January 23, 2025 • 52 mins
In 1692, a witch hunt began in Salem Village. The hunt soon grew to shocking proportions, with more than 150 people accused. Even Salem's former minister, Reverend George Burroughs, wasn't safe: in April, he was named as a wizard. In the face of a terrified population and a government desperate for control, would Burroughs's ministerial status be enough to save him from the noose?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to History on Trial, a production of
iHeart Podcasts. Listener Discretion Advised. Hello, Mira Hear. This is
the final episode of season one of History on Trial.
I'm still figuring out what's next for the show. If
you'd like updates, you can follow our instagram at History
(00:21):
on Trial or subscribe to the newsletter via our website
historyon Trial podcast dot com. I'm so grateful for your
support throughout the season. On a cold February day in
sixteen ninety two, Mary Sibley set out to break the law.
She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she
(00:42):
reasoned to herself that she was doing it for the
right reasons. She was doing it to protect the children
her poor little neighbor girls, Betty and Abigail, who had
been suffering so terribly for months. Since early January, Betty
and her cousin Abigail had been subject to strange fits.
Their bodies would hunch and contort, assuming bizarre, painful positions.
(01:06):
They muttered and babbled, speaking words no one could understand.
They sometimes seemed gripped by a fear so intense it
paralyzed them, stopping their breath. Doctor after doctor had examined
the two young girls. They had prescribed remedies and treatments,
all to no effect. People had begun to wonder whether
(01:27):
the cause could be something stranger and darker than a
simple sickness. Maybe the girls were bewitched. Betty's father, Samuel Parris,
focused on prayer to heal the girls, but Mary Sibley
did not think prayer would be enough to fight a witch.
She thought you had to act like one. The witchcraft
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was illegal, many people held onto folk practices to protect
against dark magic. They hid horseshoes or eel spears in
the walls of their houses and carved daisy wheels into
their door frames to prevent spirits from entering. The magic
Mary Sibley was about to propose would be more dangerous
than a hidden horseshoe, more intentional, riskier. If Mary was caught,
(02:12):
she might be called a witch herself, But her heart
likely ached for the two frightened girls. So Mary snuck
over to the Paris's house one day and had a
whispered conference with John Indian, the Paris's enslaved man, about
how to make a witch cake. It was simple. Mary
told John take ryemeal, mix it with Betty and Abigail's urine,
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and then bake the mixture into a cake and feed
the cake to a dog. The cake, thinks to the urine,
would contain the essence of the witch. When the dog
ate the cake, the witch would suffer and perhaps be exposed.
John Indian and his wife Titchiba, also enslaved by the Parises,
knew that their owners would not like the witch cake.
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Samuel Parris was a minister, an un compromising man who
had made his hatred for witchcraft of any sort known.
So John and Titchiba waited until a night that Samuel
and his wife Elizabeth were out. Then they made the cake.
At first, the charms seemed to have backfired. Betty and
Abigail's suffering intensified, their torments increased, But then suddenly, as
(03:23):
if a veil had lifted, the girls could see they
could see the source of their misery. The witch cake
had not hurt the witch, but it had revealed her.
Soon after, Betty and Abigail told the Parises that it
was Titchiba herself who was hurting them. Betty and Abigail's
identification of Titchiba on February twenty sixth sixteen ninety two
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was the first claim of witchcraft in the Salem Outbreak,
but it would not be the last. Within months, dozens
of Bay Colony residents would find themselves caught up in witchcraft,
either afflicted by a witch, accused of being a witch,
or both, and then in June the trials began. By
(04:09):
that point, the outbreak had ballooned to such proportions that
it seemed no one was safe, not respectable pious citizens,
not children, not even as the trial of George Burroughs
would show, a minister. The Salem witch Trials are one
of the most notorious episodes in American history. Their alien
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nature fascinates us, the strange superstitions, the archaic language, the
gruesome details. But at their heart, the trials are a
timeless story about what happens when fear and anger overrun
a community and all hell breaks loose. Welcome to History
on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This week the
(04:55):
Massachusetts Bay Colony v. George Burroughs. When the Puritans, English separatists,
who felt that the Church of England still cleaved too
closely to Catholic traditions, established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in
the sixteen twenties, they hoped to build what colonial leader
John Winthrop called a city upon a hill, a shining
(05:18):
paragon of prosperity and obedience to God. On paper, George
Burroughs looked like the ideal citizen of such a place.
Born in sixteen fifty two, Burroughs was the grandson of
a minister and the son of a merchant, giving him
both ecclesiastical and worldly credit. Burroughs grew into a handsome,
(05:39):
dark haired man, short but strong. Following in his grandfather's footsteps,
Burroughs studied to become a minister. In sixteen seventy, he
graduated from Harvard College. Three years later, he married Hannah Fisher,
the daughter of a prominent family. But despite this elite pedigree,
Burroughs struggled to find his footing. Maybe it was his
(06:01):
quick temper, maybe it was his slightly unorthodox religious beliefs,
or maybe something else entirely, but either way, Burroughs did
not hit the ground running. He didn't get his first
posting until more than four years after graduation, and even
then it was a less than desirable position in the
frontier town of Falmouth, Maine, near present day Portland. Maine
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was looked down on by many Massachusetts Puritans thanks to
the area's practice of welcoming Protestants of all stripes. Burroughs, however,
seemed to fit in well on the rough and tumble
Frontier and bought property there, seemingly hoping to settle down.
But the frontier was a dangerous place. Native American raids
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were common. King Philip's War, the most devastating conflict of
the colonial period, broke out a year into Burrows's time
in Falmouth. In sixteen seventy six, Falmouth was burned to
the ground and Burrows and many others barely escaped. Burroughs
and his family joined the flood of refugees traveling south
into Massachusetts. Many refugees were too frightened to ever return north,
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but Burroughs held on to his main homestead while he
waited for the fighting to settle down. He served as
assistant pastor in Salisbury, Massachusetts, but the position was not
a permanent one, and Burrows needed a better way to
support his growing family. In sixteen eighty, Burroughs received an
offer from Salem Village. The village was an inland satellite
(07:30):
of the larger Harbourside community of Salem Town. Today, the
village is called Danvers and the town is called Salem.
Salem Village had only recently won the right to hire
their own minister, but attracting a minister was easier said
than done. The village was relatively close to the frontier,
and as a small agricultural community, couldn't afford to pay
(07:52):
their minister much. But there was something else too, something
that caused Salem Village to churn through ministers. At a
time when the average tenure for a Massachusetts minister was
twenty two years, Salem Village's first three ministers would last
an average of less than five. The problem was that
(08:13):
the people of Salem Village were petty. Salem, the name
given to the area by its first English settlers in
the sixteen twenties, was a derivative of the Hebrew word shalom,
meaning peace. Sixty years later, the village's residents were not
doing the name proud. Arguing seemed to be the village pastime,
(08:34):
with a specialty in power struggles, where property lines were
whose pig had escaped and eaten a vegetable garden? Who
got to choose the minister? Everything and anything, no matter
how trivial became hotly contested. This last problem, choosing the minister,
was an especially thorny one. The first minister, James Bailey,
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had endured years of fighting between villagers who supported him
and village who did not, before quietly stepping down. George
Burrows had been a year behind Bailey at Harvard, and
perhaps Bailey warned him about the difficulties of the Salem role.
For Burroughs ultimately accepted the village's offer on the condition that,
quote in case any difference should arise in time to come,
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that we engage on both sides to submit to counsel
for a peaceable issue. Unfortunately for Burrows, the villagers were
not particularly interested in being peaceable. Not long after his arrival,
the residents once again split into factions for and against
their minister. As a result of all this fighting, the
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village was slow to pay Burroughs's salary. Due to the delay,
Burroughs did not have enough money to pay for his wife,
Hannah's burial when she died in sixteen eighty one. He
had to borrow money from a villager named John Putnam
to cover the costs. Throughout sixteen eighty one, Burroughs held
multiple town meetings to try to resolve the villager's various
(09:59):
differences with Whate, but to no avail. In April sixteen
eighty two, villager Jeremiah Watts wrote to Burrows that quote
brother is against brother, and neighbor against neighbors, all quarreling
and smiting one another. Charming. In March sixteen eighty three,
a very fed up Burrows moved his family, including his
(10:21):
second wife, Sarah, back to Maine, choosing an active warzone
overstaying in Salem. The villagers, furious at his departure, tried
to sue Burrows for desertion of duty. The court told
them that they didn't have much ground since they'd never
paid Burrows most of his salary. Eventually, Salem agreed to
pay Burroughs' salary less the amount he owed John Putnam
(10:43):
for Hannah's burial, But when Burrows returned to Salem to
collect his money, John Putnam filed his own suit against
the minister for non payment of a loan and had
him arrested. Villagers who had supported Burrows were outraged and
posted the minister's bond to keep him from being jailed.
Putnam agreed to drop his suit, and the village offered
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Burrows fifteen pounds, less than half of what they owed him. Burrows,
thoroughly exhausted with the situation, accepted and returned to Maine.
He was probably delighted to be done with Salem, but
Salem was not done with him. Nine years later, George
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Burrows would be arrested in Maine and dragged back to
the village accused of being a witch. Salem struggled to
find a good replacement for George Burrows. It took them
a year to hire their next minister, who didn't stay long.
In July sixteen eighty nine, the village's fourth minister, Reverend
(11:47):
Samuel Parris, arrived after months of contract negotiations. These protracted
negotiations were an omen of difficulties to come. If the
residents of Salem had hoped that Reverend Paris would succeed
in bringing their community together, they were sorely mistaken. Paris
was a stubborn, demanding man who had entered the ministry
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only after destroying his inherited family business through mismanagement. Within
six months of Paris's arrival, Salem had once again split
into factions for and against the minister. By late sixteen
ninety one, the anti Paris faction had won control of
the town council and voted to withhold the minister's salary
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and cut off his firewood allowance. In return, Paris began
delivering spiteful sermons. Quoting Psalm one ten, the lords said,
unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until
they make thine enemies thy footstool. It was Paris's daughter
Betty and his niece Abigail Williams, who lived with the family,
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who first began to show symptoms of being bewitched sometime
in January sixteen ninety two. It was not hard for
the girl's community to accept the existence of witches in
their midst. The seventeenth century belief in the supernatural was
intimately tied to religious belief. Marilyn k Roach explains in
her book The Salem Witchcraft Trials quote, with good and
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evil so obviously present in the world, to question the
devil's reality was to doubt God's few doubted. Since there
was a devil, it followed that some wicked or foolish
mortals would pay allegiance to him in return for the
power to work evil magic. This power could be used
to disrupt victim's lives. If you wronged a witch, they
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might make your beer barrels leak, or said insects to
eat your crops. Their power could even kill. As John Godfrey,
a Bay Colony resident who was oft suspected of being
a witch, put it quote, it were hard to some
witches to take away life, either of man or beast,
Yet when they once begin it, then it is easy
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to them. But people were not powerless against witches. They
could use magical protections of their own, like Mary Sibley's witchcake,
although most ministers frowned on such measures, recommending prayer instead.
