October 20, 2025 • 50 mins
Witch! Witch! Sean's a Witch! This week listen as Aaron takes John through the spooky (not really) tale of the Salem Witch Trials. You've heard of em', you've joked about em', now listen to the somewhat sad tale behind the 1950's smash-hit play "The Crucible".
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
As we've seen throughthe years of this podcast,
the people of the past had quite
a different view of the worldto what we do now.
In a world before modern scienceand much of the logic
that we know, there wereprevailing beliefs that centered
largely around the spectraland the spiritual.
It was much easierto blame demons for the problems
of the time than silly
(00:21):
little things like globalweather patterns, physics,
and the intricacies of thingslike luck and chance.
And between the late 1400sand early 1700s,
it was witchcraft that drewthe ire of the people.
In Europe, thousands were tortured and executed as the
wave of panic mistrust andreligious extremism sent
(00:41):
accusations flying against justabout anyone
for just about anything.
As the Americas were settled,some of the Puritans
that wantednothing more than to live
a godly life found their wayto modern day Massachusetts.
Just as Europeans startedsettling down and stopped
burning and hanging peoplefor crimes like “bad vibes”.
The futureAmericans were set off
(01:03):
by a couple of teenage girlsmaking a scene.
This Halloween spookyspecial on Cheeky Tales,
we're covering the most infamousof all witch trials.
Those of Salem, Massachusetts.
(01:27):
Didn't even
about bad about Canada, but.
So what did we do?
This is not about the episode.
We're doing this out of the wayright away.
We'll be straightinto the episode.
I swear
we did have an episodecoming out after it,
but we drove to Sydneyto watch the NRL grand final.
We did with a lot.
I think the last episode
we recordedwas the one where we're like,
oh boy, I hopethey make it through the finals.
(01:49):
And they won the grand final andwe were there and it was sick.
And we hopefully, you know,if you're following the socials,
we were posting a few picturesfrom the stadium from a cool.
It was a great time.It's a. Good trip.
Of course, it was a great time.They won you. Know.
To Brisbane Broncopremiership Saturday.
We did you know
it was the most shocking thingabout the whole trip.
(02:10):
We didn'tsay Cheese's nipples. One.
He had a shirt on at all times.
I don't know about old times.I think he was.
I'm pretty surehe showered with the shirt on.
Okay.
She's evil.
Confirmed.He walks around the house
shirtlessinto the shower, shirt on.
Yeah, it's a weird way to do it,
but you got to respect the man.
Well,
(02:31):
it is spooky season, boy.
And that's
why we've broken outthe once a year spooky lighting.
There is an orange lightthat's behind John there, but.
Oh, you can just see it,so that's good.
As of the episodecomes out with nine days until
All Hallows Eve. That's it.
Yeah.
(02:51):
Wait, is that what they call anAll Hallows?
Well, that's what it was called.And now it's Halloween.
Isn't there a school calledAll Hallows in Brisbane?
Spooky.
Anyway,have you ever hung someone for.
Being a witch?
Cause I haven't. No.
Yeah.
What a question. Have we lived?
What a question.Yeah. Apparently.
(03:13):
And was it hangingsor was it burning at the stake?
I think the if you talk about.
Think about a tribeburned at the stake.
Yeah. That's not whatthey were doing in Salem. Okay.
They also didn't do the,the classic,
chucker in the water and say,if she floats.
Oh, she's a witch.
If she drowns,she's she's innocent.
That is a no win situation.
No, no, not really.
(03:35):
Thinking it was good,but if you float.
Yeah,we get burned at the stake.
You're just like,for being a witch.
Like, Should I get into it?
Yes. We cast your spell on mewith your story.
I'd like to get it on the recordthat I'm not a witch.
I know that's what a witchwould say, but I'm not a witch.
He's a wizard.
(03:57):
No, he got me.
Was wordplay.
You're. Is it Harry?
Oh, my. What?
As covered in the introduction.
Europe was going nuts
for witch huntsas early as the late 1400s.
Religious extremism was the maindriver in starting the hunt.
But as time went
on, other motivesintroduced themselves,
like vindictivenessagainst neighbors,
(04:18):
with perceived slotsbecoming targets.
I just let's just.
Yeah, I had a funny thought.
Get the old letter in the mailfrom the council.
Like a complaint,like dogs barking
or the green grassor something like that.
Which activity.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh you should just be likeneighbors.
(04:40):
Don't mean there are witch.
I mean, we'll get to it.
But like that,that's pretty much what happens.
Considering much of the evidencewould be
fantastic stories of hauntingsand spiritual attacks.
