S1 – INTERVIEW 4: Marilynne K. Roach

and Quarterly. She was a member of the Gallows Hill project that verified the correct site of the hangings, a discovery that was listed by Archaeology Magazine as one of the world's ten most Important discoveries of two thousand seventeen. My producers Matt Frederick and Alex Williams had a chance to sit down with Maryland this past summer and I want to share that conversation with you today. So without further delay, let's get on with the show. This is

the Unobscured Interview series for season one. I'm Aaron Manky. My name is Marilyn Roach, and I've been studying the Salem Witch Trials and related material for what he is now and there's still more things turning up that I didn't know before, and more to write about the very top Nowadays, when the word which is bandied about, there are many different ideas and images that are conjured. And when you were let's say sixteen, and you're in the colonies,

the image of a witch is a specific thing. Can you tell us about that? In six was a legal definition of someone who had a familiar spirit, and it was assumed you knew with them men, but they were in cahoots with an evil spirit, a little demon or imp and in order to do that, you're in at some point been in contact with the devil, knowingly or unknowingly. Uh. Because it was understood by the ministers that humans did

not have the ability to perform magic. Therefore, if there is magic being done, it's not being done by the person, but by some spirit that they're in contact with. The folklore would say that the good spirits will do that too, but the ministers would tell you the angels have better things to do than that, So it has to be an evil spirit and satans behind that. Some people did practice a lot of folk magic, maybe more in England

because they weren't all Puritans. Well, they weren't all Purans hereies, uh, they were white witch is a blessing. Witches so called meaning they only did they did only the good magic. But if you have the idea that the source of it is really only pretending to do good for a while until you're really thoroughly caught in the clutches. It's not something you should be fooling around with. So where does counter magic come into this, Well, that's part of folklore.

It's something to repel the evil magic that comes at you. Theoretically allegedly. Uh, it's supposed to dispel it counteracted. Uh, bounce it back to the person who is casting it in the first place, which is what the witch cake John was supposed to do. Can you tell me about the witch cake? Yeah, it was English folklore and it was suggested to Tichiba and John Indian by a neighbor, Mary Sibley, who's an englishwoman her parents were anyway, and she's a member of the Church, I believe, so she's

considered herself considers herself a good Christian. But this this current of folklore that's just common and this is you know, this is repelling evil magic, so it can't be harmful. It was the idea, but it got the girls more worried, so the outcome was not good. But the idea of magical spell some part of the witches being is projected out to hurt the victim. So if you take part of the victim, and in this case it could be a lack of him maybe, or in this case some

of the girls urine easily taken from them. You don't have to cut off an ear like they might do with livestock, but that is tortured, you might say, by being baked into a little rough cake of the cheapest flower you've got, and you feed it to the dog once it's cooked, and the dog crunches it up and digests it, and that would should hurt the witch, because the part of the perpetrator that's in the urine, that's in the charm is being acted on, and the pain,

I guess is supposed to bounce back to whoever sent it. But that would make them come around and say what's going on, or begging for relief. Well, that doesn't happen, but the girls get more upset because now, as far as I can see it, now the adults are really assuming they could be magic here, which the doctors already said. The physician go to the medical professional and one of

them thought it might be bewitchment. So the adults are taking that seriously Interestingly, the Paris Is didn't immediately go to that as a solution to the girls symptoms, whatever they were. It is very interesting that the physicians are the ones who end up diagnosing some form of witchcraft taking place. Well, the fact that the assumed fact that magic was a possibility was just there on the culture and in the other cultures. It wasn't just a pure thing.

It was England, Europe and Africa, the Native Americans everywhere really, But because of the trials and intentions of the times, economy, war and all that, people were on edge to begin with, along with the local corals. So it seemed like the last straw. They are under siege by real, actual in this world problems, and this seems like one more thing that could happen. So two of your works that we're really looking into, the Day by Day Chronicle and Six

Women of Salem. Um, we really want to focus first on these six women. So maybe you can give me kind of like a pair of graph or two in your mind, just how you would describe each of these women as a way to baby set them up in the show later. So is it okay if I go down the list and you just okay, So let's start with Bridget Bishop. Bridget Bishop was married, so she's not alone in the world. This is her third husband. She's been suspected before, however, of witchcraft, but she has survived that.

That's not as much paperwork on it as you'd like surviving. She was confrontational. Some of the neighbors thought, I'd say she stuck up for herself. She's this is her third husband. The second husband would hit her now and then, but she hit him back. How about Marry English. Marry English was the richest woman in Salem. Her father had been a merchant who was lost at sea, and she married his business partner, of Philip English, who was from the Isle of Jersey and had more of a French culture.

His name was Philippe Languis something like that and mispronouncing. So they're very rich. Some people, at least according to descendants, thought she put on airs. But you know, class and status and the responsibilities of class were bigger in the big in those days, not like now. But she was accused even though she was a full member of the Salem church in town. Let's continue with Rebecca Nurse. Rebecca

Nurse was older than middle age. She had a large family of grown children with grandchildren, so it's an extant family that's not a lot of death in infancy in her family. Her husband is still alive, so she's not a widow. Pretty much on her own. She has a good support network, and she's a full member of the Salem Town Church. She seems to be well respected, but she's accused and some people just didn't get along with her. I guess I think a lot of personality conflicts in this.

But even though she had a family who rallied around her all through it, even though it might have been dangerous to speak up at times, she doesn't survive. And and Putnam uh and Putnam is an accuser. She's married to Thomas Putnam, who also helps to choose people, and their eldest child is and Jr. Who is one of the afflicted girls. Near the beginning, she seems to have not liked Rebecca Nurse. She's quite I think she's self

convinced that there are witches after her. Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey seemed to be particular problems with her, and she actually has convulsions too in the courtroom in the early stages. But she's also expecting like her sixth or eight child, so they could have been some physical symptoms that within misinterpreted, but she seems to be quite convinced of the neighbors guilt. How about Titchuba called Titchuba Indian, she's always referred to by her contemporaries as an Indian

rather than an African. She belongs with her husband to Reverend Samuel Paris. She's from somewhere else presumable, presumably Barbados, where Paris had been a merchant before becoming a minister and moving to New England. So she's accused early on she makes the witch cake at the direction of a neighbor with an English bit of folk laurel. There's probably worldwide equivalence of this, but that's the only magic she

can really be connected to. But because she's enslaved, she has even less of a support group than anybody else, and she's more or less bullied into agreeing with what the magistrates are saying. Even though she's trying to say she's a victim of witches. They convinced she's one of them, and at that point she'll say anything I think to survive. It's all she has really to protect her and she will outlive the panic because they're reserving her as a

witness against the others. Although I don't think she does have to speak in cook because plenty of other people were doing that. And finally, Mary Warren. Mary Warren is about seventeen and nineteen, a hired girl. She's working for the John and Elizabeth Proctor family. Uh apparently her mother and her mother died fairly recently. It might have been smallpox. They mentioned a fever and they had been smallpox, and