If prayer or shunning the witch failed, there was the
legal system. Between fourteen hundred and seventeen seventy five, approximately
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one hundred thousand people were prosecuted for witchcraft worldwide, and
fifty thousand of them executed. Because witches were blamed for
bad things happening, it follows that the number of witchcraft
accusations rose when times were hard. Sixteen ninety two was
a decidedly hard year for the Massachusetts Bay Colony five
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years earlier. Fed up with the colonies in subordination to
royal authority. King James the Second of England had merged
Massachusetts with the other northeastern colonies to create the Dominion
of New England. The dominion was ruled by the iron
fisted Sir Edmund Andros, who dismantled the colonies representative government.
Even worse, Andros ordered that the dominion enact a policy
(15:03):
of tolerance for all Protestants, a serious blow to the
Puritan hierarchy. Many feared that these changes signaled the end
of John Winthrop's dream of a city upon a hill.
After three years under Andros, the colonists rebelled and won
backed their independence. But this victory came with problems of
its own. To establish a new government, the colony needed
(15:26):
a new Royal Charter, which meant sending representatives to England
and enduring lengthy negotiations until the new charter arrived, The
provisional government had no real power. They could not establish courts,
for example, which created problems for morale. As historian Emerson W.
Baker notes in his book A Storm of Witchcraft quote,
(15:46):
the legal system acted as a safety valve for the colonists,
mediating differences and resolving conflicts between individuals and within communities.
Without a functioning legal system Bigger continues quote, a significant
number of disputes and conflicts continued to fester and grow
without resolution. The lack of formal government also meant that
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the British military officers who had helped defend the northern
frontier for the dominion, began abandoning their posts, leading to
renewed attacks in Maine. By sixteen ninety, every settlement north
of present day Portland had been abandoned. Salem Village was
less than fifty miles from the southern edge of Maine,
and villagers must have feared that the war would reach
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them soon. On top of all of this, the weather
was terrible, crops were failing, and the economy was tanking.
So much uncertainty and suffering made for a frightened and
angry populace desperate for something or someone to blame for
their problems. It was fertile ground for a witch hunt.
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These high stress levels may also explain the symptoms experienced
by the afflicted. Though no single cause can explain every case,
various theories about predominant causes have been suggested. Today, the
most widely accepted theory is a condition called conversion disorder.
We still have much to learn about conversion disorder also
(17:12):
called functional neurological symptom disorder, but for the purposes of
this episode will stick to the basics. Conversion disorder occurs
when your brain converts mental health issues like acute stress
or trauma into physical symptoms caused by the disruption of
regular brain or nervous system function. Symptoms can include seizures, ticks, tremors,
(17:33):
unexplained pain and weakness, sensory impairments like tunnel vision or
double vision, and speech impairments. These symptoms are almost exactly
what early sufferers in Salem experienced. Emerson Baker argues that
conversion disorder helps explain why the outbreak began in the
Paris household. For Betty Paris and Abigail Williams were quote
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perhaps the children in the village under the greatest stress.
It must have been almost unbearable to reside in the
parsonage while an agitated Reverend Paris prepared to battle Satan
and his allies. Betty and Abigail were not the only
stressed residents of Salem that winter. The area was filled
with refugees from the frontier, traumatized by the violence they
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had experienced. Other accusers were servants or orphans, young women
whose lives were bleak and futures were even bleaker. Once
words spread of the initial afflictions, a vicious cycle could
have been triggered. Mass psychogenic illness, if not recognized and treated,
Baker writes, can worsen and spread. This is not surprising,
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as an unresolved emergency naturally leads to more anxiety, which
is the very source of the illness. Of course, no
one in Salem was diagnosing the afflicted with conversion disorder. Instead,
they put the symptoms into the cultural context that they
lived in, one in which witches were real. When adults
she trusted told nine year old Betty Paris that the
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cause of her suffering was a witch. She had no
reason to doubt them. She had likely grown up hearing
stories about witches, how they tormented you or tempted you
to join them in their wicked ways. It was easy
for her to parrot these stories back to her parents
and to identify women who were outsiders as the witches,
and so the witch hunt began. After identifying Titchiba as
(19:27):
a witch, Betty and Abigail accused two more women Sarah
Good and Sarah Osborne. Soon, two other girls, Elizabeth Hubbard
and Anne Putnam Junior, also began displaying symptoms and accused
of the same three women. From there, the outbreak grew exponentially.
Not all of those who claimed to be afflicted. Eventually
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there would be more than seventy of them fit the
profile of someone with conversion disorder. There is substantial evidence
that some later sufferers were knowingly fabricating their symptoms. In
the chaos of the outbreak, it was hard for people
to tell where the fear ended and the lies began. Ultimately,
more than one hundred and fifty people would be accused
(20:09):
of witchcraft. After someone was accused, a complaint would be
sworn against them. Most of the afflicted were women who
were not allowed to make legal complaints, so often a
male relative would make it for them. Then the accused
would be arrested, imprisoned, and questioned. Reverend George Burrows entered
the ranks of the accused on April twentieth, sixteen ninety two,
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when twelve year old Anne Putnam claimed that his spectral
form appeared before her and demanded that she sign the
Devil's Book and become a witch like him. When Anne refused,
Burrows's spirit tortured her mercilessly. This was a typical pattern
of behavior for a witch, but Burrows's status as a
minister made this case distinct. Anne herself was shocked, telling
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the specter that it was quote a dreadful thing that he,
which was a minister that should teach children to fear God,
should come to persuade poor creatures to give their soul
to the devil. But she refused to let the specter's
title intimidate her, declaring quote, I will complain of you
though you be a minister, if you be a wizard.
Burroughs soon became a popular figure to accuse. It seemed
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natural to the afflicted that the witch's society would mirror
their own, and so the witches required a minister. On
April twenty second, a number of the afflicted reported seeing
Burroughs's specter lead a witch's sabbath in Reverend Paris's pasture,
giving a sermon in which he urged his fellow witches
to establish the Devil's kingdom in New England. That Burroughs's
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corporeal self was in Maine that day was no alibi
distance was not an obstacle for witches, whose spectral forms
could travel with supernatural speed. On April thirtieth, Anne Putnam's
father Thomas, swore a complaint against Burrows, and a warrant
was issued for his arrest. Burroughs was arrested on the
evening of May second in his home home in Wells, Maine,
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and taken to Salem. Even while he was imprisoned, Burrows's
alleged assaults on the afflicted continued unabated. On May seventh,
his specter tortured Mercy Lewis, an orphaned teenager who had
once worked as a servant for the Burrows family and
was now working for the Putnams. The next day, he
threatened eighteen year old Susannah Sheldon with death if she
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testified against him. The day after that, he appeared before
Mercy Lewis again, mister Burrows. Lewis later recounted quote carried
me up to an exceeding high mountain and showed me
all the kingdoms of the earth, and told me that
he would give them all to me if I would
write in his book, and if I would not, he
would throw me down and break my neck. Shortly after
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taking Mercy Lewis up a mountain, George Burrows was examined.
Because the colony was still waiting for its new Royal charter,
which was now on its way from England, no formal
court could be established, but preparations for future trials could
be made, including gathering evidences. Two local magistrates, Jonathan Corwyn
and John Hawthorne, set about taking depositions and examining the accused.
(23:08):
These examinations were not neutral fact finding missions. The afflicted
were often present and writhed in the audience. Corwin and
Hawthorne usually placed the burden of proof on the accused,
asking them to somehow prove that they were not witches.
Anything the accused said was used against them. Because of
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Burrows's role as a minister, his examination was conducted carefully.
William Stowton and Samuel Sewell, two future members of the
trial court, joined Corwin and Hawthorne for it. The four
men first questioned Burrows privately, away from the afflicted. The
questions focused on Burrows's religious practice. He admitted that he
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had not taken communion in some time, and that not
all of his children were baptized. Troubling admissions for a
Puritan minister. Burrows also denied that his house in Maine
was haunted, but did admit that there were toads around it,
toads everyone knew were a sign of witchcraft. When Burroughs
entered into the Salem Village meetinghouse for his public questioning,
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the afflicted present were quote grievously harassed with preternatural mischiefs.
The young women gave accounts of Burrows's diabolical activities. Several
of them also told of visits by the ghosts of
Burroughs's first two wives, Hannah and Sarah, who apparently accused
their husband of murdering them. As Marilyn Roach observes quote
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in the flood of detail, and amid the traumatic spectacle
of the afflicted, the magistrates overlooked or ignored the contradictions
in the stories given by the supposed ghosts of Burroughs's wives.
For these specters told Susannah Sheldon that he had smothered
and choked them, but told Anne Putnam that he had
stabbed and strangled them. But this was not a time
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to be caught up on small things like inconsistent goods hosts.