Many were convinced,
were convictedon the words of their neighbors
rather thananything from the real world.
(05:00):
During the
1600s, Europeans startedto migrate to the New World,
with many ofthe Puritan movement
finding their way to
what is now knownas New England,
bringing with themnot just their way of life
and devotionto moral and holy living,
but also their preexistingprejudice as well.
Go, patriots! No.
Salem was a small town.
(05:20):
And not Sabrina's cat.
Oh, that's the last thingI reference.
Salem was a small town justnortheast of Boston and Boston,
and had a history of fracturedrelationships
between the local churchand the people.
It's like you just, Yeah, I.
Just said, oh, that's right.
What episode was that?
I don't know.
(05:41):
I feel likeit was one of the space ones
where I first did the.
I wasn't at the, molasses floodbecause that was in Boston.
Yeah. Boston?Yeah. It must have been.
Anyway,
Salem had a history of fractured
relationships betweenthe local church and the people.
As well as betweenthe people themselves.
They were land disputes,
(06:02):
disputes overgrazing areas and issues
between the churchand the people.
Particularly there was a feudbetween the Putnam
and Porter families over landand religious factions,
which would rear its headduring the events to come.
Remember the name Putnam.
Putnam and the porters.
You know, the portersdon't really come out much.
Nobody had the name Porterthat came up in the story, but,
(06:24):
the Putnam's had problemswith just about everyone.
Okay.
I with that family.
Yeah. Yeah.
The Puritans were borderlineobsessed with the idea
of holiness,with any unfortunate
event blamed on the deviland his demons.
All failed crops, broken tools,sickness, poorly cooked meals,
maybe even a bad haircut
(06:45):
would be blamed on allthat was unholy.
Poorly cooked meals.
This was driven by the newminister in the area, Reverend
Samuel Parris, who would deliverfire and brimstone sermons
that would stokethe already high
tensions of the religiousfolk in the area.
There's a lot of surnamesat the moment.
There is? Yeah. Putnam. Porter.
(07:07):
Parris. Yeah. Puritans.
The Puritans?
Yeah. It's a.
Heavy episode.
So that actually gone throughlike two different reverends
in the last couple of yearsbefore this.
They just kept like
having issueswith the reverend in the area.
Yeah.
What year was this again? 1692.
Okay. So we'll will after
(07:29):
the church in,
England.
Yeah. That's, part of the reasonwhy these people were there.
Yeah.
So the Puritans were a groupthat were like,
hey, the reforms that you did,
they didn't go far enough,and we're pissed.
And so they were like,you know what we're going to do?
We can go to New England.We're going to make it better.
That'swhy it's called New England.
Yeah.
I was just trying to think of,like,
(07:49):
all the different denominations
that would be coming inat that point.
So, like, you have,it sounds very Pentecostal.
I would assume that it wasChurch of England.
You'd think soif they were in New England.
So, yeah, this, this ReverendParris was the newest one.
But he would also raise tensionswith his actions.
Not in the sermons.
(08:09):
Oh. Demanding that he be giventhe deed to the parsonage
that he was housed inrather than just,
you know, living in it? Yeah.
And demanding morepay and privilege from the town.
Some of the communitywould support him
and others would denounce him.
I have another wordfor this guy.
Prick.
Yeah. Well,
(08:30):
yeah.
It turns outhe is a bit of a prick.
It would be all too fitting thatthe paranoia that would grip
the town would beginin his very own home.
Yeah.
He accused his wifeof being a witch.
No, no, no, actually,I don't even know if I know.
He must have had a wifebut he had a wife.
Yeah. Children's.He had. Children.
(08:51):
Yeah. Betty Paris.
This section is calledThe Hunt Begins.
Betty Parris,the daughter of Reverend Samuel
and his adoptive niece,Abigail Williams,
would sit downone day in January of 1692
for a very unchristian sessionof fortune telling. Oh.
I'm going to say Ouija board.
(09:14):
Yeah.
I mean, like the Ouija boardwas on the invented, like
60 years ago. Yeah.
Do you know it was a Hasbro toy.
That's for how the Ouija boardexisted. Really. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just a toy that Hasbromade.
Yeah.
So you got Betty Parrisand his adoptive niece
Abigail Williams.
They're drawingpentagrams on the.
(09:34):
Yeah.They were doing basement floor.
I mean not quite.
What they were doing
was trying to use egg whitesand a glass of water
to predict their futurehusbands.
While the reverendwas out of the house one day.
So, like, crack an egg?
Yeah, the yolk it.And then it's like.
Blue and say, water.
See what happens? Yeah.
They would be under thesupervision of the family slave
(09:55):
native American woman.