her little sister went deaf from it but survived. It's not certain which Warren her father was, because there's like three or four families in the area and they're all paily obscue. But she has a lot to say during the trials, and she thinks at first she's afflicted or acts that way. When her her employer, Master Proctors out of town, she she's having fits and accuses people and acts in court as a witness. And when he comes home, he he, he whips her a bit, which one could

do within reason to a servant. It's called correcting them, and she changes her mind. But when she changes her mind, she's accused of selling out by the other still afflicted witnesses, and after that she'll say anything to survive. So we really want to talk about how the different social strata of the women where they existed in those places, how it affected the way they were treated once once the trials started to come around, and they're all involved in

the trials in different ways. Um, but how did the social strata really affect them all? Well, your place in society was a lot more rigid then than now. Some people did go up in the world, and of course there'd be some resentment from people who hadn't. Uh, there's a quote somewhere about you. You you're excuse me. You may be Mrs so and so now, but you only good wife somebody before this the only one obviously not

taking it. Well. Ah, let's see, some of the upper crust people who were named were the those accusations tended to be dismissed by some of the magistrates who knew the people and do that they would never do that, which of course they hadn't, but it did help. On the other hand, just being well off wasn't enough, because Merry English was certainly arrested. Also, some of the really poor ones like Sarah Good she was had come down in the world actually, and she was cranky because of it,

and crankiness didn't help. But then I got the impression from what's recorded that Rebecca Nurse was polite enough all

through and didn't help her. Let's talk about the Putnam's relationship to the Proctors and anything about the towns like those three groups that the extended Town family had wood lots in Topsfield where they lived, and the extended Putnam family had wood lots in the same area, but there were different surveys involved and boundary lines that were not accurate, which wasn't exactly their fault, but each one was going to keep the one that was more beneficial to them.

So there were some court cases where they'd been fights on near fights in the woods when guys went out to collect firewood or timber. I think the whole town of tops Fields border was contended by Salem Village because of those boundary disputes, So there was some bad feeling there. A lot of it probably just didn't get written down. People who just rubbed each other the wrong way. There's a lot of documentation surviving, but not enough, not when

you're a fanatic about it. How did the Putnam's like really figure into that, because the Putnams are the ones who are having the dispute a lot of the times. Yes, well as it's a big family um and Thomas Putnam, his and his wife and his daughter are some of the major accuses they're willing to suspect. I guess at least any put a lot of people in the neighborhood.

And also he wrote a very good hand, clear hand, so that he took a lot of the notes and depositions, so he was quite busy with it is a civic duty, and he did not want to just blend into the background. He wanted to be a civic leader, I believe, and this was unfortunately his big chance. So it seemed to be very important to prove whether or not the girls were actually possessed in some way, or if they were under the spell or or under the influence of a witch.

Why was that so important? I suppose if you were possessed by demons, it could be involuntary, but you could be collaborating with them too, and then that would make you an effect at which but if you're just a poor victim of somebody else, some of the humans malice, although their pet demons is supposedly causing the pains the Iowa victim, or are you collaborating? Was the question, what was it about the convulsions themselves that made everyone just

so feel so uneasy? Well, a convulsion is a scary thing to say. Um, Let's see Reverend Hale at one point and in the book he wrote later, he said, it was beyond the power of epilepsy what they were going through, and they must have seen epileptic seizures, and certainly there seemed to be a lot of fevers when they got too high. People with convults, and they knew what that meant. But there was something really different about this, or more extreme. Prior to this and prior to the

Goodwin case somewhat earlier convulsions. I don't think we're common as a symptom. It would be the cow died, of the cow went dry, and the livestock died, all sorts of misfortunes. But it wasn't so much that people seemed

to be repelling an attack of an invisible entity. So this was not what which trials were not an everyday occurrence even then, but it was the convulsions were particularly distressing part of this although why they were believed and not again Hales to paraphrase and me said, you had to be there. It was just really they had well it kind of least a wife, perhaps these younger women

at least early on, why their stories were believed over adults. Yeah, because sure, and young women and older women, depending who's asking the questions, that their testimony didn't carry as much weight in the judges minds necessarily, although women did speak in court as witnesses, but you know, a child's testimony,

do they know what they're talking about? But there must have been just something about it that does not translate in the notes, even when they're pretty seemed to be pretty slorough And I mean you read the questions and answers for the hearings. They're not the trial questions. It's the hearing that leads up to it. And it's like something with the sound turned off. You're not really hearing somebody screaming in agony or protesting or the audience reacting.

It sounds not conducive to clear thinking. We mentioned Sarah Good I think earlier, and Sarah Osborne, women of that standing, Well, how do you think they were treated by they're they're the people who lived around them. Well, as I said, Sarah Goodhead come down in the world, that she came from a better off family, but stepfather kind of got

things that should have come to the children. And she's married to an impecunious person who then dies and leaves her in debt, and she marries second husband who is no great provider at all, and she's begging from time to time for her children. So this she could be kind of annoying that Sarah gould come around again wanting something, and the fact that she's she feels this keenly and is cranky, not really not a humble person, so she

can get on people's nerves. Perhaps coming down in the world might seem like you're you're just not trying hot enough. Although how hot can a woman try and actually gets the thing in those days? Economically, how many opportunities are there? Or if I don't know, it's some punishment from God, which is rather unfit to put on God. But you know then it's not orthodox necessarily what the neighbors might wonder. Sarah Osborne was well, she had she and her husband

had a farm. But the first husband dies and she marries the bond servant, and the farm should have gone to the sons when they came of age, and she still has rights to live there at least while she's a widow. But now she's married and there's a second husband and he's kind of taking over the running of things, and the sons cannot get the farm now that they're of age away from him, so there's a lot of hard feelings with that, And the Putnams were related to

the first husband. So that kind of explains a few things. You know, for the offit of our listeners, it might be good to just go over the basics of like what the rights of women were in seventeenth century New England. Well, they did say about class the better so at the team around and said the better sort at middling saw it and the lower sort. And how people were addressed is reflected in this Mr and Mrs His master and mistress.

They obviously employed people people like Rebecca nurse. In the middle it would be good wife nurse, hence good eat nurse. It's not a nickname. It's like mrs only abbreviated good man and good wife, and then people below that are just addressed by their first name, the way people address each other. Now. Uh yeah. Someone was asked how she had addressed Sarah good oh her spect. She said, well, I guess I just called her Sarah. She didn't have to be good wife Sarah because they didn't own anything.