George Burrows was held over for trial and sent to
jail the Salem in Boston jails, where most of the
accused were held, were notoriously terrible. One former inmate called
the Boston jail quote a grave of the living the
suburbs of hell. Disease and lice ran rampant, Cold and
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damp permeated the cells, and overcrowding exacerbated the problems. The
day after Burrows's examination, Sarah Osborne, one of the first
to be accused, who had spent nine weeks in these conditions,
died in the Boston jail. In Maine, Burrows's children were
suffering too, Apparently deciding that her husband's chances of exoneration
(25:43):
were slim, Burrows's third wife, Mary, abandoned her seven step children,
sold all of burrows possessions, and left The Burrows children
were on their own, though their father sent them quote
solemn and safery written instructions from prison. Their only hope,
and Burrough's only hope, was that the trial court would
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be just and merciful. But was that too much to
hope for? On May fourteenth, sixteen ninety two, Sir William
Phipps arrived in Massachusetts Bay, ready to begin his term
as governor and stepped straight into a crisis. Phipps had
been in England helping negotiate the colony's new charter, which
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he was now tasked with administering. He had expected to
return to a colony in turmoil, perhaps, but the situation
was far worse than that. By this point, forty people
had been accused of witchcraft and sat awaiting trial in jail.
The outbreak seemed to be spreading. The accused were not
limited to Salem Village, but now came from across the colony.
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Phipps needed to nip the scandal in the bud before
word got back to England and through the colony's ability
to lead itself back into question. Technically, it was the
responsibility of the colony's legislature to establish a court, but
the legislature wouldn't be meeting until June eighth. Phipps didn't
want to wait. Besides his fear of news reaching England,
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he also knew that the colonists were skeptical of his
new government's authority. This was a chance to show the
frightened colonists that he could protect them. So on May
twenty seventh, Phipps created a special emergency Court and assigned
nine men to sit as judges. These judges were not
trained jurists. Instead, they were drawn from the colonies, political, mercantile,
(27:34):
and military elite. Two of the judges would be Salem's
local magistrates, John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin, and five others
had participated in at least one of the preliminary hearings.
Despite their lack of formal legal training, these men now
had to figure out how to try a witch They
looked to English precedent for help, using language from England's
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Witchcraft Act of sixteen oh four for the indictments, and
studying contemporary legal sources to establish trial procedures. These sources
recommended a similar standard of evidence in witch trials as
for other crimes, either a voluntary confession plus evidence of witchcraft,
or the testimony of two credible witnesses who had witnessed
(28:16):
the same supernatural event. But, as Marilyn Roach points out, quote,
since magic left so few material clues, courts could give
more weight to circumstantial evidence than they usually would. This
flexibility was especially important for the Salem trials. Historically, most
witch trials involved claims of magical damage that people could
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see a burnt field a dead milk cow, But most
of the cases in Salem involved spectral attacks, incidents where
the witch's spectral form allegedly attacked the victim. Even if
other people could see the victim's visible suffering, they could
not see the witch's specter. Could a victim's word alone
be used as evidence. This was a hotly debated issue.
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Many legal authorities cautioned against using this so called spectral evidence,
so did local religious leaders. In a letter to the legislature,
a group of ministers that included Increase and Cotton Mather,
two of the most prominent ministers in the colony, cautioned
against putting too much weight on spectral evidence. Quote blessed
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by too much credulity for things received only upon the
devil's authority, there be a door opened for a long
train of miserable consequences. In the same letter, the ministers
also warned against relying too much on folk tests, such
as throwing a witch into the water to see if
she would float. However, both religious and legal authorities did
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believe that certain folk tests carried some weight. The court
in Salem would eventually begin employing the touch test, in
which the accused witch was required to touch an afflicted
person if the victim's suffering stopped. This was taken as
pre that the witch was guilty. Despite the Minister's cautions
against spectral evidence and folk tests, they also acknowledged the
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need for quote speedy and vigorous prosecution, and it was
this need that the judges would prioritize. The first trial
of Bridgitt Bishop occurred on June second. By the time
that George Burrows's trial began on August fifth, eight more
witches had been tried. All of them had been found
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guilty and sentenced to death. Six of them had already
been hung. The day before his trial, Burrows was examined
by a group of men who were looking for a
devil's mark, a spot where a devil or a witch's
familiar nursed from the witch's body. Benign growths like warts
and moles were often interpreted as devil's marks. No mark
(30:49):
was found on Burroughs's body, but George Jacobs Senior, examined
at the same time, was not so lucky. The examiners
claimed to have found three spots which looked quote natural.
On Friday, August fifth, George Burrows's trial began. Though the
outbreak had begun in Salem Village, the trials and executions
(31:09):
took place in Salem Town, which is now the location
most associated with the events of sixteen ninety two. The
trials were always well attended, but Burrows's trial was particularly crowded,
full of people who wanted to see for themselves if
the minister was indeed a witch. There was a prosecutor
present at these trials, but his role was more clerical,
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focused on organizing the trials and writing indictments. The judges
were the ones who asked questions of witnesses. A jury
composed of twelve men determined the verdict. The defendant did
not have counsel so had to represent themselves. A number
of written depositions about supernatural actions were submitted as evidence
in Burrows's case. Some of the afflicted testified in person,
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although Cotton Mather notes that it cost the court a
wonderful deal of trouble to hear them, for when they
were going in to give their depositions, they would for
a long time be taken with fits that made them
uncapable of saying anything. When Chief Justice William Stoughton asked
Burroughs what he thought was the cause of these fits.
Burroughs said, he supposed it was the devil. How comes
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the devil so loath to have any testimony borne against you?
Stoton retorted as in the examinations the judges, especially Stoughton,
seemed to presume guilt and contorted defendant statements to suit
this conclusion. Many of the afflicted mentioned being visited by
the ghosts of Burroughs selected murder victims, including his first
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two wives. Now at the trial. The afflicted claimed that
the ghosts had appeared once more, quote, crying for vengeance
against him. This was next level spectral evidence specters testifying
against specters, and was apparently too far even for the
sale of judges. They excluded this testimony, but evidence of
(32:56):
Burrough's supernatural abilities continued to pour. In. Of particular interest
to the court were stories of Burrow's extraordinary feats of strength,
which Caughton Mather believed quote could not be done without
a diabolical assistance, as quote, he was a very puny man,
yet he had often done things beyond the strength of
a giant. These feats included carrying a full barrel of
(33:19):
molasses which could weigh nearly five hundred pounds with only
two fingers, and lifting an enormous gun which one witness,
Simon Willard, said he could barely hold with only one hand.
Burroughs denied that he had lifted the gun as described,
saying that a Native American man had helped him. The
men testifying against him denied seeing this Native American, but
(33:41):
did say that quote they supposed the black man, as
the witches call the devil, and they generally say he
resembles an Indian, might give him that assistance. Once again,
burroughs attempts to defend himself had been turned against him,
twisted to serve as further proof of his guilt. After this,
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the trial turned to something less supernatural, Burrows's reputation for
mistreating his wives. The exact nature of this mistreatment is unknown,
but many people thought that Burroughs was too harsh on
his wives. Though none of this testimony related directly to witchcraft,
Cotton Mather said that it quote not only proved him
a very ill man, but also confirmed the belief of
(34:24):
the character which had already been fastened on him. In
other words, it proved that he was the kind of
person likely to consort with the devil. Even Burroughs's former
brother in law, Thomas Ruck, spoke out against the minister. Ruck,
who was the brother of Burroughs's second wife, Sarah, described
an instance where Burroughs had seemed to travel faster than
(34:44):
was possible and had known the contents of Ruck's conversation
with his sister even though he had not been present
for it. When Ruck asked how Burroughs could possibly know
their thoughts, saying quote, the devil himself did not know
so far, Burroughs allegedly replied, qu my God makes known
your thoughts unto me. These words from another minister might
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have been taken as testimony to the power of the Lord.
In George Burrows's case, The judges instead decided that, by
the assistance of the black Man, Burrows might put on
his invisibility and, in that fascinating mist gratify his own
jealous humor to hear what they said of him. Desperate
to defend himself, Burrows handed a paper to the judges
(35:28):
which he said was an argument against the possibility of
witches using spectral forms. The judges, instead of considering the
arguments therein only asked Burrows about authorship, for they recognized
the text as being copied from a book by Witchcraft's
skeptic Thomas Ady. Burroughs denied having copied it from a book,
but admitted that he had read the argument in a
manuscript and transcribed it. Exactly what was said in this
(35:51):
exchange is unknown, but Cotton, Mather and the judges were
suspicious and only saw this as further evidence of Burrows's duplicity.
In Mather's words, quote, faltering, faulty, unconstant, and contrary answers
upon judicial and deliberate examination are counted some unlucky symptoms
of guilt in all crimes, especially in Witchcraft's. Now there
(36:16):
was never a prisoner more eminent for them than George Burroughs,
both at his examination and on his trial. With the
testimony concluded, the jury quickly delivered their verdict on the
charges of Witchcraft. Reverend George Burrows was found guilty and
sentenced to die. He denied the truth of the allegations,
(36:42):
but said that he understood the jury's decision given all
the testimony against him. George Burrows took the news stoically. However,
Burrows said he had been condemned by false witness. Reverend
John Hale, a minister from nearby Beverley, who attended Burrows's trial,
was disturbed by this possibility. Hale confronted one of the witnesses,
(37:04):
telling her, quote, you are the one that brings this
man to death. If you have charged anything upon him
that is not true, recall it before it be too late,
while he is alive. The witness told Hale that she
had quote nothing to charge herself with. Upon that account,
there were indeed false witnesses in the Salem witch trials.
(37:26):
Though most scholars agree today that some of the cases
were genuine in the sense that their sufferers genuinely believed
that they were being afflicted by witches, they also agreed
that other cases were falsified. Multiple witnesses would later apologize
for lying during the trials. Some did so for attention,
others out of spite, and others did it to save
(37:47):
their own lives. Imprisoned witches were interrogated mercilessly by judges
and other authorities. Physical torture was not unheard of. The
reasons to confess were toofold for these witches, first to
end the tormant and second to delay their trial. Only
accused witches who refused to confess were tried in the
summer of sixteen ninety two, and every one of them
(38:10):
was convicted. Though most confess witches were eventually tried, not
a single one of them was ever executed. One of
these confessed witches was Margaret Jacobs. The sixteen year old's
entire family, including her mentally ill mother Rebecca, and her
grandfather George, had been accused of being witches. When Margaret
herself was accused, she would later say she was told
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that quote, if I would not confess, I should be
put down into the dungeon and would be hanged. But
if I would confess, I should have my life terrified.
She confessed and named both her grandfather and George Burrows.
