go back to the perfect storm analogy,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: because there's so many people making accusations about so many
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: different things that there's no single explanation. You know, this
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: idea of they ate moldy bread and they got head.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: A bad LSD trip is the standard one of Salem,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and it just doesn't fit. But I think there could
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: have been medical raised lots of medical reasons, psychological reasons.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: But originally I think the first two these girls, they
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: were about ten and eleven, and there are hard times
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: in Stalem village. The village is try to fire their
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: father as a minister. They stopped paying his salary, they
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: stopped providing firewood to the house, and he's convinced that
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Stton is in their midst and he's storming around the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: parsonage practicing his sermons, fire and brimstone sermons. God is angry,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: He's coming and he's basically taken no prisoners right, and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Sttan is in our midst and we have to drive
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Stateton out and these poor girls will being are absolutely terrified, absolutely,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you know, and they don't know why Dad's freaking out,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: but they know Satan's here and they're worried. Long story short, Bob,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And again I'm no clinical psychiatrist, nor do I play
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: one on television, but in their case, it sounds like
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: they're suffering really from what we'd call today called conversion disorder.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: What they used to call mass hysteria, but where they're
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: basically they're not faking their symptoms. What they do is
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: they start feeling saying that they're being attacked by invisible assailants.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: They feel like a thousand pins are sticking into their bodies.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: They start wanting to do things like they bark like
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a dog, They lose their vision temporarily, they want to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: throw themselves into the roaring fire and don't know why.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: They've lost control over their bodies and they don't understand why,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: which makes it all the more scary.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: And so what you're describing for me sounds like medical
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: anxiety or what we used to call hypochondria or or
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: you know, where the human body can play tricks on
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the mind, and the mind can play tricks on the
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: human body. And these symptoms are real, but the source,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the original source of the symptoms is.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Not and it's unknown, which makes it worse. Right, is
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: driven by anxiety and get today we call it it's
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: called conversion disorder, and there are cases of it. And
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: what that means is literally, you know, our minds are
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: really powerful things that we still don't fully understand. Right,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and so your mind is so overwrought from these young
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: girls and anxious about what's going on that literally their
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: body takes over but doesn't isn't telling them that, right,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: And so their body is causing these symptoms and the symptoms.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: So essentially what it does is your mind is converting
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: your anxiety into physical symptoms, but again not telling you,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and that makes your anxiety worse.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So, and what's interesting is there are outbreaks today. There
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was one in upstate New York, a famous case about
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: a dozen years ago in Leroy, New York, among which
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: is like a post industrial town kind of on the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: decline at least in the time. Hopefully it's doing better
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: these days. And interesting about this, about three quarters of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the victims hypercis of the victims of a conversion disorder teenagers,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: predominantly women. And again I think of the tough lives
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that our teenage girls have today with issues of body
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: image and all these things, is right, you know, well
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: it was imagine in a patriarchal society that doesn't value
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: women like men. In the seventeenth century it was worse,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and so you have these girls who really start catching
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: these symptoms. But what's interesting about conversion disorder then and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: now is the power of suggestion, Right, So who are
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the first in Salem village, the daughter and niece of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: the minister, the most important people in town. They're your
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: leaders of the community. And then by the power of suggestion,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: their neighbors children start to behave the same way in
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Lee Roy, New York, like about I think it was
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: in about twenty thirteen or fourteen. Guess who would hit first.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: The cheerleaders in the high school, the trend setters, right,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: and then once they're having symptoms, all these kids will start,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you know, aring and screaming in the middle of class
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and again, and you know what, then it took them
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: forever to explain it because no one wants to go
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to the well there's there they have some mental crisis. Instead,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, remember we had that train go off
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the tracks a few miles out of town, and weren't
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: there's a few years ago, and weren't There's some nasty
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: chemicals on it and stuff, And it's the same ways
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: in Salem. People don't understand this process.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: So what do you do.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: You call in a doctor and pretty soon he makes
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: the diagnosis of bewitchment, because again.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: It's real.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: How do you prove someone is a witch. And first way,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: two questions. One, how do you prove someone's a witch?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: How do you prove someone's not a witch?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, so a lot of years are approved that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: they disprove isn't it. And that's the problem, and that's
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: why witch hunts tend to spread, right, because particularly particularly
