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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Happy Halloween! Happy Halloween!
everyone today literally well not for us but this will literally be going out on halloween what are the chances of that very spooky that's pretty cool i hope everyone's gonna have a good halloween at whatever time you're listening to this i hope you're trick-or-treating i hope you're partying i hope you're staying at home and watching spooky movies i hope you're doing all of it
Okay, Garrett, what's your 10 seconds for this Halloween episode? So it was snowing, dumping snow outside today, and it was kind of nice just to not be in the blazing heat for a second. All I know is the amount of people that think Peyton is pregnant sometimes is pretty overwhelming. Everybody does be thinking, I've got a little pumpkin in there. I'm a little scared that if you ever get pregnant and then...
We're still doing the podcast and everything. We're telling all these stories that baby's going to come out, you know? Loving murder? Exactly how? I mean, not loving murder, but loving true crime. Exactly how we hope they come out. How many have been pregnant that have listened to the podcast and their babies are okay? All of them. Their babies literally fall asleep to us. I'm serious. I've gotten messages about it. That would be a good thing. The baby's like first words are strangey-dangey. I know, right? Yeah.
Or I love it and I hate it. Just a couple quick things for my 10 seconds. I've been trying to get motivated to, you know, start working out. It's so hard with the holidays. It's hard to start working out, pumping some iron, going on a run. Please. I will get there. I will keep everyone updated. But right now, I'm just trying to get motivation. If anyone wants to send me motivation, feel free to send it my way. But...
I'll get there pretty soon and maybe I'll update everyone on my journey. Your fitness journey? My fitness journey. All right. Is that it for you? That's my 10 seconds for this week. Hope everyone has having an amazing Halloween. I will be eating a lot of candy.
A lot of lolly candy, probably 15 to 100 pounds of candy. That's how we're starting off the fitness journey. Yep. And on that note, let's hop into it. I'm going to save the case sources for the end of the episode because I think they'll give a little bit too much away at the beginning. Okay. Before we start off, I just want to say I have wanted to cover today's episode since we started this podcast.
I just didn't know how. It seemed so big. It seemed like most people already know about this. Every time I sat down to write, I was stumped. Where do I begin? How do I even do this? But alas, it's October 2022 and up to this point, all of our episodes have been Halloween based.
and it just so happened that today's episode would drop on Halloween. I knew it was now or never. There is no other case I think more appropriate for Halloween than this one. Today, we are covering the Salem Witch Trials.
how they came to be, how many women were actually murdered, accused of being witches, and how could this travesty of justice actually have happened. Now, don't worry. I know we learned about the Salem Witch Trials in high school, but this isn't going to be your boring history teacher mumbling on about supposed hysteric women. This is murder with my husband. We are going there. We are talking about these trials as they were. Which was murder? Straight up murder.
Payton is throwing shots at all the history teachers out there. Hey, I loved studying this in high school, but I will say, I think they could have gone about it a little bit more interesting way, which is what we're going to do today. But we can't get to that point, though, without discussing where witches are.
or at least the kind that the public grew to fear, came from. And before we go any further, I do want to say something that we are discussing witches that have become normalized in the media and history. The witches children dress up for as a spooky Halloween character. This type of witch is
modern witchcraft pagans or Wicca are different. So I just wanted to clarify that moving forward. We are talking about two different types of witches. Although the persecution between the two blurred this line and it still happens today. So going back
Verse 1.
So I want to point out here that witches, as we've seen in the media, became about from religious people claiming they were overcome by Satan. So these religious people pointing the fingers at other people and saying, you're overcome by Satan and that is what we are calling witches. This type of witch started with pointing fingers. They were thought to have supernatural powers with the ability to harm others and were believed to even be able to change shape and form.
According to an article in the Smithsonian Magazine, tens of thousands of people were executed in Europe for being witches. Most of those killed were women. This craze went on through the end of the 1600s in Europe, according to one source, and continued even later, according to another.
According to Britannica.com says the very last European witchcraft execution that we know of took place in Switzerland in 1782. Wow. Just as the centuries old witch craze was finally winding down in Europe, a similar witch craze in the colonial settlement of Salem began.
As a further backdrop, it's important to note that it wasn't just witches who were being tried and executed. Religious Europeans were also accusing their fellow countrymen of being werewolves as well. During the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, werewolf trials were being held in Europe as well as witch trials.
Superstition and religion likely contributed to the accusations. And, in a common theme, these accusations were mostly leveled against people who lacked the resources, power, or education to know how to defend themselves. I can understand, I think, witches a lot more than a werewolf.
Like werewolf just seems really far-fetched. Well, it's because it wasn't like there were women actually practicing witchcraft and then they were put on trial for it. It was that these religious people looked at their enemy or homeless, poor people, immigrants, those, and said, oh, I think they're of the devil, so I think they're a witch. Maybe this is a conversation for another time then. So then do you think these witches were real?
I think there are witches. I don't think the witches in our story today were witches, were of the devil. I also don't think witches are of the devil. This is just the definition that was used in the witch trials. There were some people at this time who confessed to being a werewolf, but generally only after being subjected to torture.