In her confession. The lies, she said were quote wounding
of my own soul, and after her grandfather and Burrows's
(38:55):
convictions in early August, her quote, soul would not suffer
me to keep it in any longer. On the evening
of August eighteenth, Jacobs went to visit George Burrows, apologize
for her lies and ask for his forgiveness. He granted it,
and the two prayed together. Though Margaret Jacobs's confession may
(39:16):
have brought some peace to George Burrows, it would not
change his fate. When Jacobs went to the judges and
told them that she had lied in her testimony, they
did not believe her and threw her in jail the
next day, August nineteenth. The five witches convicted in early August,
Martha Carrier, George Burrows, George Jacobs Senior, John Willard, and
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John Proctor were taken to the gallows in a cart.
A large crowd gathered to watch, including Cotton Mather. All
five of the condemned declared their innocence and asked Mather
to pray for them, which he did. They forgave their accusers,
asked for their own sins to be forgiven, and prayed
that they would be the last innocence to die. When
(40:00):
George Burrows was led up the latter to the gallows,
he gave a short sermon. His speech, Robert Caliph, a
critic of the trials, later wrote, quote was so well
worded and uttered with such composedness, and such at least
seeming fervency of spirit as was very affecting and drew
tears from many. Burroughs concluded by reciting the Lord's Prayer,
(40:24):
A feat that many believed a witch incapable of unease
rippled through the crowd. What if they had gotten it wrong,
What if they were about to execute a truly innocent man?
But there was no room for uncertainty. Burroughs's fate was sealed.
Hanging in the manner most likely employed at Salem was
(40:44):
not a quick death. The drop was not long enough
to break the neck, so the condemned person slowly strangled
to death. As the crowd watched burrows struggle, they grew
more and more uneasy. Once his body fell still, it
seemed almost as if they would move to stop the
remaining executions. But then Cotton Mather, mounted on a horse,
(41:05):
spoke from his perch, this man is no ordained, Minister
Mother said. If Burrows's speech had touched them, wasn't that
just more proof of his diabolical powers. The devil has
often been transformed into an angel of light. Mother reminded
the crowd, just as in his trial, Burrows's own words
had been turned against him. The executions continued. The dead
(41:31):
were cut down from the gallows and buried in a
shallow grave. Tradition has that the families some the executed
snuck to the burial site at night and took their
loved ones for reburial. Burrows had no one to perform
this service for him. His children were still in main
struggling to survive. The condemned had asked that theirs be
(41:51):
the last innocent bloodshed, but it was not to be.
The trials raged on for another two months. Every single
person who pleaded not guilty was convicted by the court.
In September, eighty one year old Giles Corey refused to
enter a plea, meaning that he could not be tried.
In an attempt to get Corey to either plead or confess,
(42:12):
officials stacked increasingly heavy stones on his prone body. After
enduring two days of this torture, Corey died. Besides Corey,
nineteen people were executed between June tenth and September twenty second,
sixteen ninety two. Five more of the accused died in prison,
along with two infants born to imprisoned women. By the
(42:36):
time of the last executions, however, serious doubts were starting
to arise about the validity of the trials. Observers were
troubled by the fact that not a single confessed wish
had been executed, while every accused person who claimed innocence
was convicted. More and more people began to criticize the
use of spectral evidence and the touch test. Sir William Phipps,
(42:57):
the colonial governor, began to worry that the court he
had established to shore up the political uncertainty in the
colony might in fact be a destabilizing force. In a
letter to the English Privy Council on October twelfth, Phipps
tried to evade responsibility for the trials, writing that he
quote depended upon the judgment of the court as to
a right method of proceeding in cases of witchcraft. But
(43:19):
on inquiring into the matter, I found that the devil
had taken upon him the name and shape of several
persons who were doubtless innocent. He had good reason to
believe in their innocence. One of the most recently accused
was his wife. On October twenty ninth, Phipps halted further arrests,
released many of the accused, and disbanded the special Court.
(43:40):
In January, a new court was convened to try the
remaining prisoners. This court cleared most prisoners of charges or
found them not guilty. In February, Phipps commuted the death
sentences of all the surviving convicted. Phipps also took measures
to suppress the story of the trials. In his October
twelfth letter, he explained that I have also put a
(44:01):
stop to the printing of any discourses, one way or
other that may increase the needless disputes of people upon
this occasion, because I saw a likelihood of kindling an
inextinguishable flame if I should admit any public and open contests. However,
Phipps did commission one account, a highly whitewashed version of
events by Cotton Mather called The Wonders of the Invisible World.
(44:24):
In fairness to Mather, he was a faithful transcriptionist of
the examinations and trials. It was his framing that was
spectacularly biased. Mather's account was sent to England, where it
was accepted as true, but those on the ground in
New England knew better. Many people now believed that the trials,
even if well intentioned, had been a grievous mistake. Consequently,
(44:47):
Phipps's publication ban was not obeyed for long. By the
mid sixteen nineties, increasingly critical accounts of the trial were emerging.
The most famous of these was by Robert Caliph, hilariously
titled More Wonders of the Invisible World. Some of these
criticisms came from the very authorities who had led the trials.
In January sixteen ninety seven, the Colonial legislature, which counted
(45:11):
many of the trial judges as members, declared a day
of fasting and prayer in contrition for the trials. Judge
Samuel Sewell gave a public apology at a fast day service.
Twelve former jurors provided a statement of apology to be
published in Robert Califf's book. Not everyone involved in the
trials repented of their rules. Chief Justice William Stoughton, who
(45:33):
went on to become Governor of the Colony, defended his
actions until his death in seventeen oh one. Samuel Parris,
whose devisive leadership style had likely helped spark the witchcraft hysteria,
only issued a half hearted apology in November sixteen ninety
four as part of a campaign to keep his job.
No one bought it. In the early seventeen hundreds, more
(45:54):
and more formal apologies for the trial began occurring. Some
were institutional, like the three and seventeen eleven exonerations of
most of the accused by the legislature, who also granted
reparations for lost property to surviving accused or their families.
Others were more personal. In seventeen oh six, and Putnam Junior,
(46:15):
George Burrows's first accuser, publicly apologized for her role in
the trials and was welcomed into the Salem Church. Not
everyone would be satisfied by these efforts at atonement. George
Burrows was cleared by the seventeen eleven declaration, but only
his third wife, Mary, received financial recompense. His children, who
(46:35):
had been orphaned after Burrows's execution and Mary's abandonment, received nothing.
They would petition the legislature for a portion of their
father's estate until as late as seventeen fifty. Some families
did not even receive the comfort of a posthumous exoneration.
Several names slipped through the cracks during the petition process.
The final accused to be formally exonerated by the Massachusetts
(46:58):
legislature was Elizabeth Johnson on July twenty eighth, twenty twenty two.
The discontent sparked by the Trials had deep ramifications for
New England society. Many colonists faith in their rulers was
irreparably shaken. In trying to show strength in the face
of a crisis, Phipps and his government had acted hastily
(47:20):
and ended up making the problem far worse. Instead of
acting as a guiding hand, the government had provided the
spark to the tinder pile. Distrust in the government was
a natural result of such a disaster. This skepticism of
a royal authority's ability to protect them and represent their
interests laid the early groundwork for the American Revolution. Even
(47:42):
before the Revolution, the trial had become a potent political symbol.
In seventeen forty one, rumors of a conspiracy amongst enslaved
people to burn down New York City led to mass
arrests and the execution of more than thirty people. Josiah Cotton,
Cotton Mather's first cousin, published an an anonymous letter in
Boston and New York papers saying that quote the late
(48:05):
terrible combustions at New York revived the remembrance of the
tragedy at Salem. Over the centuries, the meaning of the
trials has been adjusted based on who is speaking and
what they're speaking about. By the twentieth century, the Trials
were most often used as shorthand for political persecution. This
association was cemented by Arthur Miller's nineteen fifty three play
(48:27):
The Crucible, which used the Trials as an allegory for
Joseph McCarthy's attacks on alleged communists. As Miller observed, the
Red Scare of the mid twentieth century had much in
common with the Witch Scare of the late seventeenth They
were both times in which Americans fears about a changing
world led them to turn on one another, encouraged by
(48:48):
cynical politicians who capitalized on these fears for personal gain.
These two periods are not unique in American history. While
writing his book on the Trials, Emerson Baker saw parallels
to the surge of Islamophobia in the wake of the
nine to eleven attacks. I Am Afraid, wrote Thomas Braddle,
a critic of the Trials in October sixteen ninety two,
(49:11):
that ages will not wear off that reproach, and those
stains which these things will leave behind them upon our land.
Rattle was right to worry. More than three hundred years later,
we still remember the injustices committed during the Salem which trials.
What's more, we still enact those same injustices. We employ outdated,
(49:32):
dubious forensic techniques such as blood spatter analysis, in the
same way that the Salem judges relied on the dubious,
outdated touch test. We convict people based on thin or
fictitious evidence. We let our fear overcome our better judgment.
We've come so far in so many ways since sixteen
(49:52):
ninety two, but we haven't fully shaken off the legacy
of Salem. Our legal system is now as it was then,
shaped not just by law and precedent, but also by
an aggregate of personal choices. Bad choices like the judge's
decision to admit spectral evidence, but also brave choices like
(50:13):
Margaret Jacob's choosing at great risk to her life to
tell the truth. Don't worry, by the way, Jacobs was
eventually acquitted of witchcraft, but only after spending seven months
in jail. Most of our choices aren't as dangerous or
dramatic as Margaret Jacobs's. But every choice we make matters,
(50:33):
whatever our role in society, whatever our connection to the
legal system. We have the power to make the right decisions,
to choose compassion, to choose justice. Thank you for listening
to History on Trial. To see images of people and
places in this episode, check out our instagram at History
(50:56):
on Trial. My main sources for this episode were Emerson W.
Baker's book A Storm of Witchcraft, The Salem Trials and
the American Experience, Marilyn k Roach's book The Salem witch Trials,
a day by day chronicle of a community under siege,
and the Salem Witchcraft Papers collected by Paul Boyer and
Stephen Nissenbaum and adapted by the University of Virginia. Again.
(51:20):
This is the final episode of season one. It has
been such a privilege and a pleasure to get to
learn more about these stories and to share them with you.