And below that, she's at least free. She's married. Uh. This servants who contracted for a length of time, and then there's people who are owned in slavery and can be bought and sold. Unfortunately, slaveries legal in Massachusetts, although there's not a lot of them. They are around Indians and Africans. But women they did have rights. Uh. Some of them brought court chases, some sued for divorce, which

was very difficult in England. I don't I think the only way you could get a real divorce was to go through parliament. So that's just the upper Escalon. And I don't think they could remarry legally. I'm not certain at this time. But in Massachusetts the Puritans, you could get a divorce and remarry and it would all be legal. Children would be legal, inheritances would be legal. And there were women who sued their husbands and got divorces didn't

happen every day, but they did. But Uh a married woman, not just among Puritans but in England too, were uh covered by their husband. He was the head of the household, He was the spokesman. He was supposed to be running things, so that she technically did not own anything unless she was a widow who had had a good prenuptial contract. And some of the hostel exist. But if you don't own anything, not a lot to contract, which is why when they were confiscations for like jail dads and stuff.

Uh Dorcas Hare who was a widow at the time, they took some of her furniture and the cow and so on, because she owed money. But when bridget Bishop was arrested and she hangs no, they didn't confiscate anything because she didn't own anything. Her husband did, even though she had owned a few things before she was married.

Now was absorbed into his. But they they could speak up and and they could most m perhaps most importantly to them women like men, was supposed to search your soul to see if you was saved where you were They of joining the church and having communion and access to baptism and so on, and that was a personal journey. So that they would be members of the church equal before God. Couldn't vote but in church matters, but they sometimes made their feelings, made their feelings known. But yeah,

but at least before God you were equal. So let's jump to power power within the society, because I feel like all this is very much connected. Um. The power seemed to find its roots in faith, even though you mentioned these these are not all Puritans who are that we're talking about. However, that Puritan faith, in that Puritan power structure kind of had its hold over everything. When people emigrated early on, like the sixteen thirties, a lot of people coming in. Most of them are coming over

for faith reasons. But they soon became evident that they didn't all believe the same thing exactly. So in order to vote, which is men it uh you was supposed to they was supposed to be members fully communing members of one of the churches, which they're all separate entities. There isn't like bishops or anything to should that. You know, these are upstanding citizens and they're not going to rob

you or something like that. But of eventually all the people moved in uh Quakers and locals who converted to Quaker him. Also the Church of England families, um, the men who are merchants, who a lot of them who came in later were Church of England. And of course there is back in England as the Civil Wars going on, and the Puritans predominate during the Commonwealth period when there's no king. Oh there are other groups when the king returns with Charles the Second comes back and the monarchy

is re established. The Church of England is definitely a Biscopalian at this point and in England not nonconformists. Is all of the different sects of Puritanism are called, are excluded from the university degrees, couldn't run for parliament and so forth, and so Massachusetts tried to pretend that they just couldn't find the paperwork to get rid of the chatter and all that. But I actually they had to allow, they had to not allow the requirement that you be

a church member in order to vote. But England changes it so you have to own a certain amount of property. So theoretically some for a church members maybe don't vote anymore on the local level. If you're going to choose the hall grief and the cow catcher in town and the guide amend the roads. They may not care about that, and selectmen, but the upper ranks of the government. You had to have a certain amount of property. So are you going to is it a religious requirement or a

financial requirement? Yeah? How connected are those two things? You know? Well, I mean there were biscopanions who had money too. So let's let's pull back and talk about just citizens of Essex County, people living in Essex County at the time, right up into and then as the trials are occurring. How are these trials that are happening. Let's just say wherever the epicenter is, like around Salem. How is the rest of Essex County being affected just in their daily

going about their lives. Well, when the panic started and the law got into it, got involved in this, this hearings and arrests. But it's Salem. Salem includes Salem Village, which is the rural end of town. But the panic is spreading and in the summer, and Over, which then bordered it, uh began to have cases and there were actually more people accused in and Over than in Salem.

So the panic spread. No people in Ipswich, in Gloucester and in some of the Middlesex County towns, so that they were jails in three counties involved in this, but each of them on neighborhood quarrels, family quarrels. That's one of the most fascinating things about this entire crisis is that these are essentially neighborhood quarrels between neighbors, but there's this spiritual aspect to them that that brings in this

the weight in the power of something other worldly. Um the effects seem to be magic and that involves spirits of one kind or another allegedly. Yeah, but simultaneously you have nature bearing down on all of these humans because as you're getting in closer and closer to winter at the time, there's a real physical danger that's approaching as well. The people in jail jails were not conducive to your health.

They apparently had fireplaces because bills for why it would, but they're not meant to hold people for a long length of time, and they're not supposed to hold a lot of people. Once winter started to come down on the temperatures getting colder, which happened earlier than it does now. Uh, there were petitions, some of them from and over anyway, asking if the suspects could be let out until spring, we promise we'll bring them back when the trials resumed next I a few people were let out on bail.

Some of the youngest ones even thought they'd been accusing people. They went home, but I don't think many of the older ones did. And some of the children that got arrested, they did go home, but not all of them. And that's one reason the trials resumed the following January. They're waiting to hear from the crown. Should be are we proceeding right? Should we do this? But it was just he was too dangerous for the people in jail, and just even if the temperature was good, it's not clean

with all those people in one place. How linked are the concepts of sin and crime? Not every sin as a crime, but all crimes involves some kind of sin. Uh, drunkenness would be sinful, but if you're not. If a guy is drunk but he doesn't waste the family substance, beat the wife and the children, then it's not a crime, but it's sinful. Why was confession such an important part of the trials themselves? Well, any any capital conviction required

either two competent witnesses to the same act. That's what spectral evidence gets tangled, or a credible confession from the accused, and they were aware and they say, length, it's not somebody whose mind is affected or there tortured into it or anything like that. But the people who did confess, and there were a lot of people who did confess, uh, some of them said afterwards that they really didn't know what they had said, they were so terrified by what

was going on. One woman said she remembers a document being read in the name of the king and the queen, and after that she didn't know what happened. She just couldn't remember. She blanked out, and others would probably they was. It sounded like they was just agreeing to anything in order to get on the good side of the magistrate or or in the hopes that it would lengthen their life.

Because the people who were who had confessed and UH were held as witnesses against the supposed collaborate atis, and that delayed things so that not all of them, but most of them survived because the panic died down until spectral evidence, which is the report of what the demons are doing, was no longer allowed in court. Describe some

of those I guess the evolution of criticisms against spectral evidence. Well, at the very beginning, one of the judges who lived in Boston consulted with his pastor's caught and Mather about any information on how we should proceed, and matthe said, to be very careful of spectral evidence. It really can't be trusted. It's axiomatic. The devil is the prince of lies. He's a lie. You can't believe anything that comes from that direction, so you can't really believe it. And they

said they'd be careful, but they weren't careful. And I think Matthew wasn't there at most of the trials. Just assumed that they're older than I am. They they're wise enough people. They probably know what they're doing, which they didn't really because they were carried away by it all too.