And I can't help but draw the parallels between this and the modern day persecution we see. Authorities might not call it witches and werewolves anymore, but this type of elitism and abuse of power still happens. As an example of this in old time, according to history.com, one individual named Peter Stump was executed in Germany in 1589 for being a werewolf, quote,
Quote, executioner strapped accused werewolf Peter Stump to a cartwheel, which is like a machine that rotates, removed his skin with hot pinchers and chopped off his head before burning his body at the stake. Stump's head, attached to a wooden pole carved into the likeness of a werewolf, was later displayed as a warning to others tempted to consort with the devil. So this is just all very...
I'm religious and I'm better than you. That's what it's giving. This execution was a very public affair, just as the Salem witch trials would go on to be. The purpose in Salem was to send a strong warning to others what could happen, not only if they practiced witchcraft, but also if they dared anger anyone in the town sufficiently enough to find themselves being the next to be accused.
And this is what brings us to where our story takes place. In the colony of Massachusetts Bay in the 1600s, men are walking around in a long shirt, stockings, a waistcoat, a neckcloth, a knee-length coat, and shoes. Women wore dresses and bonnets and aprons. Why did they layer so much back then? As I was doing this research, I'm like...
I know we have the luxuries nowadays, heat, for instance, which is probably why they layered so much, but oh my gosh, it gives me anxiety to know how much clothes they were wearing. Now, pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620, where they were essentially starting over with life. That meant cold, long, dark winters and land that they knew nothing about.
Eventually, the colony of Massachusetts Bay was settled, and there were actually two different towns going by the name of Salem at this point. The first was Salem Town, which today is simply known as Salem. The other was Salem Village, better known today as Danvers, Massachusetts.
Salem Village is the focal point of the Salem Witch Trials. Now, Salem Village was by far the poorer of the two rival Salem's in the 1600s. About 16 miles northeast of Boston, it was a small farming town of about 500 people.
Salem Village, which was located about 10 miles inland from Salem Town, seems to have suffered from an inferiority complex relative to the more well-to-do Salem Town. Essentially, on one side you have the richer Salem Town and on the other side you have the poorer Salem Village. Salem Town, in contrast, was a much busier port town and was home to many wealthy merchants.
Needless to say, there was bad blood and rivalries between the two towns. And on top of that, beginning in 1689, England and France went to war in the American colonies, fighting over territory in North America. The American colonists called it King William's War. Many countries became involved in these wars, which were also known as the Colonial Wars or the Seven Years' War.
As war always does, it had a profound effect on those living where it was taking place. The war forced residents to flee northern areas of New York as well as parts of Canada. Some of these refugees came to Salem Village, which caused tensions and difficulties and a lack of resources.
Having an influx of refugees put a strain on the village. By 1692, life in Salem Village was difficult. There were many economic and physical hardships. For one, the area was filling the after effects of the war between England and France that we just talked about.
the villagers were also suffering from their own epidemic widespread smallpox and living with the stress of ongoing battles with the local native american tribes who these colonists were now living on their land additionally the year 1692 was in the middle of an unusual 50-year cold spell in the area so everything that could be going wrong is essentially going on spell what do you mean i did not i
I did not know this. Yeah, so it's just unusually cold. The winters are bitter. It's staying colder for longer. Not like year-round, correct? Not year-round, but it's not getting as warm as it normally would. And this cold put various pressures on their food supplies as crops couldn't survive. Local fish such as cod wouldn't migrate as far north as the Boston area because of the colder waters. So it was just affecting the land that they were now trying to...
basically build a life on. These challenges, rivalries, and resentments helped set the groundwork for the Salem Witch Trials. Now, as we talked about earlier, when it comes to the history of the execution of witches or werewolves, it all stemmed from religious power, a form of superiority and ego. So religion has to play into the Salem Witch Trials.
And that it does. It was a group of 1,000 Puritan refugees who originally settled Massachusetts Bay Colony back in 1630. So Puritans believed that it was necessary to be in a covenant relationship with God in order to be redeemed from one's sinful condition.
that God had chosen to reveal salvation through preaching, and that the Holy Spirit was the energizing instrument of salvation. It was a religious reform movement that began in the late 16th and 17th centuries that sought to purify the church of Israel
England of remnants of the Roman Catholic Church. So basically, you know, the Catholics come over, they try to convert everyone. The Church of England is like, no, no, no, please let us be. And then eventually we have people coming over to North America to try to gain this religious freedom. The Puritans are part of this group.
According to Britannica.com, there was a sense of themselves as the elect chosen by God to live godly lives as individuals and a community. Back in 1689, right in the middle of the war, a man named Samuel Parris becomes the first Puritan minister of Puritan Salem Village. So Salem Village is all Puritans basically at this point. And Samuel Parris becomes the first minister.
Puritan life in Salem Village looked as such. A typical Puritan family lived a humble existence in a small house with one room. Within that room was a fireplace that was used for cooking and for warmth. Because the family lived in a single room, it was often very smoky, particularly during the winter. All members of the family would usually sleep in makeshift mattresses near the fire and
During the winter, finding and carrying firewood was one of the most important jobs in Salem Village. Puritan families treated their children differently than those do today. Puritan parents had children so that they could help tend to the work. And such children learned the various jobs required of them at a very early age. So it's almost like having children was to help make the house run. Puritan parents made education and Bible study a high priority.