To stay updated on what's next, please follow our instagram
at History on Trial or subscribe to our newsletter, which
you can sign up for on our website History on
Trial podcast dot com. Special thanks to my producer, Jessefunk,
(51:42):
who has edited and produced all the episodes this season,
and to my friends, family and partner for their support.
History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward.
The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
(52:06):
Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us
on Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at
Underscore History on Trial. Find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by
visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(52:27):
to your favorite shows.
You are listening to History on Trial, a production of
iHeart Podcasts. Listener Discretion Advised. Hello, Mira Hear. This is
the final episode of season one of History on Trial.
I'm still figuring out what's next for the show. If
you'd like updates, you can follow our instagram at History
(00:21):
on Trial or subscribe to the newsletter via our website
historyon Trial podcast dot com. I'm so grateful for your
support throughout the season. On a cold February day in
sixteen ninety two, Mary Sibley set out to break the law.
She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she
(00:42):
reasoned to herself that she was doing it for the
right reasons. She was doing it to protect the children
her poor little neighbor girls, Betty and Abigail, who had
been suffering so terribly for months. Since early January, Betty
and her cousin Abigail had been subject to strange fits.
Their bodies would hunch and contort, assuming bizarre, painful positions.
(01:06):
They muttered and babbled, speaking words no one could understand.
They sometimes seemed gripped by a fear so intense it
paralyzed them, stopping their breath. Doctor after doctor had examined
the two young girls. They had prescribed remedies and treatments,
all to no effect. People had begun to wonder whether
(01:27):
the cause could be something stranger and darker than a
simple sickness. Maybe the girls were bewitched. Betty's father, Samuel Parris,
focused on prayer to heal the girls, but Mary Sibley
did not think prayer would be enough to fight a witch.
She thought you had to act like one. The witchcraft
(01:49):
was illegal, many people held onto folk practices to protect
against dark magic. They hid horseshoes or eel spears in
the walls of their houses and carved daisy wheels into
their door frames to prevent spirits from entering. The magic
Mary Sibley was about to propose would be more dangerous
than a hidden horseshoe, more intentional, riskier. If Mary was caught,
(02:12):
she might be called a witch herself, But her heart
likely ached for the two frightened girls. So Mary snuck
over to the Paris's house one day and had a
whispered conference with John Indian, the Paris's enslaved man, about
how to make a witch cake. It was simple. Mary
told John take ryemeal, mix it with Betty and Abigail's urine,
(02:34):
and then bake the mixture into a cake and feed
the cake to a dog. The cake, thinks to the urine,
would contain the essence of the witch. When the dog
ate the cake, the witch would suffer and perhaps be exposed.
John Indian and his wife Titchiba, also enslaved by the Parises,
knew that their owners would not like the witch cake.
(02:57):
Samuel Parris was a minister, an un compromising man who
had made his hatred for witchcraft of any sort known.
So John and Titchiba waited until a night that Samuel
and his wife Elizabeth were out. Then they made the cake.
At first, the charms seemed to have backfired. Betty and
Abigail's suffering intensified, their torments increased, But then suddenly, as
(03:23):
if a veil had lifted, the girls could see they
could see the source of their misery. The witch cake
had not hurt the witch, but it had revealed her.
Soon after, Betty and Abigail told the Parises that it
was Titchiba herself who was hurting them. Betty and Abigail's
identification of Titchiba on February twenty sixth sixteen ninety two
(03:47):
was the first claim of witchcraft in the Salem Outbreak,
but it would not be the last. Within months, dozens
of Bay Colony residents would find themselves caught up in witchcraft,
either afflicted by a witch, accused of being a witch,
or both, and then in June the trials began. By
(04:09):
that point, the outbreak had ballooned to such proportions that
it seemed no one was safe, not respectable pious citizens,
not children, not even as the trial of George Burroughs
would show, a minister. The Salem witch Trials are one
of the most notorious episodes in American history. Their alien
(04:31):
nature fascinates us, the strange superstitions, the archaic language, the
gruesome details. But at their heart, the trials are a
timeless story about what happens when fear and anger overrun
a community and all hell breaks loose. Welcome to History
on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This week the
(04:55):
Massachusetts Bay Colony v. George Burroughs. When the Puritans, English separatists,
who felt that the Church of England still cleaved too
closely to Catholic traditions, established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in
the sixteen twenties, they hoped to build what colonial leader
John Winthrop called a city upon a hill, a shining
(05:18):
paragon of prosperity and obedience to God. On paper, George
Burroughs looked like the ideal citizen of such a place.
Born in sixteen fifty two, Burroughs was the grandson of
a minister and the son of a merchant, giving him
both ecclesiastical and worldly credit. Burroughs grew into a handsome,
(05:39):
dark haired man, short but strong. Following in his grandfather's footsteps,
Burroughs studied to become a minister. In sixteen seventy, he
graduated from Harvard College. Three years later, he married Hannah Fisher,
the daughter of a prominent family. But despite this elite pedigree,
Burroughs struggled to find his footing. Maybe it was his
(06:01):
quick temper, maybe it was his slightly unorthodox religious beliefs,
or maybe something else entirely, but either way, Burroughs did
not hit the ground running. He didn't get his first
posting until more than four years after graduation, and even
then it was a less than desirable position in the
frontier town of Falmouth, Maine, near present day Portland. Maine
(06:24):
was looked down on by many Massachusetts Puritans thanks to
the area's practice of welcoming Protestants of all stripes. Burroughs, however,
seemed to fit in well on the rough and tumble
Frontier and bought property there, seemingly hoping to settle down.
But the frontier was a dangerous place. Native American raids
(06:45):
were common. King Philip's War, the most devastating conflict of
the colonial period, broke out a year into Burrows's time
in Falmouth. In sixteen seventy six, Falmouth was burned to
the ground and Burrows and many others barely escaped. Burroughs
and his family joined the flood of refugees traveling south
into Massachusetts. Many refugees were too frightened to ever return north,
(07:09):
but Burroughs held on to his main homestead while he
waited for the fighting to settle down. He served as
assistant pastor in Salisbury, Massachusetts, but the position was not
a permanent one, and Burrows needed a better way to
support his growing family. In sixteen eighty, Burroughs received an
offer from Salem Village. The village was an inland satellite
(07:30):
of the larger Harbourside community of Salem Town. Today, the
village is called Danvers and the town is called Salem.
Salem Village had only recently won the right to hire
their own minister, but attracting a minister was easier said
than done. The village was relatively close to the frontier,
and as a small agricultural community, couldn't afford to pay
(07:52):
their minister much. But there was something else too, something
that caused Salem Village to churn through ministers. At a
time when the average tenure for a Massachusetts minister was
twenty two years, Salem Village's first three ministers would last
an average of less than five. The problem was that
(08:13):
the people of Salem Village were petty. Salem, the name
given to the area by its first English settlers in
the sixteen twenties, was a derivative of the Hebrew word shalom,
meaning peace. Sixty years later, the village's residents were not
doing the name proud. Arguing seemed to be the village pastime,
(08:34):
with a specialty in power struggles, where property lines were
whose pig had escaped and eaten a vegetable garden? Who
got to choose the minister? Everything and anything, no matter
how trivial became hotly contested. This last problem, choosing the minister,
was an especially thorny one. The first minister, James Bailey,
(08:55):
had endured years of fighting between villagers who supported him
and village who did not, before quietly stepping down. George
Burrows had been a year behind Bailey at Harvard, and
perhaps Bailey warned him about the difficulties of the Salem role.
For Burroughs ultimately accepted the village's offer on the condition that,
quote in case any difference should arise in time to come,
(09:18):
that we engage on both sides to submit to counsel
for a peaceable issue. Unfortunately for Burrows, the villagers were
not particularly interested in being peaceable. Not long after his arrival,
the residents once again split into factions for and against
their minister. As a result of all this fighting, the
(09:38):
village was slow to pay Burroughs's salary. Due to the delay,
Burroughs did not have enough money to pay for his wife,
Hannah's burial when she died in sixteen eighty one. He
had to borrow money from a villager named John Putnam
to cover the costs. Throughout sixteen eighty one, Burroughs held
multiple town meetings to try to resolve the villager's various
(09:59):
differences with Whate, but to no avail. In April sixteen
eighty two, villager Jeremiah Watts wrote to Burrows that quote
brother is against brother, and neighbor against neighbors, all quarreling
and smiting one another. Charming. In March sixteen eighty three,
a very fed up Burrows moved his family, including his
(10:21):
second wife, Sarah, back to Maine, choosing an active warzone
overstaying in Salem. The villagers, furious at his departure, tried
to sue Burrows for desertion of duty. The court told
them that they didn't have much ground since they'd never
paid Burrows most of his salary. Eventually, Salem agreed to
pay Burroughs' salary less the amount he owed John Putnam
(10:43):
for Hannah's burial, But when Burrows returned to Salem to
collect his money, John Putnam filed his own suit against
the minister for non payment of a loan and had
him arrested. Villagers who had supported Burrows were outraged and
posted the minister's bond to keep him from being jailed.
Putnam agreed to drop his suit, and the village offered
(11:04):
Burrows fifteen pounds, less than half of what they owed him. Burrows,
thoroughly exhausted with the situation, accepted and returned to Maine.
He was probably delighted to be done with Salem, but
Salem was not done with him. Nine years later, George
(11:24):
Burrows would be arrested in Maine and dragged back to
the village accused of being a witch. Salem struggled to
find a good replacement for George Burrows. It took them
a year to hire their next minister, who didn't stay long.