It seems so real at the time, unfortunately, because the convulsions in the courtroom seemed to be the crime being committed right in front of everybody, and we can all see the effects of it, but the cause of it they could not see, and they had to depend on the reports of the proposed afflicted, and even if the afflicted people were quite convinced themselves, they can be deluded by the devil, and that's their own philosophical outlook on it,

and they didn't pay enough attention to it. It's pointed out on the very first day by Sarah Osborne that the devil can take the shape of anybody, so why not me? For some reason, it was said afterwards anyway, it's for some reason Stoughton thought that you did have to give the devil permission. Is if the Prince of Lies is going to ask a permission. It really didn't make sense. So he seemed to think he knew what he was doing, and he was a very strong personality.

And I think that if some of the other judges had second thoughts, they may be figet he knew what he was talking about. Oh bo. After the first execution of Bridget Bishop, one of the judges, Nathaniel Saltonstall, stepped out. He just left speaking of um. Bridget Bishop wasn't the first person to get arrested for these crds, but she was the first person to be put on trial. Was that Bridget Bishop had been suspected before of witchcraft sold

it was that against her. They maybe seemed more evidence against her, or at least her reputation wasn't good in that respect, although that's really other people's reactions than anything she had actually done. She was sort of the usual suspect. You might say, why was Titchuba's testimony in particular? Why

was it powerful? When she started describing things and to fulfill the expectation of the questions, it was pretty vivid story about this spirit and that spirit, and these otherwise invisible entities, and some in the shape of birds, and this hairy thing that was standing by the fire, warming its hands or pinching the girls, and a bird with

a woman's head. It was pretty colorful. It's probably more thorer than that than the notes indicated, because there's a lot going on and they are using shorthand, but it's still not an absolute transcription. So that was pretty vivid. And she describes other which specters osborne and good, but then others also, but she doesn't know who they were, so people are left with wondering who are the others

and who do I not trust? Who might be a suspect, And then it really blew out out of control, so almost that known unknown that there are others out there, we just don't know who they are. That's that's fascinating. Yeah, But because they could be under attack from them next the way, they could be under attack from the French and Indian forces in the on the frontier and coming closer to which was a very real threat later on

they get as close as and over. But yeah, it seemed like it was all too likely to happen, even something like just the wilderness, the wildlife that surrounded them, because there were wolves around still, and there's a spectral wolf presumably spectral wolf reported that chases the doctor's hired

girl and she has connected and fits soon after. But there were bounties on wolves, which I'm on the side of the wolves now, but ah, but there were bounties paid at least the year before, so I think they're in the vicinity and it's winter, so yeah, that would make people nervous too. Fear really is just one of the most pervasive things. Fear is very powerful, and it still is. And if you get to the point where you're panicking, then you're not you're thinking even less clearly

than otherwise. What are the main separations between the role of someone who's a servant and someone who is a slave, Well, you don't sell the servant, it's uh. They're contracted for a certain period of time, but a slave is enslaved for life. There were cases of enterprising sea captains kidnapping people on the coast of England and Ireland and bringing

them over his bond servants against their will. They had a certain period of time to work out, and there was a lawsuit by a couple and they might have been brothers who had been kidnapped like that and thought that they time should be up by now, so we should be free. And they're saying that they masked, it was a bit too hot and it wasn't gonna let them go. I think they got out. So but even even though this was totally involuntary, there was a time

limit on it. The new Colonial Charter, what did they promise to the colonists. The new Charter, which took years to negotiate, made the the government legal. But one thing that England says in it is that it cannot be repugnant to any of the laws of England. The repugnancy clause. It can't contradict English common law, which isn't written down, but apparently there's ways of finding out what it is. Um.

Some parts of Massachusetts law did differ. I mm hmm, like the divorce thing, but I'm not sure if they even looked at that. What There were various agents of the government prowling around making surely if there were violations or not, but they seemed to be mostly interested in import export taxes that were not being paid. They didn't seem to mention the witchcraft problem at all until one of them got beaten up in foot and jail and

even talk side dispute. And he didn't like being in jail with a lot of commonist burglars, negroes and witches. He said, so he did not really care what they were doing with the witch trials. But um witchcraft was illegal in both countries. And when Phipps suspended the trials in the fall in October and asked for England's advice when it came back, it said, just do what the law allows and do your best. They didn't seem to

quibble over how it had gone. Speaking of Phipps and ending Charles, what do we know about lady Mary Phipps. She was well educated, She's from Maine to I guess her family was in Maine and in Massachusetts. It was said that she taught her husband how to read on a honeymoon or soon after. He but even though he couldn't read, he was able to oversee building a ship and keep all that in his head, so he had

a good memory anyway. But um, she was apparently, you know, a force a forceful woman, and he was devoted to her, listened to her. It said that she was accused, and apparently the source is a good one that she was at least named, that she had helped somebody get out of jail, signed there a warrant to get them out. I thought for a while that, you know, William Phipps and Mary Phipps, William and Mary, the monarchs, that there was some confusion there, or maybe they pretended there was

a confusion. But she may have done that because the source is Thomas Hutchinson, the mid eighteenth century governor of Massachusetts Road of History, and he said he was shown a paper by somebody who had been a jailer and got fired when they let them out unauthorized. But yeah, she could have been named, but nothing was done about it because at that point, Phipps decides this is not going the right way and realizes what Sarah Osborne pointed

out the first day of the hearings. If somebody sees a specter that looks like you, it doesn't mean it's you. So that that tactic did seem to work. Paying if you had the means paying to be released. Well, well, not everybody thought that the trials proceeding the right way, but we don't know exactly could have been. Just they were bribable. It did help to have money, and if you were wealthy enough, like Philip and Merry English, they

were put in the Boston jail. But then he had enough money and put up a bond four thousand pounds, which is huge. That they could then rent a room in the jailer's house, which had better amenities. It was a room rather than a common room with everybody in it, so it was easy to escape from that too. I think he could go. The story with them is that they could go out get some exercise as long as

they paid for God to come with them. Let That led to all sorts of possibilities, And there were people who didn't like the way the trials are going, such as Reverend Samuel Willard and Reverend I think Joshua Moody who was in town, also from New Hampshire. Apparently the family story with the English is is that they helped arrange things for them and persuade them to escape. But they did escape. They went to New York. I know there are several people who had to remain in jail

even after their charges. Now, yes, how did it being a debtor function within the trials when you had to pay the phase, It's like two shillings sixpence a week, I think, and that I've seen is what a woman, if she was working full time is spinning and weaving, could earn in a week. So that's that's sizeable amount

of money. Their families were supposed to come up with it, and one woman who died of natural causes in jail, the jailer wouldn't release the body to the Suns until they paid her fees the rent, and then I guess they did, but they complained about it later when there were reparations. The family had to come up with it, and I think that Jacob's family had to borrow money in order to get the daughter out. And then the person who loaned. It suit them the debt and she

was back. She didn't want to come back to jail again. It was it was financial difficulty. Seventeen twelve, there was some restitution and people applied to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts saying this is what I spent and why, and some of them were reimbursed. Philip English asked for a great deal, but he was on good financial standing, so he didn't get that much. But yeah, Massachusetts tried to make commends. It didn't bring you didn't bring back your dead grandmother,

but it was something. But anyway, it gives us some paperwork to know what people had to spend. They put in the expense of hiring a horse and going down to Boston from Salem, which is a whole day's trip to tend to their mother, or there aren't or somebody bring them some fresh clothes and some decent food. I mean, I guess you got bread and water, but it wasn't great. And then they do that so many times in a week, and that's that's a lot of time away from work.