And actually the literacy rates among those living in New England were unusually high. So like these kids were actually very, very smart. The Puritans were an industrious people and virtually everything within the house was made by hand, including the clothes. The men and boys took charge of farming, fixing things around the house and caring for livestock while the women made soap, cooked, gardened and took care of the house. Puritans were very smart.
Puritan society and politics were strictly dominated by men. Puritan men believed that they were the stronger gender. When Puritan settlers weren't at work, they were likely at church or at prayer. Church was an extremely important part of their daily lives, and attending church was mandatory. There could be severe punishments for those who failed to attend church.
Puritans believed that they were doing God's work and that those who disobeyed or strayed from Puritan teachings were sinners. What if they just wanted to like go do something on their own? So isn't this funny because they left. That's what they did, correct? Yes. They left their land for religious freedom and then moved into a town where if you didn't abide by their religion, you were in trouble. You were cast out. You were homeless. Hypocrisy at its finest. Right.
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So in July 1689, Samuel Parris becomes the Puritan minister or pastor of the church. His position as a minister caused already existing tensions in the town to flare. Samuel Parris arrived in Salem Village from Boston after spending time in Barbados. He left Barbados after a hurricane damaged his property there. He had originally been a merchant but attended Harvard College to pursue studies in theology.
Now, these two slaves were John Indian and Tituba.
They were possibly both from Barbados as well and traveled over with the family. John Indian was male and Tituba was female. According to Britannica.com, there is uncertainty regarding the relationship between the slaves and their ethnic origins. Some scholars believe that they were of African heritage, while others think they may have been of Caribbean Native American heritage. It's also noted that John Indian and Tituba might have been husband and wife,
Again, they didn't have much of a voice. They were slaves. They didn't have a say. So their history isn't as documented. After his arrival, Paris angered the residents in Salem Village by quickly asking for a raise and for ownership of the parsonage. So he moves in, he becomes minister, and then he starts making changes. He's like, I need a raise. I need to own this land. Through his actions and abusing his power, Paris also divided the town into two factions, one
those whom he allowed to take communion in church, and those who he wouldn't allow to take communion. According to Smithsonian, he was disliked because of his rigid and greedy nature. Half of the Puritan villagers believed all of this quarreling was the work of the devil through the minister. So he came in basically and started taking over everything. Taking over. That seems surprising, like how...
Like, how did he do that? Well, it's small. There's only about 500 people here. Still, I'm surprised they all agreed to it. Right. Well, I don't think they got much of a choice once he was the minister. It's like he has this power. And also he has half of the congregation backing him because he's like, you half are the holy ones. You get to participate in everything. And you half are kind of the sinners. You need to work your way up. Dang. Okay. Yeah.
So this is what's going on and has led up to January of 1962 in Salem Village. It was around this time that Samuel Parris' daughter, Elizabeth Betty Parris, who we will call Betty, who was nine years old, and his niece, Abigail Williams, who lives with him, who's 11, started having what was popularly described as fits.
According to smithsonianmag.com, they screamed, they threw things, they uttered peculiar sounds and contorted their bodies into strange positions. So like being possessed. Like being possessed. Okay. And a local doctor blamed all of this on the supernatural. This was nothing that was happening on earth. This was nothing that the girls were doing willingly, that someone else was making them do. This was of supernatural causes. Okay.
A third girl living in Salem named Ann Putnam, who was 12 years old, also began exhibiting the same unsettling and frightening behaviors. Weird. Okay. Now, these three girls would hang out together. Nine-year-old Betty, 11-year-old Abigail, and 12-year-old Ann Putnam would hang out together. And then Ann starts exhibiting this behavior. And they for sure were like actually like acting possessed or were they just...
I don't know. I know what I'm saying. I guess I'm trying to figure out. Well, that is the, that is the question. That is the question in the Salem witch trials. Not that I don't like, look, I'm open to everything. I really am. I'm like, I'm an open person. So I'm just curious, like, were they possessed? Were they just throwing fits and being crazy? Like what's going on? Well, if you're asking Salem village back in 1692, they're possessed. Okay.
It even got to the point where the girls would bark and run around on all fours like a dog. Oh, that's a little weird. I will say this does seem like odd behavior. You just said it. It's weird. But on the other hand, has anyone been around nine to 12 year olds these days? Sure. I mean, I don't have kids and I'm not here to judge, but I think barking and running around like a dog seems odd.
almost on par for what I've seen from these young kids who are just trying to figure out who they are and where they belong. Some theories about Betty, Abigail and Anne's behavior is it's possible that this strange behavior could be traced back to the girls interactions with Tituba, who is the family slave.
The girls apparently began talking about and possibly became obsessed with voodoo and fortune telling, which Tituba did talk about. And after hearing innocent stories from Tituba, they maybe started acting like this. And I will say these stories are innocent from Tituba. It's just her talking about her culture, what she was into. The girls may have been scared or feeling guilty for engaging in such unpuritan activities and may have started acting out as a result.
So like they are talking about this in private and then as a way to combat it, they start acting like this. That's just a theory. I'm not saying this is what happened. According to all that's interesting.com quote, that's why some believe that their involvement in these forbidden activities and a combination of guilt and fear they felt from participating in them may have been the real cause of their strange behavior. Either way, this behavior becomes violent.
the talk of the town. And at this point, no one is pointing the finger at anyone in particular, just working under the assumption that the girls have been bewitched by some supernatural power, aka possessed.