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: two in Salem. The reason Stalem gets out of hand
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is they use questionable evidence normally, so you mentioned you
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: mentioned kangaroo courts before and this fortunately this wasn't Australia,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: but it's an English justice similar to what we'd recognize, Okay,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: normally innoctent until proven guilty. Normally there's only two ways
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: to convict someone of witchcraft. Now, if this makes sense, Bob, right,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: if you have someone who confesses, okay, why would you confess, Well, unfortunately,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: normally because they've used some and again i'll use those
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: quote marks mild judicial torture, all right. Or you have
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: two people giving eyewitness testimonies saying that they've seen you
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: commit an act of black magic using Satan's powers, which
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: frankly then or now is kind of hard to do.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So in Salem they use this other weird evidence called
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: spectral evidence where And this is people knew that Stan
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: could give his powers to witches. It's in the Bible.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: It's real. Everyone believes this is not superstition.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: But one of the ways that Statan's could use his
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: powers or give to people was to form specters. He
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: could create spirits or ghosts of people, and those ghosts
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: could harm people. Okay, and the specter is invisible to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: anybody but the assailant.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: So I could be.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Standing in a room and I'd be going like, oh,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Bob's and people would look at me and they'd say, well,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: wait a second, Bob's not even here. What are you saying? Right, No,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: he's causing that's spectral affliction. Now this again, we're kind
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: of joking at this because it seems crazy to us. Well,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the point is it actually was crazy in this seventeenth century,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: but not for the reasons we feel, but because again,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: remember some people said, look it, if your specter's being used,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and this is unfortunately the judges believe this, if your
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: specter's being used, you're in league with Satan. But others said,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: hang on, Satan is the great trickster. What if he's
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: not only trying to harm Emerson but he's also trying
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: to get Bob in trouble and get him accused of witchcraft.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: You see, it's a twofer.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So, but the point is people in Salem were so
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: hard pressed, that so many things were going wrong that
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they used this dubious evidence. And everybody in Stalem was
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: accused initially on this spectral evidence, which is just crazy stuff.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And so in instance, it's easy, easy, easy to accuse
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: people of being a witch.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Right, we are not far from this being the norm. Again.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's the whole other talk I mean, but
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I think, as an aside, I think the big problem
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that we face today in our country is that it's
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: so easy to demonize our enemy, right when in fact,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you know, if you sit down with them over a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: meal or a cup of coffee, you'd agree, you'd find
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: out that you really agree about ninety ninety five percent
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of the things that are really important. But that's it,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, they're the enemy, They're the cause of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: our problems. So let's let the witch hunt begin.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think about the presidential pardon today or
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: a governor granting a stay of execution. Could the accused
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: pet someone in a higher power, like a governor or
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: a High Court judge for relief.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, and it eventually works, but not throughout the summer
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of sixteen ninety two when several of the accused. There's
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: one Rebecca Nurse, who's this saintly woman who's about eighty,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: a god fearing Christian, her family and neighbors. They hit fifty,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: almost fifty signatures on a petition saying, look, I don't
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: agree with the nurse's politics, but they're not witches, right,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: And that petition goes to the covernor. And even when
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: she goes to trial, she's initially found not guilty, but
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the Chief Justice says, I don't think jury. And again
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: there's a jury here of twelve good men, and they
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: came back not guilty. But they said, and I'm sure,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: they said, well, you know the petitions and all this,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and he said, look it, you didn't look at some
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of this evidence. Let's look at this again, Bob. They
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: came back again guilty, and she was executed, this poor woman.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: But so eventually, in the fall of sixteen ninety two,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: after the last they have a last session.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Of the court.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: In two weeks they convict and try execute eight people
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: for witchcraft. In these really rush trials, and people begin
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to say things are going wrong here. And it's not
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: long after that that the ministers intervene. Who's sort of
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: like the leading sort of experts on theology and witches
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in the colony, right, and the leading minister this man
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: whose wife had been accused, Increase Mather, very famous Puritan theologians,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: well known today and as well as this un Cotton
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Mather Right. Increased Mather writes a book and in it
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: he essentially says, Okay, it's getting to the stage where
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: we know innocent lives are being lost, so clearly we
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: can't prove beyond reasonable shadow of doubt that someone's a witch.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: We're making mistakes here. And he ends up saying in
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: his book, better that ten witches live than one innocent
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: life be shed. And that's only then does it come