The crops are growing, are not growing. And yes, it was financially bad for Massachusetts as well as for the individuals who was the final accused which to actually leave the jail. It's hard to say. I really don't know was Okay, was Chichiba at least within the sand which Charles was, it was the last person because of some of these she made. She was among the last, I would say, because her she didn't come before the Jewies Child Jewlies until the following May, and then they were

her fees. She'd been in jail a long time and Samuel Paris did not want her back because that whole episode is at this point very embarrassing and what if she really is a which do I want her in my house? So he wasn't going to pay it, and they have sold her to somebody we don't know to cover the fees. So she's back to being a slave somewhere else and we don't know where, but apparently locally, because it's mentioned that she was. She was not sold

out of the colony at that point. She just disappeared from the records. What are the kinds of like primary source, like, what's the kind of written stuff that you actually have from from from this time? And one of the kinds of things they write about. There's a lot we don't know but there's a lot of documentation that has survived. Um, there's warrants, the original compliance uh A minimus where someone's being transferred from one jail to another, and they're not

for everybody. It's not a complete set for everyone who's accused, but especially at the beginning, there's a lot of questions and answers taken down during the initial hearing, not at the trials, but at the hearings to see if there's enough he had to whold someone for trial, and surprise, knewly all of them were. But different people took notes at different times, and some are more complete than others.

But you've got questions and answers, and you can see, for example, was titue but where a couple of people were taking notes on that first day, you can see whether the question was Presumably John Hawthorne is already made up his mind this has to be a guilty person, so he's he's going to keep asking the question until

he gets an answer. And then she describes things. And if you put the two together, and you get this picture of all the devils in the passonage and what they look like and who else is and the suspicions and how somebody flew through the air and so on, and those are extremely helpful. And then there are statements by witnesses and accusers who say, on such and such

a date, I was afflicted and so on. That's painful, and it's on a date, and maybe somebody else makes a statement saying, yes, they saw them convulsing on such and such a date. But then there's other depositions where we had an argument with someone and then the cow got sick. And then there's the confessions that some people did. And they confes us that they sold themselves to the devil,

and how did he appear? And he always was came as a black dog, or he looked like a man, or he looked like a cold I think in one case, and how and we and they described being re baptized into the Devil's communion, and they're thrown into someone got thrown into a stream. They're coming up with whatever whatever comes through. They had someone's face was pushed in a bucket of water, they said. Or they wrote out a contract on a piece of birch back, or they were

illiterate and they put their thumb mark on something. That's something they can get quite detailed, but you know, even though it didn't happen, it's extremely interesting. Uh. And then there are lists back in ninety three you do get the names of some of the jurors. Unfortunately, most of the jurors in sixteen ninety two we don't know who

they were because that paper were didn't survive. And later on there are petitions saying this is what I went through and I want my name cleared, and the petitions for reimbursement later on, like seventeen twelve, after the reversal of attainder, and the names have been cleared if they got in the petitions, there were five. I think they

didn't get cleared until two thousand one on Halloween. They weren't taking this seriously, but you know they're listing what they lost, what was confiscated, the money they had to spend to go visit a relative in jail, and so on. So there's a lot of detail and a lot of those are online, which is very helpful. In the University of Virginia's website. There was a commentary at the time. Let's see that when the Panics started to wind down in October, there were a couple of letters circulated not

in print at the time. There in print now uh one was by one of the Brittles, criticizing the way the trials had proceeded that too much spectral evidence. It boils down to. There's some anecdotes in that, but mostly it's an argument as to why this does not work and increase Mata, who had negotiated the charter rights up his views that he had had been discussed at a meeting of area ministers. Cases of Conscience. It's a longer title than that, as to why you cannot trust spectral evidences.

And there are some letters such as from Phips to the Privy Council of the Crown, of various government officials in England saying it's not I'm stopping it. It wasn't my fault. I wasn't there. I was following your orders to keep Mane safe. But we've stopped it now and

it wasn't my fault. But let's see. So when the trials start up again in January and so on, there's some paperwork from that, a cup and in October the court, I guess the government asked Corton rather to write a summary of what had been going on, and he at this point still assumes that they had been proceeding correctly and maybe he's making two thinks he needs to make

more excuses for how things had gone. So it kind of supports the view that they had proceeded as best they could, and it did nothing for his reputation thereafter, and it kind of ties him with that, even though he did say at the beginning, you shouldn't really use spectral evidence, and he had a lot of other good things that he did, but that was a very unfortunate one.

All over, the book is a good source of what people were saying and of the end views of the trials, and there's some anecdotes in it that aren't in the existing papers they did send the court. M m. Clerk of the Court sent him some of the paperwork which he got to see, and some of that might not exist now, but that's what he was writing from and

making excuses for how the government had proceeded. Because another thing is that the government is trying to establish itself according to the new Charter, and they don't need so much public unrest that they lose it again, or you know, the populace does something to react against it. In England's is or well, forget about self roll after this, so he was trying to protect the reputation of the government too much. As strange as it is, you can view the Salem crisis as a pr nightmare for a group

of people. It was the Pio yes right. And and because of that book, which was published in England and in New England. Uh Robert calf who was a merchant, and he had been a constable in Boston in that year, so he might have been helping to arrest people. We don't really know that. He was highly critical of the

trials at this point. He hadn't really said anything while I was going on, but he wrote a book criticizing this, criticizing the Mathers and the government, and that has a lot a lot of really good source material because he spoke to some of the families involved and and Prince. Some of the paperwork that didn't get saved or it was a receipt from the sheriffice to what God confiscated. We know about it because it was in his book.