According to Britannica.com, at the suggestion of a neighbor, a witch cake made with the urine of the victim, so of the three young girls, was baked by Tituba to try to figure out the supernatural perpetrator of the girl's illness. What? What is it?
What is that? So it was basically a test they would do. They would make the cake using the urine and then they would either feed it to a dog or to another person. And if that person or dog started exhibiting that behavior as well, they would know for sure that it was supernatural powers because it was like passed down. Does that make sense? That's just who they would work on. Think like a lab rat.
Oh, like testing it out. They just give it to anyone. And if that person starts going crazy, then they, they believe that that was confirmation that they, there was someone who would play supernatural power on these girls. Wouldn't you assume that you'd maybe throw up a couple of times if you're eating someone else's piss? Yes. I'm just saying. So you would, you wouldn't. That's the issue here. If this, if this dog starts throwing up or a human starts throwing up, they're going to be like, see,
It is supernatural, but also like... It's like you tried drinking someone's piss. So although this witch cake provided no answers, it's baking outraged Paris who saw it as a blasphemous act. So he's this minister, right? He's like, all these are holy and all of you are bad. And now these holy people and my own slave Tituba just made this witch cake with my daughter and niece's urine and...
So now he's like freaking out. He's like, what are we getting into? This is awful. So I just need everyone to picture this. It's 1692. Abigail and Betty, who live in the parish home, the preacher's home, begin contorting
speaking in circles and walking on all fours while barking. Then their friend, who has most likely heard about this and also been around the girls, begins doing the same. And then, like some type of virus, the more the news begins to spread through the town about the girls. Wouldn't you know, more young girls begin exhibiting the same behavior as the highly talked about Betty, Abigail, and Anne, like just their behavior begins spreading.
And all these young girls in this small village begin doing this. Pretty soon, Salem Village is full of 12-year-old girls walking around on their hands and feet in backbends while speaking in voices that sounded like the Grinch. Wait, they were in backbends too? I don't know for sure, but that's just what I'm trying to get you a picture here, okay? I'm painting a picture for you. The entire place
Putnam house at this point, including the mother and servant begin exhibiting the same behavior, telling anyone who will listen that they too are victims of witchcraft, that witchcraft has taken over Salem village.
By February 29th, after chaos has spread and the illness becomes more and more exaggerated, the three young original girls are under pressure from every adult, including the all-powerful Preacher Paris, to accuse someone. Tell us who's done this to you. Who is the witch who has done this to you? A reminder that Paris is father and uncle to two of the girls and has been in their ears suggesting who could have done this. Was it this person? Was it this person? Maybe this person.
and the girls finally open up about which witches have for no reason cast them with their dark satanic power. These young girls, Betty, Abigail, and Anne, point their fingers at three grown women, three particularly vulnerable and powerless women in the community.
the Paris family slave Tituba, a woman named Sarah Good, and another woman named Sarah Osborne. Now Sarah Good was a homeless woman and Osborne was an old impoverished woman. The girls accused the three of witchcraft of bewitching them and said that these women had made them become possessed by the devil. There's no way they did this on their own. It seems like there's got to be some third party involved. Like these kids all of a sudden just said, these are the three people that
Absolutely not. You are. You are correct. There was definitely adults in their ears pointing the fingers at who to say. Warrants were issued for the arrest of these three witches. The three were easy targets for the villagers as none of the three were considered to be friendly women or to be upstanding church-going women. So all three of these women didn't go to church. It was an easy target.
On March 1st, 1692, based on the girls' accusations, the three women were hauled into the village meeting house and interrogated for days by the local magistrates.
It's possible they were also beaten and tortured. Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good denied the accusations and said they weren't witches. Tituba initially said she was innocent as well. However, according to Smithsonian Magazine, Tituba confessed that the devil came to her and bid her to serve him. She described elaborate images of black dogs, red cats, yellow birds, and a black man who wanted her to sign his book.
She admitted that she signed the book and said there were several other witches looking to destroy the Puritans. That's a little creepy. Well, there's an explanation. History.com provides an explanation for why Tituba would have falsely confessed.
The men in power told each woman who came in accused of witchcraft that if she provided an explanation or a name of another witch, she would receive a lesser punishment. So bada bing, bada boom, all you have to do is say your neighbor is also a witch and you avoid being publicly hanged.
So Tituba wished to have the system go easier on her by being an informant and providing the names of other guilty parties and an explanation for where this all started. They literally said, if you can explain to us how witchcraft entered Puritan culture will save your life. And she said,
Okay, so yeah, this man came to me. I was seeing all of this stuff. I signed his book and that's how it came to be. And they said, okay, now you don't have to be publicly hanged. Which is obviously a lie, I would assume.
Obviously, like if it's life or death and they just say, all you have to do is say this, of course she's going to say it. Obviously, any others would follow suit and accuse and blame others as a way to avoid the ultimate punishment of being hanged. Again, this strategy of being an informant is still alive and well today. Point the finger at someone else and you get a lesser sentence.