In July sixteen eighty nine, the village's fourth minister, Reverend
(11:47):
Samuel Parris, arrived after months of contract negotiations. These protracted
negotiations were an omen of difficulties to come. If the
residents of Salem had hoped that Reverend Paris would succeed
in bringing their community together, they were sorely mistaken. Paris
was a stubborn, demanding man who had entered the ministry
(12:08):
only after destroying his inherited family business through mismanagement. Within
six months of Paris's arrival, Salem had once again split
into factions for and against the minister. By late sixteen
ninety one, the anti Paris faction had won control of
the town council and voted to withhold the minister's salary
(12:28):
and cut off his firewood allowance. In return, Paris began
delivering spiteful sermons. Quoting Psalm one ten, the lords said,
unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until
they make thine enemies thy footstool. It was Paris's daughter
Betty and his niece Abigail Williams, who lived with the family,
(12:50):
who first began to show symptoms of being bewitched sometime
in January sixteen ninety two. It was not hard for
the girl's community to accept the existence of witches in
their midst. The seventeenth century belief in the supernatural was
intimately tied to religious belief. Marilyn k Roach explains in
her book The Salem Witchcraft Trials quote, with good and
(13:13):
evil so obviously present in the world, to question the
devil's reality was to doubt God's few doubted. Since there
was a devil, it followed that some wicked or foolish
mortals would pay allegiance to him in return for the
power to work evil magic. This power could be used
to disrupt victim's lives. If you wronged a witch, they
(13:36):
might make your beer barrels leak, or said insects to
eat your crops. Their power could even kill. As John Godfrey,
a Bay Colony resident who was oft suspected of being
a witch, put it quote, it were hard to some
witches to take away life, either of man or beast,
Yet when they once begin it, then it is easy
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to them. But people were not powerless against witches. They
could use magical protections of their own, like Mary Sibley's witchcake,
although most ministers frowned on such measures, recommending prayer instead.
If prayer or shunning the witch failed, there was the
legal system. Between fourteen hundred and seventeen seventy five, approximately
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one hundred thousand people were prosecuted for witchcraft worldwide, and
fifty thousand of them executed. Because witches were blamed for
bad things happening, it follows that the number of witchcraft
accusations rose when times were hard. Sixteen ninety two was
a decidedly hard year for the Massachusetts Bay Colony five
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years earlier. Fed up with the colonies in subordination to
royal authority. King James the Second of England had merged
Massachusetts with the other northeastern colonies to create the Dominion
of New England. The dominion was ruled by the iron
fisted Sir Edmund Andros, who dismantled the colonies representative government.
Even worse, Andros ordered that the dominion enact a policy
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of tolerance for all Protestants, a serious blow to the
Puritan hierarchy. Many feared that these changes signaled the end
of John Winthrop's dream of a city upon a hill.
After three years under Andros, the colonists rebelled and won
backed their independence. But this victory came with problems of
its own. To establish a new government, the colony needed
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a new Royal Charter, which meant sending representatives to England
and enduring lengthy negotiations until the new charter arrived, The
provisional government had no real power. They could not establish courts,
for example, which created problems for morale. As historian Emerson W.
Baker notes in his book A Storm of Witchcraft quote,
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the legal system acted as a safety valve for the colonists,
mediating differences and resolving conflicts between individuals and within communities.
Without a functioning legal system Bigger continues quote, a significant
number of disputes and conflicts continued to fester and grow
without resolution. The lack of formal government also meant that
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the British military officers who had helped defend the northern
frontier for the dominion, began abandoning their posts, leading to
renewed attacks in Maine. By sixteen ninety, every settlement north
of present day Portland had been abandoned. Salem Village was
less than fifty miles from the southern edge of Maine,
and villagers must have feared that the war would reach
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them soon. On top of all of this, the weather
was terrible, crops were failing, and the economy was tanking.
So much uncertainty and suffering made for a frightened and
angry populace desperate for something or someone to blame for
their problems. It was fertile ground for a witch hunt.
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These high stress levels may also explain the symptoms experienced
by the afflicted. Though no single cause can explain every case,
various theories about predominant causes have been suggested. Today, the
most widely accepted theory is a condition called conversion disorder.
We still have much to learn about conversion disorder also
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called functional neurological symptom disorder, but for the purposes of
this episode will stick to the basics. Conversion disorder occurs
when your brain converts mental health issues like acute stress
or trauma into physical symptoms caused by the disruption of
regular brain or nervous system function. Symptoms can include seizures, ticks, tremors,
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unexplained pain and weakness, sensory impairments like tunnel vision or
double vision, and speech impairments. These symptoms are almost exactly
what early sufferers in Salem experienced. Emerson Baker argues that
conversion disorder helps explain why the outbreak began in the
Paris household. For Betty Paris and Abigail Williams were quote
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perhaps the children in the village under the greatest stress.
It must have been almost unbearable to reside in the
parsonage while an agitated Reverend Paris prepared to battle Satan
and his allies. Betty and Abigail were not the only
stressed residents of Salem that winter. The area was filled
with refugees from the frontier, traumatized by the violence they
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had experienced. Other accusers were servants or orphans, young women
whose lives were bleak and futures were even bleaker. Once
words spread of the initial afflictions, a vicious cycle could
have been triggered. Mass psychogenic illness, if not recognized and treated,
Baker writes, can worsen and spread. This is not surprising,
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as an unresolved emergency naturally leads to more anxiety, which
is the very source of the illness. Of course, no
one in Salem was diagnosing the afflicted with conversion disorder. Instead,
they put the symptoms into the cultural context that they
lived in, one in which witches were real. When adults
she trusted told nine year old Betty Paris that the
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cause of her suffering was a witch. She had no
reason to doubt them. She had likely grown up hearing
stories about witches, how they tormented you or tempted you
to join them in their wicked ways. It was easy
for her to parrot these stories back to her parents
and to identify women who were outsiders as the witches,
and so the witch hunt began. After identifying Titchiba as
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a witch, Betty and Abigail accused two more women Sarah
Good and Sarah Osborne. Soon, two other girls, Elizabeth Hubbard
and Anne Putnam Junior, also began displaying symptoms and accused
of the same three women. From there, the outbreak grew exponentially.
Not all of those who claimed to be afflicted. Eventually
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there would be more than seventy of them fit the
profile of someone with conversion disorder. There is substantial evidence
that some later sufferers were knowingly fabricating their symptoms. In
the chaos of the outbreak, it was hard for people
to tell where the fear ended and the lies began. Ultimately,
more than one hundred and fifty people would be accused
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of witchcraft. After someone was accused, a complaint would be
sworn against them. Most of the afflicted were women who
were not allowed to make legal complaints, so often a
male relative would make it for them. Then the accused
would be arrested, imprisoned, and questioned. Reverend George Burrows entered
the ranks of the accused on April twentieth, sixteen ninety two,
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when twelve year old Anne Putnam claimed that his spectral
form appeared before her and demanded that she sign the
Devil's Book and become a witch like him. When Anne refused,
Burrows's spirit tortured her mercilessly. This was a typical pattern
of behavior for a witch, but Burrows's status as a
minister made this case distinct. Anne herself was shocked, telling
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the specter that it was quote a dreadful thing that he,
which was a minister that should teach children to fear God,
should come to persuade poor creatures to give their soul
to the devil. But she refused to let the specter's
title intimidate her, declaring quote, I will complain of you
though you be a minister, if you be a wizard.
Burroughs soon became a popular figure to accuse. It seemed
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natural to the afflicted that the witch's society would mirror
their own, and so the witches required a minister. On
April twenty second, a number of the afflicted reported seeing
Burroughs's specter lead a witch's sabbath in Reverend Paris's pasture,
giving a sermon in which he urged his fellow witches
to establish the Devil's kingdom in New England. That Burroughs's
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corporeal self was in Maine that day was no alibi
distance was not an obstacle for witches, whose spectral forms
could travel with supernatural speed. On April thirtieth, Anne Putnam's
father Thomas, swore a complaint against Burrows, and a warrant
was issued for his arrest. Burroughs was arrested on the
evening of May second in his home home in Wells, Maine,
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and taken to Salem. Even while he was imprisoned, Burrows's
alleged assaults on the afflicted continued unabated. On May seventh,
his specter tortured Mercy Lewis, an orphaned teenager who had
once worked as a servant for the Burrows family and
was now working for the Putnams. The next day, he
threatened eighteen year old Susannah Sheldon with death if she
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testified against him. The day after that, he appeared before
Mercy Lewis again, mister Burrows. Lewis later recounted quote carried
me up to an exceeding high mountain and showed me
all the kingdoms of the earth, and told me that
he would give them all to me if I would
write in his book, and if I would not, he
would throw me down and break my neck. Shortly after
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taking Mercy Lewis up a mountain, George Burrows was examined.
Because the colony was still waiting for its new Royal charter,
which was now on its way from England, no formal
court could be established, but preparations for future trials could
be made, including gathering evidences. Two local magistrates, Jonathan Corwyn
and John Hawthorne, set about taking depositions and examining the accused.
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These examinations were not neutral fact finding missions. The afflicted
were often present and writhed in the audience. Corwin and
Hawthorne usually placed the burden of proof on the accused,
asking them to somehow prove that they were not witches.
Anything the accused said was used against them. Because of
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Burrows's role as a minister, his examination was conducted carefully.
William Stowton and Samuel Sewell, two future members of the
trial court, joined Corwin and Hawthorne for it. The four
men first questioned Burrows privately, away from the afflicted. The
questions focused on Burrows's religious practice. He admitted that he
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had not taken communion in some time, and that not
all of his children were baptized. Troubling admissions for a
Puritan minister. Burrows also denied that his house in Maine
was haunted, but did admit that there were toads around it,
toads everyone knew were a sign of witchcraft. When Burroughs
entered into the Salem Village meetinghouse for his public questioning,
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the afflicted present were quote grievously harassed with preternatural mischiefs.
The young women gave accounts of Burrows's diabolical activities. Several
of them also told of visits by the ghosts of
Burroughs's first two wives, Hannah and Sarah, who apparently accused
their husband of murdering them. As Marilyn Roach observes quote
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in the flood of detail, and amid the traumatic spectacle
of the afflicted, the magistrates overlooked or ignored the contradictions
in the stories given by the supposed ghosts of Burroughs's wives.
For these specters told Susannah Sheldon that he had smothered
and choked them, but told Anne Putnam that he had
stabbed and strangled them. But this was not a time
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to be caught up on small things like inconsistent goods hosts.