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to an end. People don't stop believing in which is Bob,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: They kept believing in witches. They just said, we don't
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: have a perfect justice system to convict them.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Is this before Blackstone's law book was published.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: So there are a number of legal books that they're
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: that they're using.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Blackstones' commentaries is a little bit a little bit later,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: but they do have, but yeah, you know what, they're
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: still executing some people in Europe for this. In England,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: there was a major witch hunting in England during the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: English Civil War in the sixteen forties, where things are
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: kind of again ten religious and military and political tensions.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Over one hundred people were executed, and the last execution,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: let's see in Scotland is like sixteen ninety seven. So
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and their witch hunts in the sixteen eighties in England,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: but they're starting to peter out in large part because yes,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: you do have English legal officials sort of saying like, yeah,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: this spectral evidence isn't too good and again, you know maybe,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: but having said that, you know, the chief Justice, the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: future Chief Justice of England sought to the conviction and
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: execution of several women in the sixteen sixties and sort
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: of so he felt even to that point, the legal
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: justices in the land, leading leaders of it, of your system,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: are saying, yep, there's still enough evidence to convict people
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of witchcraft in extreme cases. So again, what Stalem is
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: doing is sort of an extreme but it's not totally
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: out of line with what's going on.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, So what happened to the poor people who were convicted.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So those originally there's again the old like thirty trials
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: talk about a kangaroo court. Almost all of those people
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: pled not guilty, were tried, convicted, sentenced, and again nineteen
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of them were executed. They had others they were waiting
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: to execute. They had other people they were waiting to try,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: some of them who sat for months in prison. The
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: good news was after increased Mather writes his book, and
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: also other people begin to complain the governor and by
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the way, increased Mauther, the minister was also the governor's
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: top political advisor. We didn't have any division of church
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and state here at all, so there's kind of a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: slippery slope there. But I do think the Salem changed
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that people began to say, maybe this isn't a great idea,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: right because they also too. By the way, one of
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: those people at nineteen executed was a Puritan minister, and
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: five ministers were accused, and even other politicians were accused.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Members of the legislature were accused. So everybody's getting accused here.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: But long story short, in the fall in October that
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Governor phipp says, we have to end this court and
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: we At this point, they still have over one hundred
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: people in prison, and many of them have been some
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: have been convicted, others a waiting trial. Bob, you won't
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: believe this though. Fifty five people confess to witchcraft in
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: sixteen ninety two confessed.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Guess come get you.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: But I mean it's a death sentence to confess.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Right, Well, yeah, but guess how many of them died?
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: How many? Zero? None? None?
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: And now having said this, I think they would have eventually,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: but in the early stages they noticed, like Titaba, who
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: was one of the first to confess back in the spring,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: all throughout the summer of sixteen ninety two, she hasn't
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: even been tried. What they're doing is, you know, I'm
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: sure we all have our favorite crime show where they
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: bring in like the little Fish and they sort of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: start sweating them like, Okay, if you just flip over,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: mister or missus big, we can do some we can
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: we can talk, right, And that's what.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: They were doing with people.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: They'd get people to confess and then say, okay, great,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: we know this is a huge witch hunt. Titaba even instead,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: there were nine witches who had signed Satan's book, so
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: help us find the other people, so talk to us.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: When you flew into that coven, who was there, I
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: don't know. There was some guy from Boston, but he
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: was wearing his hat down and it was dark and
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't quite catch his name, you know. But eventually, no, no, no,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: you need to name names. You need to tell us
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: now the joke is again. Eventually there's only one punishment
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: for witchcraft.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Just like today.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you commit a capital crime, you're in Massachusetts,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you would be sentenced to death then. But literally people
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: are seeing like wow, those people who were standing up
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and being good Christians and saying no, not guilty, not
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: a witch. I don't know why they're doing this. Tried, convicted, sentenced, executed. Meanwhile,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: those people who kind of play ball with the court,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: over a third of the people accused confess and they're
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: at least alive for the time being. And when some
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: of these people probably would have been convicted if Phipps
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: hadn't ultimately issued pardons for them. And so it's it's
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and it keeps on playing out for like another six
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: months under a new court.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: So what is the means of death? What it's the means?