All three women, Tituba, Sarah Osborne, and Sarah Good, were arrested and imprisoned for being witches. Even though all three of them originally said they weren't. Authorities went so far as to question Dorothy Good, which was Sarah Good's four-year-old daughter. Quote, and her timid answers were construed as a confession to being a witch. Oh, come on. So even a four-year-old was locked away, accused of being a witch.
Per history.com, quote, the three accused witches were brought before the magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hawthorne and questioned, even as their accusers appeared in the courtroom in a grand display of spasms, contortions, screaming, and writhing. The accusers would say that the specter of the accused women would physically hurt them. So they were called specters because no one else could see them. Basically, specter is the word they're using as the
the thing possessing them, the demon possessing them.
These accusations began feeding on themselves and led to more and more accusations against more people. Again, mostly against women. It began turning into mass hysteria in Salem Village. Even women who were considered solid church-going folk were eventually accused, including a woman named Martha Corey. Charges against Martha Corey, a loyal member of the church in Salem Village, greatly concerned the community. If she could be a witch, then anyone could. A
Along with Corey, the upstanding church-going Rebecca Nurse was one of the first to be accused. As the weeks passed, many of the accused proved to be enemies of the Putnams. The Putnam family members and in-laws would end up being accusers in dozens of cases. Yeah, it just seems like at this point they're just pointing their fingers at people they don't like and they're a witch and let's kill them.
You just said my next sentence. Almost like the Putnams began using witches as a way for them to further their power by eliminating people in the community who they didn't like or didn't like them. That's so dumb. This witchcraft frenzy continued snowballing and getting even more serious. In April of 1692, even the deputy governor, Thomas Danforth, and his underlings began attending the witchcraft hearings with the magistrates and judges.
So literally the governors involved. These hearings started out as more of an informal type hearing, but as time went on became more official. By May 27th, 1692, the newly appointed governor of Colony of Massachusetts Bay, William Phipps, established special courts to hear and decide the witchcraft cases, giving them a more formal process. So it was now being, so many women were being accused that they created a whole entire process for it.
The structure of these special courts was that they were comprised of seven judges and were overseen by the lieutenant governor of the colony of Massachusetts. The accused were not provided attorneys, and so they were forced to defend themselves. Keep in mind, we're in colonial times, pre the U.S. Constitution. So there's no like America, as we know, doesn't exist.
The way it often happened is that the accuser, who was mostly young girls, would be on the stand testifying against the accused. And then these young girls would break into their fits in the courts in front of the judges. So they'd start bending over backwards and mumbling and contorting and everything. It's just so planned. There would be other members or even young girls in the court who would witness these fits and then...
What do you know? Next week, they are doing the same exact thing and pointing their fingers at someone else their family hates. They're kids. Of course that's going to happen. People who confessed to witchcraft were spared execution by hanging. Quote, those who confessed or who confessed and named other witches were spared the courts of vengeance, owing to the Puritan belief that they would receive their punishment from God. So as long as you said, oh, well, my next door neighbor, she's also a witch, again,
it was a lesser punishment. An atmosphere of fear gripped Salem Village as people were afraid they'd be the next to be accused.
This contributed to the silence of members of the community who might otherwise have stood up against such a travesty of justice. If they stuck their necks out on behalf of these people being accused, then they'd likely be accused as well. As written in Time.com, quote,
Bridget Bishop was the first woman to be brought forth before these special witchcraft courts, and she denied the accusations. On June 2, 1962, she is convicted of witchcraft despite her denials. Eight days after being convicted, on June 10, Bridget Bishop becomes the first woman in Salem Village who is publicly hanged for being a witch.
Her hanging took place on June 10th at a location that would later become known as Gallows Hill. I want to note here that Gallows Hill, the lost museum, is now a tourist attraction in Salem, Massachusetts that you can visit. It is open mid-March through mid-November with after-hour ghost hunt weekends from June to September. So you can go up to where all of these women were hanged, do ghost hunts, and walk around.
By June 15th, a legal issue was developing as to whether or not the special courts should be allowing testimony concerning spectral evidence. Now, spectral evidence was testimony concerning dreams and visions.
The courts were allowing such testimony, but not everybody agreed that that was just or fair. Essentially, spectral evidence consisted of claims by the victims that they had seen and been attacked, pinched, bitten, or contorted by specters of the accused whose forms Satan allegedly had assumed to work in his evil. So basically, the young girls would get up and say, in a dream or a vision, I was pinched
Bitten or contorted by a witch's specter. Okay. This specter is basically an invisible force that Satan had possessed to work his evil. The specter was Satan's crutch and the witch was the specter's crutch. So Satan would work through the witch, which would work through the specter to attack these young girls. A lot of times this was the evidence the young girls would produce in court to convict the woman they had pointed the finger at. So they would get up and say, okay,
I think it was my neighbor. And then the judges would say, okay, 12 year old girl, why, what proof do you have that it's your neighbor? And she would say, well, in a dream, I saw my neighbor's specter come up to me and then it bit me and it pinched me. It just seems like it's one big game to all the kids.
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The president of Harvard College, whose name was Increase Mather, had a son named Cotton Mather, who was a well-respected minister in Salem around this time. On June 15, 1692, Cotton Mather wrote a letter to the courts imploring them to not accept spectral evidence in these witchcraft proceedings. The courts did not follow his advice and allowed spectral evidence to condemn the accused women because this was basically all the evidence they had.