And then there was back and forth between the Maths and ca and so debating how things had gone on. But that is a source book. And later Reverend John Hale, who had believed that it was witchcraft at first and

then did change his mind. He wrote a book later as to how it seemed and how it is obviously not a good idea to accept spectral evidence, although at the time it seemed like such and such, and it is anecdotes in there that that were very helpful, but it wasn't published until after his death in but that's a good source too. At the very top, we talked about Rebecca Nurse. She had, like you said, a support

structure around her her family. Talk to me about what made her family ready for this fight, because it wouldn't have been it's not an easy thing to fight for her name and for her innocence. Well, they just I'm going to protect mother. The Nurse family got statements from neighbors. They circulated a petition neighbors and lots of people signed it. It wasn't just them, so they people put their names

on it. And there was never any retaliation against any of the people who did that, or the petitions for the practice or for Mary Bradbury unhappy to say, and they took that to the governor and other statements and even a statement from I believe this was at this point a statement from the jurors who misunderstood something she said because she was originally got a not guilty verdict, which scared the afflicted girls, either either because they expected

the devils to do something or because they did not want to be not believed. But they screech and it seems like they're being heard, and Stowton's sends the jury out to reconsider, and they come back and ask her about a certain statement she had made when she was brought into the room. She why of the confessors had come in, and she said, why is she here? She's one of us? Did she mean one of us witches or one of us accused, which is what she meant.

But she doesn't answer, and they figure, okay, she has nothing to say in her defense, and they bring back the guilty verdict and her the family tells her afterwards what had happened, and she writes, so she signs a statement that they wrote for her right or she wrote it herself, saying that she thought they meant a fellow prisoner, not a fellow which and all of this has presented to the governor and they get a reprieve, and whereupon there are even worse afflictions, and the reprieve is taken

away and she hangs. But they do try, and they keep trying, and they they they never really I don't know if they never forgive the accusers, but Paris and the Putnam certainly thought that Rebecca was a witch at the height of the panic there, and they are at obvious odds for a long time thereafter, and they're part of the faction that would like to get rid of Paris and break that contract for all these reasons. You know, you look at everything that's kind of swirling around the

village of Salem that's causing this to occur. In your books, specifically in the Six Women, you're really focusing on these women in their lives and getting a view from inside, trying to know you you are and and why is it important to focus on these specific women. Well, the something biographical, trying to tell what it was like to go through it, what it was like to live through

it as an accused or an accuser. It's I mean, there are concepts and of what goes on in the world and these great movements of history, but how does it hit an individual depending and there are different parts of society or different parts of the disaster that's going on. I was trying to get into into their minds and see it through their eyes. But you know, that's spent three fifty years now, so I can only guess if

I've done it, But I tried. Do you see any parallels in the lives of women in some people believed easier than others, and some people aren't believed even when they're telling the truth. There's there's a feeling that it is very silly in some strange way, very silly that anyone could believe that the belief in whiches was so pervasive that human beings could get hurt and actually go to court for these things there are nowadays. It's this

almost like why are they believed in which is? But are are there things nowadays in contemporary times that could be considered similar to a belief in something that is just either not true or fantastic? Well, the idea of which is or evil magic was not just the Puritans, not just New England. It was general in the colonies in Europe and in other cultures in North America, Africa, Asia, all over. The fact that it could happen was just

obvious to them. Uh. And if people are afraid enough, they will have physical reaction, and people can be overreacting to things nowadays that could happen, such as the it was a Satanist scare where day care as centers was supposedly being targeted. Will there are crimes against children that are horrible and they can happen, but that doesn't mean that they were happening in those cases, or even that there were organizations of Satanists doing it, but they were,

but people reacted really strongly to it. Obviously, there are toxic waste problems. They can poison people and big companies, and industrial waste is a very real problem. But sometimes there are physical reactions now that could logically be explained that way, but there's no evidence there is any which doesn't which means presumably that there isn't a problem with toxic poisoning with those sufferers, But that doesn't mean that

there's no such thing as toxic waste. So even if you continue to believe that evil magic is possible, and people do and other cultures in and this one, uh, the point then and now is is that's what happening here and now? Can you be certain don't panic yet, try to figure out exactly what's going on. And if they've done that, then without changing their views or world

or anything, it wouldn't have gotten so far. But the panic really exploded, and nowadays it would explode over something else and it wouldn't be just like the Salem problem. So it doesn't have the Halloween spookiness to it and it's not recognized. I love to have a sense of what the life for Puritans living in Salem and in

Essex County was like aside from the witch trial. Well, let's see most well, most of New England was a grarian and it depended on how on the weather as to how good the crops were from year to year. Ninety two was a drought year, so that was another worry. In the center of Salem, down by the harbor pat most of the people in the maritime trades and the merchants who had far flung business associations up and down to England and abroad depending I think Philip English had

connections as far as Russia. It's something about the fir Trate. I think the maritime economy was threatened by the war that was going on with Canada, which is border wars, guerrilla raids, retaliations and so on. So there's pirates. There's pirates, pirates who had robbed from anybody, private privateers licensed by the French Canadian governments to prey on English shipping because

neither country has a navy. Navy New England licensed privateers such as John Alden who would prey on French shipping. If you go far enough out to see you could be taken by barbary pirates and sold as a slave. In northern Africa, there's, as I say, the war at home frontier raids, and a lot of the people had evacuated from some of the more remote main settlements and come south safety's sake. A lot of the people in the Salem area had some connection or other with Maine

and attacks there. Others people who were around were veterans of the King Phillips War and had had fought with the native peoples in southern New England. And some of the people were on militia duty up in may Down may excuse me, uh, protecting with the garrisons had experienced there. Some had gone in the fleet to Canada in sixty nine, I believe when New York and New England. We're going to gang up on Canada. Make sure that wasn't a

military threat anymore. And it was small parks and storms ruined that idea, and some prisons were exchanged, but it made for a terrible debt in the treasury, so that's a big problem. But farming, crops, trade, fishing, they were all kind of at risk because of the weather and the economy and the war. So there were a lot of strains that way. But it's not a mechanical society. It takes time to get from one place to another.

I don't know if it was quicker to sail to Boston from Salem, but it took the better part of a day to get there by horseback, and you'd have to cross a couple of ferry with fairies to get across. Rivers will go way around the marshes. I mean, the railroad goes right across it now, and the roads, but you had to go around things and getting worried. They seemed to communicate rather quicker than I would have thought. With Maine, make me a couple of days to get

an answer, as too, have they burned down the garrison yet? Uh? And sending a question to England, as Phipps did. Took months, but besides the trip over by ship, it had to go through channels with the Privy Council and then it didn't come back until May, which was what you think is best. So yeah, and something mechanical would be a mill, which would be quite high tech, I guess christ mill.