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I'd like to think that, you know, the English
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: folk are reasonably civilized. They aren't burning witches, but people
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: are being hanged. And it's a miserable way to go
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: because not to get too gory here, but essentially back
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: then they didn't have what we now call a short
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: drop where people break their necks, but you had people
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: who were strangulated and might take eight or ten minutes.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: So it's a god awful way to die. And and
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: of course, and people always stay in stalem they were
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: burning witches, that's a misconception.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: In Europe.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: On the continent, in particularly, they tended to burn witches,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: but that's because it's treated as a religious crimes, committing heresy,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and in Europe they burned heretics. In England and America
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: it's our standard sort of criminal courts where we don't
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: have ecclesiastical courts who are who are trying people, So
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: they're tried and sentenced and executed like other murdered people
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: who curedated murders and other capital crimes. So but again,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: pretty pretty horrible way to go. Unfortunately, no unless except
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: for Giles Corey, who of course is is literally pressed
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: to death to try to get an answer an eighty
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: year old guy being pressed down. I think the good
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: news was for him was that he didn't hold up
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: too long. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for him. Right, pretty
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: pretty bad it was. This was not Bob. This was
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: not a kind of Regentler time. Okay, it really wasn't.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: So I think about the Red Scare, the Red Scare
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: and the fear it spread and Joseph McCarthy, and thank god,
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: he was ultimately called out, you know, by people like
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Edward R. Murrow. But lives were ruined, you know, lives
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: were ruined. What's the aftermath of the Salem Drive.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Well, my short answer is that's the book I'm writing now,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: so you'll have to wait. But no, no, but you
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: love it because I think that's that's the that's the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: that's the important story about how these people recovered. It
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: did take They changed, they started a new court, they
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: changed the proceedings. They said you can't use spectral evidence anymore.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: And guess what, Bob, no one was found guilty. There
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: were three people who confessed because they were still playing
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: kind of playing under those old rules. But the governor
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: pardons them and no more lives are lost. But it
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: takes until May sixteen ninety three before the last people
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: are tried, and even then it's sort of a tragedy
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: because you won't believe this. Back then, it's bad enough
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: to be in prison, right, how about if they treated
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: it like a really bad motel where you had to
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: pay for your room and board. And so in seventeenth century,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: your family there was one woman who had been found
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: not guilty in the spring of sixteen ninety three, and
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: before she was a poor family, and before they could
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: come up with the money and come get her out
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: of prison to pay for her basically her room and board,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: she died.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: So god is to.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Say families can continue to suffer really what we now
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: recognize as transgenerational trauma. Right where we know there were
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: people people immediately, here's the good news. Families, friends' neighbors
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: immediately rallied for those victims who were still alive to
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: try to get them pardoned, because at this point they
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: were legally dead. Before the law, they didn't even have
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: legal standing. Once you're convicted felon back then you lose
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: pretty much all right, So don't you can't even go
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: issue a competition to the court asking for a pardon
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: because they can't recognize you legally funny, you're standing right there,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: but you're legally dead, right.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: So it took long.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Story short, it took until seventeen oh four, I think
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: it was seventeen oh three actually to get the first people,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: first handful of people pardoned. By seventeen ten, they issue
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: a more general pardon where people are pardoned and also
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: get some financial damages, some minor compensation to help pay
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: those jailer's fees. Right, But honestly, there were eight or
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: nine people not pardoned and they won't get pardoned. There's
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a wave of them between the nineteen fifties in Massachusetts
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and the last one in twenty twenty two, where the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: legislature finally agreed at the urging in the last case
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of a middle school Civics class and Civics teacher to
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: ask if the last convicted which could could receive a pardon.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: So it was a really long time getting justice for
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: these people. But to some degrees, I think that constant
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: pushed to get justice by the families, which lasted for
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: over fifty years.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Initially.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the reasons why Salem is
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: so well known, because it was touching injustice. I think
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: it's the first mass failure of an American government to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: protect the innocent lives. And I think no one let
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the government or where the accusers forget that, And I
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: think that's one reason why Salem so well known.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Were there any you talk about how there were witch trials,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: you know before this and witch trials sense, were there
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: any other major ones in the United States?