Later, on October 3rd, 1962, the elder Mather, Increase Mather, also denounced the use of spectral evidence. So these two scholars who have attended Harvard College come forth and say, hey, we don't think you should be using this as evidence. It doesn't seem like logical, reliable evidence. And the court said, thanks for letting us know. We're still going to use it. The elder Mather actually said, quote,
"It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned." And this notion is a critical backbone of our criminal justice system today and traces back centuries, if not even all the way back to biblical times. In slightly more modern terms, in 1769 the doctrine was written as follows: "The law holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent sufferer."
In even more modern language, our criminal justice system now says it is better that 10 guilty persons go free than one innocent person be convicted. So this notion has lasted all the way up till today. It's taught today. Which is probably true. Oh, 100%. It's true. I mean, you'd never want someone innocent.
being put to death for something they didn't do. Another piece of evidence used in the Salem witch trials besides spectral evidence was something known as witch tests, which we kind of already talked about with the cake that Tituba baked. Backing up a minute here, witch tests were originally devised in Europe during its own witch craze and were later imported into the Salem witch trials because these people came from Europe.
There were many different tests the public would perform. People would perform these tests on accused witches to determine if they were really witches or not.
But these tests were basically designed for these accused women to fail. One of the more infamous tests was the swimming test. The accused witch would be bound and dropped in water. If the accused floated, they were a witch. If they sank, they were innocent. But then they would die. They would drown. Majority of them would drown because they're tied up and dropped into water. Where's the logic? Right. Where's the logic?
Well, I mean, I think it was meant to be that way. It's just, it's just comical, I guess. We have the witch cake test, which I already talked about that Tituba tried. It said that if such a cake were fed to a dog, the dog would show bad effects of being possessed. And that meant the accused was a witch.
The skin test was to look for any abnormality like moles, birthmarks, scars, etc. Oh, I'm a witch. Literally, if you had one, then that was a sign you were a witch. I have so many moles and I've gotten so many removed. Right. And that was about it as far as evidence was concerned in these trials. They would perform a witch test. They would ask if there was any spectral evidence such as dreams from the victim, quote unquote victim. And that was it.
In July of 1692, five more supposed witches were publicly hanged. Five in
In July, these were Sarah Good, one of the original three, Elizabeth Howe, Susanna Martin, Rebecca Nurse, and Sarah Wilds. When Sarah Good was convicted, she said that she was no more a witch than the judge was a wizard. True, but she was hanged anyway. In August, five more were hanged. Keep in mind, these were public hangings. Crowds of people were gathering to watch these women be hanged for being witches.
The Salem Witch Museum wrote the following about the executions: "In 1692, convicted witches would be picked up at the jail, loaded into a cart, and escorted to the execution site.
The cart would have passed within view of the meeting house where some witch examinations took place and the townhouse where the trials took place and passed the homes of Judge John Hawthorne, Court Clerk Stephen Sewell, and Judge Jonathan Corwin. So basically they would just put these women in a cart and then drive them all through the town to pass by everyone and people would gather and follow them up to the gallows.
The cart would then cross a bridge and turn left to the execution site. Crowds would gather for the executions both along the way and on the bridge. According to SalemWitchMuseum.com, these executions in August drew one of the biggest crowds, partly because it wasn't all women who were hanged.
Cotton Mather arrived from Boston for these executions to witness the execution of Reverend George Burroughs, who he considered to be the king of the witches. Martha Carrier thought to be the queen of the witches and three other men named George Jacobs, John Proctor, and John Willard. So this is the first time we're seeing men be convicted in the Salem witch trials for standing up for these women. It's like they never took a second to think,
what are the chances that just our little town happens to have all of these witches? Right? Like, I just don't understand. Accused and condemned George Burroughs had previously been a minister in Salem village in the early 1680s. He had since moved to Maine, but was hauled back to Salem village to face charges of being the witch's ringleader. So think about this. This guy's a minister. He's powerful. He's political, right? He leaves Salem village. And then someone's daughter says, remember that,
Guy, that old minister, he was the king of the witches and they haul him back and kill him. That is crazy. Okay.
According to Britannica.com, as he stood on the gallows, he recited the Lord's Prayer perfectly, something no witch was thought to be capable of doing, raising doubts about his guilt for some in attendance, though their protests were refuted, most notably by Cotton Mather, who was present. Now, it's important to note here that Cotton Mather's role in all of this is complicated. On one hand, he fought to keep out spectral evidence, but on the other, he seemed to approve of the trials.
accused and condemned John Proctor got involved in all of this and hung for his efforts because he didn't believe all of the girls' accusations of witchcraft. So he spoke up, said, I don't believe it, and they hung him. Dude, they're just hanging people for no reason. Right. He thought that the girls were faking these physical manifestations of being victims of the accused. So he was like, I think all these girls have just watched each other and are now doing it because it's the hype. Right.