But they also had sawmills, especially in the Maine New Hampshire area, where they'd be vertical saws going up and down because the buzz saw hadn't been advantage it, and that was high tech. But stuff is done by hand and traveling is by foota by horseback of by boat. How important was firewood? Oh? Very important? Yes, firewood would

be the main fuel, if not the only one. It was important in this in the Witch trials because one of the problems with the Minister Samuel Parris is that the contract included firewood he's supply for heat cooking, and there was question as to whether it had been included. Did we really include the firewood or would did we give you something extra to cover the firewood? He doesn't have enough trees of his own. He used to buy it, and it's not deep docked impenetrable forests, is wood lots

and fields more. I don't know if there's more trees now or then or then. But you don't just go cutting down a tree because it either belongs to the town or belongs to somebody else. So at one point he's really low on it and complaining about it. But that was just a bone of contention between the people who didn't support him and the people who did. But you did need it because the houses were not insulated. They might be had what they put bricks between the

timber and the plaster, but that's not terribly warm. I think some houses were found to have eel grass or something in between the walls, and I don't not sure if that was later. But you had to be close to the fire. I mean, Cotton Meather lived in the city of Boston and had a good house. But he's riding in the winter and in the ink freezes in the inkwell, so it was a necessity. What was the function of the meeting house, Well, a meeting house is

a pure and concept. It's and also the fact that they're out in the new Land where they have to build things from scratch in the first step, first generation, A meeting house was an all purpose building. They would meet there for civil meeting, selectman, town meetings, but they would meet there for religious meetings also, because that was the main reason a lot most of them had come over in the first place. So it depends what time of the week it is as to what you're using

it for. It's town owned because they're pretty much all the same belief system. As the population expanded in various places where they were maybe Baptists Quakers, they didn't want to have to support that, and in Salem there was a Quaker meeting house they had their own. At this point in Boston that the meeting houses were owned by

their congregations, not by the town. There was three congregational congregations in town plus at this point an Anglican church, Quaker meeting house, and a Baptist church too, and I think a Huguenot one, and they're all owned by their

own people. So when the Royal Governor, Sir Edmond Andrews came and wanted a place for the Church of England people to worship, uh, they used the town house, which was a non meeting house, non religious meeting house, all civic meeting place and that kind of went against the grain for a lot of people who were Church of England, so he can commandeered one of the churches used it in the All South meeting House, used it in the morning and if they ran over, you just stood out

in the rain and waited. That really got people's packs up. And then they built King's Chapel. But my point is the town did not. The town did not own the meet the religious structures in Boston because it was a bigger population. The individual towns generally had one because why pay for two different buildings if the same people are going to be using them for the different purposes. Salem Village, because of its geographic location, had their own meeting house finally,

which took time to get permission for. And then there was the meeting house in the middle of Salem, and presumably geographically it was supported differently. But Salem was also big enough that they at this time had a town house that was up the street opposite where city Hall is now, where they had the selectment meetings and the town meetings, and the school Latin school was on the

ground floor, the courtrooms upstairs. I sometimes wonder if anyone counting lessons done that summer, and they kept the firefighting equipment in the attic, which would make it rather hard to get to in case of ablaze. But it was real. But they also did occasionally to have ab civil meetings in the meeting house because it was bigger. In sixte to, one of the hearings is held there because some of the uh uh legislature is coming up to observe the crisis and they need a big space. But for the

most part it was under repair. In ninety two, I guess they had religious services there, but they they had legal stuff going on in the town house up the street. What does school look like for an average kid growing up around that time, Well, it was a law after a while that he was supposed to teach your kids to read. More people. The literacy rate was good here in New England because it was seemed essential that you needed to read the Bible for yourself and see what

it was and laws and stuff. More people could read than could write, because reading was taught separately, unlike together with right as now it seems logical to teach them together. But people could read who could not write, and they would sign their name with an exit. Didn't mean they were totally illiterate because they also want to read those deeds and wills too. Uh that the reading could be done at home. Sometimes someone's mother would do it. One

more women who could read. In some places, that would be a dame school. Dame being the equivalent of sir, which was what school masters would called because they had a bachelor's degree and that was comparable to a night which would be called sir. It gets complicated, not that women had any degrees at all or could get into a higher university, but that's why they called dame schools. It was a more polite way to address people than

like damied as Evans the actors. Who has the rank anyway? Ah, if a town had so many families in it, they were supposed to have a grammar school, which meant Latin grammar, which would be the boys learning Latin, maybe Greek. They might have already gone to a writing school. That's to prefer you for college. The Latin and the Greek sold that. Yeah, I think it Deadham in the town records. I happened to be looking at Deadham. Uh. There was a question

do we teach the girls too? But apparently they didn't think they were going to invest in that m so they might learn reading and writing. If they're lucky, they learned some arithmetic too, to keep accounts. They were private schools with a schoolmaster or somebody who would take on students. If they got the Latin and Greek the boys, then they could apply if they so inclined, to the college, which is Harvard. They tended to generally call it the college.

It's actually the only one in North America at the time, so they might as well, uh, and that would be They didn't want an ignorant ministry in the future because they were so far away from Oxford and Cambridge, and that's what it was mainly for, so that the light of learning would not go out. But not everybody was going to be a minister who went there. Some of the merchants were well educated too, But some of the merchants,

like Hawthorne, did not go to the college. But he he'd read things, I guess tried to know what some but his educational background was. It may be hard for some younger listeners hearing this to understand why women and girls, any females were not taught the same way that the males were. They may have a hard time understand that you just talked to us about why, what the roles were, and what the perception was. Well, women's work was mostly

in the household, and it took up without mechanism. It took a long time to accomplish and keep a house running and clean. And they probably got a kitchen, garden, and the cow and stuff, which is full time work. So they didn't need, supposedly to to know these other things. The boys are probably most of them are farmers, and they're doing field work and taking care of other livestock

and so on, so and not. Most people didn't need but they needed to be able to deal with deeds and wills or find someone reputable and write it down the way you wanted, so they may be needed more of it being more out in the world. But literacy was important to them because they wanted to be able

to read the Bible another other good books. So there was literacy, and certainly, uh there were some well educated girls and women, but it would have been from home and learning outside of a regular school room, which was aimed at boys and boys going to higher education to colleges. It was a long time before women could get into colleges. In the United States, and when I was in college

habit was still a boys school. Briefly, if you could describe what Puritan writing is like stylistically, because it is a very distinct style to me. Well, the books and the and the titles they did tended to have long titles or more a description of what the book was going to be about, and depending on the addition, the printer would highlight parts of it more than others, so it looks like it has a different title almost, But yeah, yeah,

there would be long, sometimes flowery sentences. There were a lot of biblical allusions which did give the references to what chapter and verse they would talking about. People were expected that they everybody knew what that meant or could

look it up. There were also classical allusions because the university education, they had read the classical writers from ancient Greece and Rome, pre Christian stuff, which some critics said was dangerous pagan ideas being given these ministers, these like coakers and people who certainly weren't going to send their kids to college Virgil, Cicero, Caesar, I mean, what do we need that for? But they were well versed in classical literature, so there's a lot of allusions to that too,

and they might give the references to it. But yeah, uh. But one of the one of the presidents of Habbit and maybe Chauncey, was advice to young ministers, if you're trying to get an idea across, don't be too high flown. He's saying, don't shoot over their heads. They're not gonna understand it, And then there's no point in saying in the first place, don't be so don't show off your learning, but be direct. What do people miss when they think