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: No?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: After sales Stalem was there was one trial found not
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: guilty in Connecticut five years later. But essentially Salem is
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the last real witch trial in America. But having said that,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: on into the eighteenth century, these court, these cases show
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: up in court. But guess what, by this time, there's
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: slander cases. The woman who's been accused of a witch
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: she and her husband are going to court and getting
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: damages from the people who accused them. But we know this,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: but again we know the belief is still there, and
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: in fact, people use counter magic on their houses too.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Here's the problem, Bob. If the courts aren't going to
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: take action against witches, you have to have a home
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: security system, right, So people put counter magic up on
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: their houses, like horseshoes overdoors that horseshoes were originally designed
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: to ward off against witches.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing, Yeah, amazing.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: So there there's are steps. There are no witch trials
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: because people know that can't convict, but that doesn't stop
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: the belief and it keeps on going. I've seen houses
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: built around here where I live in Maine in the
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: late nineteenth century that still are protected with things like
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: horseshoes and stuff like that. To sort of and again,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: at what point does it pass the threshold from believe in,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: which is to kind of superstitions or traditions.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: Right, We're not.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: We're never quite sure, but that is to say, those
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: you know, folk beliefs tend to last a real long time.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And it took a long time too for the for
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: their stain to be removed from from these families, even
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: after the government took action.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: So button it up for us. Okay, what makes what
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: makes the Salem Witch Trials a pivotal moment in American history?
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Well, again, I think it's by far it is like
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: that huge first crisis for America. Frankly, we don't pass
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the test too well, right, But it also it's just
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: becomes an important lesson. I guess what I say is
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: every generation at his Salem moment almost from you know today,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: we think this use of politicians and his petitions of left,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: right and center who invoked witch hunts. I remember, you know,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: it isn't just the president a few years ago. Is
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: is Hillary Clinton supporter talking about the Bengazi witch hunts? Right,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: So this is an a politic is an equal opportunity.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Witch hunts are, right, But it's one of these It's
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: one of these things that every generation in America made
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: reference back to stalem and had its own witch hunts.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned, you mentioned McCarthyism, and that's the one,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: you know, the crucible that we're best known for. But
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: in the American Revolution, loyalists were accusing patriots of you know,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: being fervent witches and extremists in their beliefs. If you look,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Southerners accused Northern abolitionists in the eighteen thirties and forties
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: of basically murdering witches and being extreme interviews well as
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: their ancestors were extreme in reviews, and they were just
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: as bad with their abolitionist beliefs. Every time, the Red
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Scare after World War One, the Palmer Raids, has those
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: kinds of moments. So to me, the lesson here is Yeah,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: this is this is how to how did this? We
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: have to we have to work together to understand people
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and to try and not to demonize our enemies, and
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: to realize that as Americans we welcome diverse views on
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: politics and everything else, and our real the real hard
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: work for us is to work hard to understand folks
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and all have civil discourse and civil disagreements, because other
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: otherwise we're going to go back to that example of
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Salem and keep at least metaphorically, you know, hanging witches.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Well would the social media spreading conspiracy theories like wildfire.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: We're going to get to the point where we believe
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: in witches once again, and who knows where that will
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: lead us. I mean, it's it's just we're not getting
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: smarter people, We're not getting smarter. I've been talking with
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Emerson Baker, author of the book A Storm of Witchcraft,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: The Salem Trial and the American Experience Pivotal Moments in
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: American history. Emerson, when you write that next book, please
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: come back. You're always welcome here on the American History Hotline.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: We'll do Bob looking forward to it.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to American History Hotline, a production of
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show is executive
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: producer is James Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Jordan Runtall and Jason English. Original music composed by me,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Bob Crawford. Please keep in touch. Our email is Americanhistory
• 44:40
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• 44:45
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• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Feel free to
• 44:52
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• 44:55
  Speaker 2: question or to let me know what you think of
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: the show. You can find me at Crawford Base. Thanks
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: so much for listening, See you next week.