like it's the popular thing to do and because he spoke out about this in turn a couple girls accused his wife and so he ended up getting hung for defending his wife so he speaks out says i don't think this is true then some girls say well your wife is a witch and that's why you're saying that and then his wife gets brought in and he says no no my wife is not a witch and then he gets executed after 10 had been hanged in salem village the accusations started to spread to other nearby towns as well
In the next month of September, eight more were publicly murdered in the Salem witch trials. On September 19th, 1962, Giles Corey is pressed to death with heavy stones, according to one source, for two days until he died. He was in his 70s or 80s, depending on the source. He was executed after refusing to enter a guilty plea at the time of his arraignment.
according to time.com when cory was asked as he lay under a pile of stones whether he'd now confess he yelled back more weight which is just such a like stick it to the man he's literally getting pressed to death in front of people for sticking up for these women for sticking up for his own wife who had been accused
And then when they're like, are you going to say, are you going to confess now to being involved? He says, nah, just put more weight on it. Just kill me. The final Salem witch trial executions were carried out on September 22nd, 1692. The people hanged were Martha Corey, who was Giles Corey's wife, the man who had just been pressed to death.
Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Mary Parker, and Ann Pudiater, William Redd, Margaret Scott, and Samuel Wardwell. So all of these people are executed. So after these final executions, which is just...
Happen to disappear from the town? I'll tell you how we get there. Okay. While these last executions were going on, a reverend named Nicholas said, quote, So these eight people have just been hanged and he calls them firebrands of hell.
And I add this because this quote gives me a visual of how horrific this all was, that some of these people either one believed those being hung were taken over by Satan or two were using that as an excuse to act this way to other human beings. And I don't know which is worse. I don't know which is worse.
Once the victims were hanged, the executed were not afforded proper burials but were instead cut down after death and placed into a nearby crevice which acted as a shallow grave. Some people believe that the victims' families would then go out at night and gather their loved ones' remains to be buried in a more respectful way elsewhere. Now if you are wondering why or how all of a sudden the trials ended when just the month before, eight were hanged,
It was because eventually the wrong woman was accused of witchcraft. Okay. It took...
for Governor Phipps' wife, Lady Mary Phipps, to be accused of witchcraft for the governor to put an end to these special courts. On October 29th, 1692, Governor Phipps' wife was accused of witchcraft by a young girl, and he decided at that point to prohibit further arrests. He released many accused witches and dissolved the special courts. There we go. See, why couldn't that have happened earlier?
A long time ago. Someone should just. Because it wasn't his wife. It wasn't a man in power's wife. That's crazy. Sir William Phipps, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, then replaced the special courts with a slightly more professional superior court of judicature, which did not allow spectral evidence. So he replaces the special courts and says, no, we're going to need further evidence to say that these women are witches. Because of course, now his wife is in danger of being hanged.
According to SmithsonianMag.com, this court in 1963 condemned only three out of 56 people before it who were accused of witchcraft. So you have five people hanged, five people hanged, then eight people hanged. And then in the next month with the following months of the next year, only three people are condemned.
But the damage had been done. 19 people had been hanged on Gallows Hill involving witches. A 71-year-old man was pressed to death with heavy stones. Several people died in jail. And nearly 200 people overall had been accused of practicing, quote, the devil's magic in the year 1692. None of the Salem witches were burned at the stake. But
but many in Europe had been, which is where that comes from. Some of the people who perished in jail died from malnourishment or from injuries they'd sustained during torture or the witch tests. Sarah Good had a baby while in prison and that baby died shortly after she was born because they weren't taking care of it. Two dogs were executed during this time for their alleged activities involving witchcraft. They said two dogs were involved in witchcraft.
By 1693, the executions had held off. The Salem witch trials resumed under the new superior court, like I said, and continued through early 1693. Again, only three of the 56 individuals charged with witchcraft were convicted at this time. The craze was ending. And by the end of the Salem witchcraft trials, 150 people in the small town of Salem Village had been arrested for witchcraft.
150 of 500 residents. What's crazy is whoever is leading these Puritans were just saying, oh, well, all the witches are gone. Crazy how that happens. They just happen to disappear all of a sudden. I'm so glad our children no longer have to be subjected to witchcraft. According to most sources, years of soul searching followed the Salem witch trials and executions. I mean, you just killed basically 20 people in a matter of, it was like three months before
One of the judges, Judge Samuel Sewell, who had pronounced people guilty of witchcraft leading to their executions, later admitted to his own culpability in the tragedy. He was the only judge to make his own confession and admit wrongdoing. So he later came out and said, this was wrong. We were just making all of this up. These male judges who were condemning mostly women to death for being witches were educated men.
Like for instance, Judge Sewell had graduated from Harvard College and even went on to become an overseer of Harvard. Harvard College hadn't yet become Harvard University at this point.
Five years after the trials had started, the Massachusetts General Court pronounced that January 14th, 1697 would be a day of fasting to atone for the sins of the Salem witch trials. So just five years later, they say that they're going to atone for what they did. By 1702, the courts in Massachusetts declared that the Salem witch trials had been unlawful. In 1706, Ann Putnam Jr.,
She apologizes for the accusations she made as she had been one of the original three girls and said they were all lies. And her family. Oh my gosh. And her family in those months went on to be the bulk of accusations. Like it, we didn't have enough time to get into these details, but the Putnams were literally pointing fingers and causing stir. They were the mastermind in the middle of all of this. And,
Anne, their daughter, who was one of the original three girls to point fingers, later came out and said she lied about all of it. Yeah, it was just one big game to them. Yes. In 1711, the colony of Massachusetts paid restitution to the heirs of some of those who were accused, convicted, and executed during the Salem witch trials. Massachusetts also formally restored the good names of 22 of those who were convicted.