George Burrows was held over for trial and sent to
jail the Salem in Boston jails, where most of the
accused were held, were notoriously terrible. One former inmate called
the Boston jail quote a grave of the living the
suburbs of hell. Disease and lice ran rampant, Cold and
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damp permeated the cells, and overcrowding exacerbated the problems. The
day after Burrows's examination, Sarah Osborne, one of the first
to be accused, who had spent nine weeks in these conditions,
died in the Boston jail. In Maine, Burrows's children were
suffering too, Apparently deciding that her husband's chances of exoneration
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were slim, Burrows's third wife, Mary, abandoned her seven step children,
sold all of burrows possessions, and left The Burrows children
were on their own, though their father sent them quote
solemn and safery written instructions from prison. Their only hope,
and Burrough's only hope, was that the trial court would
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be just and merciful. But was that too much to
hope for? On May fourteenth, sixteen ninety two, Sir William
Phipps arrived in Massachusetts Bay, ready to begin his term
as governor and stepped straight into a crisis. Phipps had
been in England helping negotiate the colony's new charter, which
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he was now tasked with administering. He had expected to
return to a colony in turmoil, perhaps, but the situation
was far worse than that. By this point, forty people
had been accused of witchcraft and sat awaiting trial in jail.
The outbreak seemed to be spreading. The accused were not
limited to Salem Village, but now came from across the colony.
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Phipps needed to nip the scandal in the bud before
word got back to England and through the colony's ability
to lead itself back into question. Technically, it was the
responsibility of the colony's legislature to establish a court, but
the legislature wouldn't be meeting until June eighth. Phipps didn't
want to wait. Besides his fear of news reaching England,
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he also knew that the colonists were skeptical of his
new government's authority. This was a chance to show the
frightened colonists that he could protect them. So on May
twenty seventh, Phipps created a special emergency Court and assigned
nine men to sit as judges. These judges were not
trained jurists. Instead, they were drawn from the colonies, political, mercantile,
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and military elite. Two of the judges would be Salem's
local magistrates, John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin, and five others
had participated in at least one of the preliminary hearings.
Despite their lack of formal legal training, these men now
had to figure out how to try a witch They
looked to English precedent for help, using language from England's
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Witchcraft Act of sixteen oh four for the indictments, and
studying contemporary legal sources to establish trial procedures. These sources
recommended a similar standard of evidence in witch trials as
for other crimes, either a voluntary confession plus evidence of witchcraft,
or the testimony of two credible witnesses who had witnessed
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the same supernatural event. But, as Marilyn Roach points out, quote,
since magic left so few material clues, courts could give
more weight to circumstantial evidence than they usually would. This
flexibility was especially important for the Salem trials. Historically, most
witch trials involved claims of magical damage that people could
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see a burnt field a dead milk cow, But most
of the cases in Salem involved spectral attacks, incidents where
the witch's spectral form allegedly attacked the victim. Even if
other people could see the victim's visible suffering, they could
not see the witch's specter. Could a victim's word alone
be used as evidence. This was a hotly debated issue.
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Many legal authorities cautioned against using this so called spectral evidence,
so did local religious leaders. In a letter to the legislature,
a group of ministers that included Increase and Cotton Mather,
two of the most prominent ministers in the colony, cautioned
against putting too much weight on spectral evidence. Quote blessed
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by too much credulity for things received only upon the
devil's authority, there be a door opened for a long
train of miserable consequences. In the same letter, the ministers
also warned against relying too much on folk tests, such
as throwing a witch into the water to see if
she would float. However, both religious and legal authorities did
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believe that certain folk tests carried some weight. The court
in Salem would eventually begin employing the touch test, in
which the accused witch was required to touch an afflicted
person if the victim's suffering stopped. This was taken as
pre that the witch was guilty. Despite the Minister's cautions
against spectral evidence and folk tests, they also acknowledged the
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need for quote speedy and vigorous prosecution, and it was
this need that the judges would prioritize. The first trial
of Bridgitt Bishop occurred on June second. By the time
that George Burrows's trial began on August fifth, eight more
witches had been tried. All of them had been found
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guilty and sentenced to death. Six of them had already
been hung. The day before his trial, Burrows was examined
by a group of men who were looking for a
devil's mark, a spot where a devil or a witch's
familiar nursed from the witch's body. Benign growths like warts
and moles were often interpreted as devil's marks. No mark
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was found on Burroughs's body, but George Jacobs Senior, examined
at the same time, was not so lucky. The examiners
claimed to have found three spots which looked quote natural.
On Friday, August fifth, George Burrows's trial began. Though the
outbreak had begun in Salem Village, the trials and executions
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took place in Salem Town, which is now the location
most associated with the events of sixteen ninety two. The
trials were always well attended, but Burrows's trial was particularly crowded,
full of people who wanted to see for themselves if
the minister was indeed a witch. There was a prosecutor
present at these trials, but his role was more clerical,
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focused on organizing the trials and writing indictments. The judges
were the ones who asked questions of witnesses. A jury
composed of twelve men determined the verdict. The defendant did
not have counsel so had to represent themselves. A number
of written depositions about supernatural actions were submitted as evidence
in Burrows's case. Some of the afflicted testified in person,
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although Cotton Mather notes that it cost the court a
wonderful deal of trouble to hear them, for when they
were going in to give their depositions, they would for
a long time be taken with fits that made them
uncapable of saying anything. When Chief Justice William Stoughton asked
Burroughs what he thought was the cause of these fits.
Burroughs said, he supposed it was the devil. How comes
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the devil so loath to have any testimony borne against you?
Stoton retorted as in the examinations the judges, especially Stoughton,
seemed to presume guilt and contorted defendant statements to suit
this conclusion. Many of the afflicted mentioned being visited by
the ghosts of Burroughs selected murder victims, including his first
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two wives. Now at the trial. The afflicted claimed that
the ghosts had appeared once more, quote, crying for vengeance
against him. This was next level spectral evidence specters testifying
against specters, and was apparently too far even for the
sale of judges. They excluded this testimony, but evidence of
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Burrough's supernatural abilities continued to pour. In. Of particular interest
to the court were stories of Burrow's extraordinary feats of strength,
which Caughton Mather believed quote could not be done without
a diabolical assistance, as quote, he was a very puny man,
yet he had often done things beyond the strength of
a giant. These feats included carrying a full barrel of
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molasses which could weigh nearly five hundred pounds with only
two fingers, and lifting an enormous gun which one witness,
Simon Willard, said he could barely hold with only one hand.
Burroughs denied that he had lifted the gun as described,
saying that a Native American man had helped him. The
men testifying against him denied seeing this Native American, but
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did say that quote they supposed the black man, as
the witches call the devil, and they generally say he
resembles an Indian, might give him that assistance. Once again,
burroughs attempts to defend himself had been turned against him,
twisted to serve as further proof of his guilt. After this,
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the trial turned to something less supernatural, Burrows's reputation for
mistreating his wives. The exact nature of this mistreatment is unknown,
but many people thought that Burroughs was too harsh on
his wives. Though none of this testimony related directly to witchcraft,
Cotton Mather said that it quote not only proved him
a very ill man, but also confirmed the belief of
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the character which had already been fastened on him. In
other words, it proved that he was the kind of
person likely to consort with the devil. Even Burroughs's former
brother in law, Thomas Ruck, spoke out against the minister. Ruck,
who was the brother of Burroughs's second wife, Sarah, described
an instance where Burroughs had seemed to travel faster than
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was possible and had known the contents of Ruck's conversation
with his sister even though he had not been present
for it. When Ruck asked how Burroughs could possibly know
their thoughts, saying quote, the devil himself did not know
so far, Burroughs allegedly replied, qu my God makes known
your thoughts unto me. These words from another minister might
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have been taken as testimony to the power of the Lord.
In George Burrows's case, The judges instead decided that, by
the assistance of the black Man, Burrows might put on
his invisibility and, in that fascinating mist gratify his own
jealous humor to hear what they said of him. Desperate
to defend himself, Burrows handed a paper to the judges
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which he said was an argument against the possibility of
witches using spectral forms. The judges, instead of considering the
arguments therein only asked Burrows about authorship, for they recognized
the text as being copied from a book by Witchcraft's
skeptic Thomas Ady. Burroughs denied having copied it from a book,
but admitted that he had read the argument in a
manuscript and transcribed it. Exactly what was said in this
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exchange is unknown, but Cotton, Mather and the judges were
suspicious and only saw this as further evidence of Burrows's duplicity.
In Mather's words, quote, faltering, faulty, unconstant, and contrary answers
upon judicial and deliberate examination are counted some unlucky symptoms
of guilt in all crimes, especially in Witchcraft's. Now there
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was never a prisoner more eminent for them than George Burroughs,
both at his examination and on his trial. With the
testimony concluded, the jury quickly delivered their verdict on the
charges of Witchcraft. Reverend George Burrows was found guilty and
sentenced to die. He denied the truth of the allegations,
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but said that he understood the jury's decision given all
the testimony against him. George Burrows took the news stoically. However,
Burrows said he had been condemned by false witness. Reverend
John Hale, a minister from nearby Beverley, who attended Burrows's trial,
was disturbed by this possibility. Hale confronted one of the witnesses,
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telling her, quote, you are the one that brings this
man to death. If you have charged anything upon him
that is not true, recall it before it be too late,
while he is alive. The witness told Hale that she
had quote nothing to charge herself with. Upon that account,
there were indeed false witnesses in the Salem witch trials.
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Though most scholars agree today that some of the cases
were genuine in the sense that their sufferers genuinely believed
that they were being afflicted by witches, they also agreed
that other cases were falsified. Multiple witnesses would later apologize
for lying during the trials. Some did so for attention,
others out of spite, and others did it to save
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their own lives. Imprisoned witches were interrogated mercilessly by judges
and other authorities. Physical torture was not unheard of. The
reasons to confess were toofold for these witches, first to
end the tormant and second to delay their trial. Only
accused witches who refused to confess were tried in the
summer of sixteen ninety two, and every one of them
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was convicted. Though most confess witches were eventually tried, not
a single one of them was ever executed. One of
these confessed witches was Margaret Jacobs. The sixteen year old's
entire family, including her mentally ill mother Rebecca, and her
grandfather George, had been accused of being witches. When Margaret
herself was accused, she would later say she was told
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that quote, if I would not confess, I should be
put down into the dungeon and would be hanged. But
if I would confess, I should have my life terrified.
She confessed and named both her grandfather and George Burrows.