about the Salem which Trials? What's the one thing that maybe people miss still I think people generally see the Salem which Trials is something so bizarre they can't really identify with it that it's something foolish people did because they didn't know any better. They didn't have computers, they didn't have this, they didn't know that, and we're smarter

than there. But they were educated people and well intentioned people who, even by the lights of their own philosophy in their own time, could have figured out that things were not proceeding as they should without converting to twenty one century skepticism, for example, and people who mean well and are well educated and are generally genuinely concerned for, say, their children's welfare. Nowadays can go off in the wrong direction also, even though their motives, assuming they're not lying

about it, their motives are good. I need to protect my children, I need to protect my family. But you can still go off the rails with it. And that's what happened then, I think for the most part. For the most part, people we're convinced that something awful was happening, and then they just went the down the wrong road

for too long. People tend to think of it as spooky Halloween stuff, especially in October, but it was serious and deadly, and even if you didn't die, it really messed things up, and people who were just on the periphery. It messed up the economy and in society. So bad things can happen, and they happen in different costumes each time, so you don't see it coming until you're in the

middle of it. Were there any lasting effects, I guess in a more general sense um of the same witch trials that specifically affected women, although certainly we're no more witch trials. People didn't want to get near that embroider again. Some people thought that it was stopped too soon. It really was something going on that it was a cover up, but generally it was one huge embarrassment to the government.

There were slander suits brought by people who had had been accused, as had been done about before that, because prior to six two, I think about a third of the witchcraft which cases were slander suits where you're trying to clear your name and they generally want but I don't know. It's certainly left a lot of neighborhood and

inter family resentments that lasted a couple of generations. But then you find people a couple of generations on marrying someone from the opposite camp, so it's I don't think they're angry now. It just makes a very interesting genealogy. One of the fascinating things driving through dan Verse versus driving through Salem proper is just how this period in

the trials are treated just in the public street. Yeah. Well, because dan Versus a separate town now, it sort of was not remembered that that was with things started, and Salem it's got this history that everybody knew about one way or another. I think the tourists came before the tourist industry. They responded to people's interests from what I've

been able to figure out. And when the railroad came in and it was a lot more traveling, there was more of it, even though locals didn't want to talk about it necessarily all this were more interested in discussing it. But you know, it was not it was not a

shining example of community spirit. But there was a newspaper article in eighteen ninety two when it was the two anniversary, and the reporter was going through Salem and he's talking to the cab driver, which is a horse drawn cab, and the cabby says that there's two things that people who have a little time in Salem want to go see. They want to see the house where Hawthorne was born then Nathaniel, and they want to see where the witches

were burned or hanged or something like that. Hey, I guess he knew they were hanged, and he probably took him to the wrong place, but that's what people asked for. And in nine eight ninety two was the year of the first souvenir silver witch logo spoon in Alum from the Daniel Lowe Company, which was quite a jeweler in town in the building that's now across from the Cement the stevensby Which statue. So things were starting up and there was there was an opportunity that people took advantage of.

But when the mills and the leather industry and the textile mills went elsewhere, tourism filled a void too, But there was also more notice of Salem through TV and books and things. It kind of it was an unstoppable force. And also it's good and some of it is very inaccurate Arthur Miller's play, which is creative fiction, but definitely on the on the part about not being believed when you're telling the truth, so you lie and then they believe you. That's that hits the nail on the head

that made it internationally known. So if it hadn't been before, people know about it all over the world, So that becomes Salem to them. And it's not just Salem, it's the whole area had problems. Salem was the shire town, so that's where the courts set. But well, because it's so well known, I the most I hope for is that get the facts out and hope that people listen and just satisfied with having a Halloween joke out of it. I like Halloween, but this is not that. Hey, folks,

it's Aaron here. I hope that today's interview helped deepen your understanding of everything involved in the Salem Which trials. But we're not done yet. We've got more interviews to share with you, so stick around after this briefs answer break to hear a preview of next week's interview. Hi. I'm Jane Kamensky. I teach history at Harvard University and I'm also the director of the Lessinger Library on the

History of Women in the United States. I'm gonna start us off with a really well, deceptively simple question, but it's pretty complex. I'm sure, what was a witch in Um? Which was somebody who made unexpected things happen. Puritans lived in a world of portents and wonders and almonds. They're always watching the sky, they're watching the earth. Um there

you know, Uh, God speaks to them. And I think a which was somebody who made almonds and portents and signs happen in ways that Um seemed to reside inappropriately in a human form, which is in pure in New England were not thought to wear black pointy hats, although they sometimes did ride around on brooms UM. And they acted in a whole manner of inappropriate ways or were present at times when inexplicable things happened. UM. Small harms you know, milk curdling, sour side or going sour. UM.

Big harms. Uh you know, somebody saying, oh, what a pretty child that is, and the child soon sickens and dies. UM. Women who spoke out of turn, uh you know who whose tongues went on like fishwives in ways that UM really seemed to sort of stick out of the fabric of conversation at the time. UM. People who said things that later seemed to be ominous. UM. It's a world in which, you know, science is quite primitive, and a great deal of what unfolds in any given season is inexplicable. Right,

Crops fail, animals die, UM. And sometimes in the search for supernatural explanations UM, which included God and the Devil UM, which is as the handmaidens of the devil um were were faulted. It's hard to see, looking backwards whether there were individuals who cultivated that reputation UM who had sort of family businesses in curative arts that flirted with the

edge of of the supernatural. You know, there there are some instances in Salem where um uh women are found with poppets that seemed to be a little little cloth dolls that seemed to be used in UM in some kind of ritual. One thing that's quite different in UH in the early New England and witchcraft cases than in a lot of more ancient witchcraft cases is that Puritans are very concerned with the idea that some which is

consort with the devil. Um. You know, there's a there's a black mass that surfaces in accounts of Salem that's not typical in run of the mill witchcraft cases UM, where it's where it's really more about livestock or about what we would now think of as a nightmare. I woke up with a sensation of somebody pressing on my chest, and I thought of my neighbor, and it must have

been her um bewitching me. UM. So a whole range of unexpected happenings that didn't have an easy narrative cause that could fasten on somebody who, for whatever reason um stuck out in a fabric of society that was supposed to be smooth. Very This episode of Unobscured was executive produced by Me, Matt Frederick, and Alex Williams, with music by Chad Lawson and audio engineering by Alex Williams. The Unobscured website has everything you need to get the most

out of the podcast. There's a resource library of maps, charts, and links to Salem document archives online, as well as a suggested reading list and a page with all of our historian biographies. And as always, thanks for supporting this show. If you love it, head over to Apple podcasts dot com slash Unobscured and leave a written review and a star rating. It makes a huge difference for the show's growth, and as always, thanks for listening.