The remaining 11 were finally officially cleared in 2001. So this is sort of like a pardon. They're just basically clearing their names, saying they did nothing unlawful. They were not witches. This was all a lie. In 1752, Salem Village changed its name to Danvers, which is what it's known as today. In 1953, almost 200 years later, Arthur Miller wrote about the Salem witch trials in his famous play, The Crucible, which is what I read in high school.
In 1957, what is now the state of Massachusetts formally apologized for the Salem Witch Trials that had taken place more than two centuries earlier. The Salem Witch Trials Memorial was established on April 22, 1986.
The memorial is to remember and honor the victims of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Museum's website described the memorial as follows, quote, Salem's simple yet dramatic memorial to the 20 victims of the Witch Trials of 1692. Four-foot-high granite walls surround three sides with granite benches representing each victim. Etched on each bench is a name, means of execution, and execution date.
As written by smithsonianmag.com, quote,
Quote, numerous hypotheses have been devised to explain the strange behavior that occurred in Salem in 1692. One of the most concrete studies published in Science blamed the abnormal habits of the accused on the fungist
which can be found in rye wheat and other cereal grasses. Toxicologists say that eating ergot-contaminated foods can lead to muscle spasms, vomiting, delusions, and hallucinations. Also, the fungus thrives in warm and damp climates.
not too unlike the swampy meadows in Salem Village, where rye was the staple grain during the spring and summer months. This kind of reminds me of how mercury poisoning led to the expression, "'Mad as a Hatter.'" Hat makers used mercury as part of the process, which over time could lead to poisoning and symptoms such as tremors, twitching, and behavioral changes."
Other possible explanations for the strange behavior of the accusing girls is Lyme disease and other medical conditions. Basically, a bunch of scientists have just come out trying to find a physical medical reason that the young girls would have been acting like this.
I personally don't find these medical explanations to be very convincing, given that the behavior seemed to spread primarily to other young girls and women. Why wouldn't boys and young men have been affected as well if this was the reason for the behavior? It seems that something else was at work here, something psychological rather than some kind of physical poisoning. There are many theories as to why the young girls here would make the accusations that led to the Salem Witch Trials.
One theory is essentially teenage rebellion against the Puritan authority. Again, that kind of happens today. I mean, teenagers need to find a way to be like, I don't want to be under these constraints. Basically, warning to women in Puritan Salem, conform or else you might be accused of witchcraft.
All that's interesting.com says while mass hysteria is usually associated with the time that the trials were happening, some have proposed that it may have caused them as well. Mass hysteria has been defined as the rapid spread of conversion disorder, a condition involving the appearance of bodily complaints for which there is no organic basis. In such episodes, psychological distress is converted or channeled into physical symptoms.
Some have argued that this is exactly what the girls who were first bewitched were experiencing. The stress of living in such a rigid and religious society on the dangerous wilderness frontier may have led these girls to convert their stress into physical symptoms.
Most of the accusers were young girls under the age of 20. Even today, we will hear the term witch hunt from politicians accusing their competition of accusing them. This derives from the witch trials. Today, those who are interested in learning more about the Salem witch trials can visit two museums in Salem. Ancestors of accusers and ancestors of those accused and condemned still live in the area of Salem, Massachusetts.
An article written just this week in the Salem News details how a visitor to the Salem Witch Trials Memorial saw a note left on the memorial to Martha Carrier, one of the women who was hanged, written by a descendant of one of her accusers. So just this week, there was a note found from the genealogical line of two people involved. And the note read, quote, to Martha,
I'm so sorry that my eighth great uncle, Benjamin Abbott, accused you and had you hung for witchcraft all over a property dispute. So there must have been evidence in journals or somewhat that they were fighting over property. And so he accused her and she was hanged.
Martha Carrier was hung on August 19th, 1692. She was not living in Salem. She was in nearby Andover, Massachusetts. She was the first Andover resident to be accused of witchcraft. And that was our summed up version of the Salem witch trials that happened in 1692. You know, I always thought that the Salem witch trials, Salem in general, I think just from movies and TV shows, I thought there was actual witches there.
And that's why I clarified at the beginning that like, we're not talking about witchcraft as a religion or whatever you want to refer it to. This was just by far, obviously the most, I don't know what to say, the fakest. It's a bad word, but like, obviously just not, it's not real. Right. They were just pointing fingers, trying to get things, trying to get people killed. It's so obvious that it was all so fake. And I think a big point that plays into this is power. Yeah.
ego. You are founding a new area in America. I mean, you are battling, there are wars going on back in Europe with this. And in all of this, you have men who are trying to rise the ranks. They're trying to gain power in this new land. They're trying to be the governor, be the minister. So how do you do that? You tear other people down. I mean, that's just how it is. And I think that was a big part of
I'm going to exercise my power here by pointing my finger at a woman and calling her a witch. Okay, you guys. Well, that was our last Halloween episode. The next time we're here, our set will be back to normal. Our music will be back to normal. And we can't wait till then. We'll see you next time. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye. Bye.