In her confession. The lies, she said were quote wounding
of my own soul, and after her grandfather and Burrows's
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convictions in early August, her quote, soul would not suffer
me to keep it in any longer. On the evening
of August eighteenth, Jacobs went to visit George Burrows, apologize
for her lies and ask for his forgiveness. He granted it,
and the two prayed together. Though Margaret Jacobs's confession may
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have brought some peace to George Burrows, it would not
change his fate. When Jacobs went to the judges and
told them that she had lied in her testimony, they
did not believe her and threw her in jail the
next day, August nineteenth. The five witches convicted in early August,
Martha Carrier, George Burrows, George Jacobs Senior, John Willard, and
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John Proctor were taken to the gallows in a cart.
A large crowd gathered to watch, including Cotton Mather. All
five of the condemned declared their innocence and asked Mather
to pray for them, which he did. They forgave their accusers,
asked for their own sins to be forgiven, and prayed
that they would be the last innocence to die. When
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George Burrows was led up the latter to the gallows,
he gave a short sermon. His speech, Robert Caliph, a
critic of the trials, later wrote, quote was so well
worded and uttered with such composedness, and such at least
seeming fervency of spirit as was very affecting and drew
tears from many. Burroughs concluded by reciting the Lord's Prayer,
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A feat that many believed a witch incapable of unease
rippled through the crowd. What if they had gotten it wrong,
What if they were about to execute a truly innocent man?
But there was no room for uncertainty. Burroughs's fate was sealed.
Hanging in the manner most likely employed at Salem was
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not a quick death. The drop was not long enough
to break the neck, so the condemned person slowly strangled
to death. As the crowd watched burrows struggle, they grew
more and more uneasy. Once his body fell still, it
seemed almost as if they would move to stop the
remaining executions. But then Cotton Mather, mounted on a horse,
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spoke from his perch, this man is no ordained, Minister
Mother said. If Burrows's speech had touched them, wasn't that
just more proof of his diabolical powers. The devil has
often been transformed into an angel of light. Mother reminded
the crowd, just as in his trial, Burrows's own words
had been turned against him. The executions continued. The dead
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were cut down from the gallows and buried in a
shallow grave. Tradition has that the families some the executed
snuck to the burial site at night and took their
loved ones for reburial. Burrows had no one to perform
this service for him. His children were still in main
struggling to survive. The condemned had asked that theirs be
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the last innocent bloodshed, but it was not to be.
The trials raged on for another two months. Every single
person who pleaded not guilty was convicted by the court.
In September, eighty one year old Giles Corey refused to
enter a plea, meaning that he could not be tried.
In an attempt to get Corey to either plead or confess,
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officials stacked increasingly heavy stones on his prone body. After
enduring two days of this torture, Corey died. Besides Corey,
nineteen people were executed between June tenth and September twenty second,
sixteen ninety two. Five more of the accused died in prison,
along with two infants born to imprisoned women. By the
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time of the last executions, however, serious doubts were starting
to arise about the validity of the trials. Observers were
troubled by the fact that not a single confessed wish
had been executed, while every accused person who claimed innocence
was convicted. More and more people began to criticize the
use of spectral evidence and the touch test. Sir William Phipps,
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the colonial governor, began to worry that the court he
had established to shore up the political uncertainty in the
colony might in fact be a destabilizing force. In a
letter to the English Privy Council on October twelfth, Phipps
tried to evade responsibility for the trials, writing that he
quote depended upon the judgment of the court as to
a right method of proceeding in cases of witchcraft. But
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on inquiring into the matter, I found that the devil
had taken upon him the name and shape of several
persons who were doubtless innocent. He had good reason to
believe in their innocence. One of the most recently accused
was his wife. On October twenty ninth, Phipps halted further arrests,
released many of the accused, and disbanded the special Court.
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In January, a new court was convened to try the
remaining prisoners. This court cleared most prisoners of charges or
found them not guilty. In February, Phipps commuted the death
sentences of all the surviving convicted. Phipps also took measures
to suppress the story of the trials. In his October
twelfth letter, he explained that I have also put a
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stop to the printing of any discourses, one way or
other that may increase the needless disputes of people upon
this occasion, because I saw a likelihood of kindling an
inextinguishable flame if I should admit any public and open contests. However,
Phipps did commission one account, a highly whitewashed version of
events by Cotton Mather called The Wonders of the Invisible World.
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In fairness to Mather, he was a faithful transcriptionist of
the examinations and trials. It was his framing that was
spectacularly biased. Mather's account was sent to England, where it
was accepted as true, but those on the ground in
New England knew better. Many people now believed that the trials,
even if well intentioned, had been a grievous mistake. Consequently,
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Phipps's publication ban was not obeyed for long. By the
mid sixteen nineties, increasingly critical accounts of the trial were emerging.
The most famous of these was by Robert Caliph, hilariously
titled More Wonders of the Invisible World. Some of these
criticisms came from the very authorities who had led the trials.
In January sixteen ninety seven, the Colonial legislature, which counted
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many of the trial judges as members, declared a day
of fasting and prayer in contrition for the trials. Judge
Samuel Sewell gave a public apology at a fast day service.
Twelve former jurors provided a statement of apology to be
published in Robert Califf's book. Not everyone involved in the
trials repented of their rules. Chief Justice William Stoughton, who
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went on to become Governor of the Colony, defended his
actions until his death in seventeen oh one. Samuel Parris,
whose devisive leadership style had likely helped spark the witchcraft hysteria,
only issued a half hearted apology in November sixteen ninety
four as part of a campaign to keep his job.
No one bought it. In the early seventeen hundreds, more
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and more formal apologies for the trial began occurring. Some
were institutional, like the three and seventeen eleven exonerations of
most of the accused by the legislature, who also granted
reparations for lost property to surviving accused or their families.
Others were more personal. In seventeen oh six, and Putnam Junior,
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George Burrows's first accuser, publicly apologized for her role in
the trials and was welcomed into the Salem Church. Not
everyone would be satisfied by these efforts at atonement. George
Burrows was cleared by the seventeen eleven declaration, but only
his third wife, Mary, received financial recompense. His children, who
(46:35):
had been orphaned after Burrows's execution and Mary's abandonment, received nothing.
They would petition the legislature for a portion of their
father's estate until as late as seventeen fifty. Some families
did not even receive the comfort of a posthumous exoneration.
Several names slipped through the cracks during the petition process.
The final accused to be formally exonerated by the Massachusetts
(46:58):
legislature was Elizabeth Johnson on July twenty eighth, twenty twenty two.
The discontent sparked by the Trials had deep ramifications for
New England society. Many colonists faith in their rulers was
irreparably shaken. In trying to show strength in the face
of a crisis, Phipps and his government had acted hastily
(47:20):
and ended up making the problem far worse. Instead of
acting as a guiding hand, the government had provided the
spark to the tinder pile. Distrust in the government was
a natural result of such a disaster. This skepticism of
a royal authority's ability to protect them and represent their
interests laid the early groundwork for the American Revolution. Even
(47:42):
before the Revolution, the trial had become a potent political symbol.
In seventeen forty one, rumors of a conspiracy amongst enslaved
people to burn down New York City led to mass
arrests and the execution of more than thirty people. Josiah Cotton,
Cotton Mather's first cousin, published an an anonymous letter in
Boston and New York papers saying that quote the late
(48:05):
terrible combustions at New York revived the remembrance of the
tragedy at Salem. Over the centuries, the meaning of the
trials has been adjusted based on who is speaking and
what they're speaking about. By the twentieth century, the Trials
were most often used as shorthand for political persecution. This
association was cemented by Arthur Miller's nineteen fifty three play
(48:27):
The Crucible, which used the Trials as an allegory for
Joseph McCarthy's attacks on alleged communists. As Miller observed, the
Red Scare of the mid twentieth century had much in
common with the Witch Scare of the late seventeenth They
were both times in which Americans fears about a changing
world led them to turn on one another, encouraged by
(48:48):
cynical politicians who capitalized on these fears for personal gain.
These two periods are not unique in American history. While
writing his book on the Trials, Emerson Baker saw parallels
to the surge of Islamophobia in the wake of the
nine to eleven attacks. I Am Afraid, wrote Thomas Braddle,
a critic of the Trials in October sixteen ninety two,
(49:11):
that ages will not wear off that reproach, and those
stains which these things will leave behind them upon our land.
Rattle was right to worry. More than three hundred years later,
we still remember the injustices committed during the Salem which trials.
What's more, we still enact those same injustices. We employ outdated,
(49:32):
dubious forensic techniques such as blood spatter analysis, in the
same way that the Salem judges relied on the dubious,
outdated touch test. We convict people based on thin or
fictitious evidence. We let our fear overcome our better judgment.
We've come so far in so many ways since sixteen
(49:52):
ninety two, but we haven't fully shaken off the legacy
of Salem. Our legal system is now as it was then,
shaped not just by law and precedent, but also by
an aggregate of personal choices. Bad choices like the judge's
decision to admit spectral evidence, but also brave choices like
(50:13):
Margaret Jacob's choosing at great risk to her life to
tell the truth. Don't worry, by the way, Jacobs was
eventually acquitted of witchcraft, but only after spending seven months
in jail. Most of our choices aren't as dangerous or
dramatic as Margaret Jacobs's. But every choice we make matters,
(50:33):
whatever our role in society, whatever our connection to the
legal system. We have the power to make the right decisions,
to choose compassion, to choose justice. Thank you for listening
to History on Trial. To see images of people and
places in this episode, check out our instagram at History
(50:56):
on Trial. My main sources for this episode were Emerson W.
Baker's book A Storm of Witchcraft, The Salem Trials and
the American Experience, Marilyn k Roach's book The Salem witch Trials,
a day by day chronicle of a community under siege,
and the Salem Witchcraft Papers collected by Paul Boyer and
Stephen Nissenbaum and adapted by the University of Virginia. Again.
(51:20):
This is the final episode of season one. It has
been such a privilege and a pleasure to get to
learn more about these stories and to share them with you.
To stay updated on what's next, please follow our instagram
at History on Trial or subscribe to our newsletter, which
you can sign up for on our website History on
Trial podcast dot com. Special thanks to my producer, Jessefunk,
(51:42):
who has edited and produced all the episodes this season,
and to my friends, family and partner for their support.
History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward.
The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with
supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
(52:06):
Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us
on Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at
Underscore History on Trial. Find more podcasts from iHeartRadio by
visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(52:27):
to your favorite shows.
Host
Mira Hayward
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