Tituba. Wow.
You got to be droppingthe this word in you.
I mean, I can, becausethat's kind of what she was.
Okay. Yeah.She was from Barbados.
So she was, Native Americanfrom the West Indies.
Is this where they got thepractice from the stands for,
(10:15):
witches culture type of.
Yeah.
She never said.
Yeah, I did it like the I taughtthem, but, she probably did.
Or she at leasttalk to them about it or like.
Yeah.Because she wasn't churchgoing.
So Tituba was kind of keepingto her all like her own stuff.
And that's kind of a thing.
Like, one of the reasonswhy some people got picked out.
(10:37):
Anyway, we'll get to it.
So Tituba would bein the other room making lunch.
And the girls would absolutelyfreak themselves out
when one of themspotted a coffin in the water,
leaving them screaming
as I left the house in fear withTituba to clean up the mess.
Yeah.
So, like a bloop.
That's a coffin. Oh,my parents died.
(10:57):
I think it was AbigailWilliams, the adoptive niece.
Yeah,but the parents would like.
To just coincidenceand seeing things that.
Aren't they.What's the word for that?
Being a dumb. Ass?
No, there's actually,
like, a specific wordfor when you see things that,
like your brain creates an imageout of something that's not,
you know whatthat is? Projection.
(11:17):
Whatever. Something. Yeah.
Within days of this incident,Betty
Powers started to come downwith a weird illness.
It started off with herbeing a little bit withdrawn,
but quicklydeveloped to include symptoms
of distraction and agitationwithout cause.
But then further still,developed
into spasms, angry outburstsand screams out of nowhere.
(11:40):
Okay, so she's
just a teenage girl?
Yeah. Little bit.
Yeah. Yeah.
It seems a normal thingsfor any teenager.
It's getting mad out of nowhere.Yeah.
The thing with the Puritanswas that
they didn't see childrenas children.
Those little adults.
So they were like, you need tostart acting like an adult.
As soon as they were born,basically. Like.
(12:01):
Get yourself in line.
Abigail, who lived withparishes, started to have
the same symptomsnot long after.
Both would go into these fitstogether screaming and barking
and claiming to see demonsand the devil all around them.
Obviously this wasn't greatambiance in their household.
All right.
Let's look at the devil.
(12:22):
He's on the couch.
He's on.
He's watching Love Island.
Stop changing the channel.
Try. To watch the cricket.
It's just before a week. It'staking the train to the church.
That would be such a thingthe devil would do.
Yeah. What a dick.
Yeah, a daddy.
Hey, I bet he channels thislike o fo.
(12:44):
On the SBS channels, too.
He'd be all.
About the late nightdifferent language stuff.
Yeah.
I bet he watches the great news.
I bethe watches the radio channels.
So there's no image. It's just.
A. Hey, I'll have you know thatABC jazz is a fantastic
radio station.
I wasn't specifically calling itABC, just.
(13:04):
As I know you weren't.
But I want to get iton the record that ABC
jazz is the best of the TVradio station.
Foreign radio channelsthat are on the TV.
There's a lot of them.
Reverend Parris wouldn'tsee this as childish behavior,
but rather would immediatelystart
to suspect foulplay from the spectral world.
A doctor would failto diagnose the girls
and so would declare the girlsunder an evil hand.
(13:27):
Shock, horror. Yeah. He couldn't
diagnose somethingthat doesn't exist.
Couldn't diagnose.
This girl keeps screaming
and gets mad at her dadfor no reason.
Weird.
So under an evil handwas shorthand for witchcraft.
Spooky.
Spooky old voodoo doll.
Ooh, the voodoo doll.
(13:49):
Obviouslyin the home of a reverend.
This wasn't great.
I would not have.
The optics. Optics ain't good.
Not these, funky optics,little camera jug,
obviously in the home, Reverend.
This wasn't great.
And the reverend would set outto find who was responsible.
The neighborswould start to talk,
(14:09):
and they neighbor Mary Sibley,who does not feature again,
would,without telling Paris, instruct
the slaves in Paris's houseto make a witch cake
to try andbreak the spell on the girls.
Never heard of a witch cake?
What's a witch?
A witchcake was made of rye meal.
And the girls pierce
and would be fed to a dog.
(14:32):
Yeah.
Why don't we do this anymore?
Ha ha ha.
Boy, if you do feel a bit ill,
give us a be a piece.
I gotta make a cake.
So next timemy daughter has a random
outburst of angerand just disobedience.
Come on, I got the wrong meal.
Yeah. What elseis. Needed in the bout?
(14:52):
Oh, hey, Bucky. And.
Oh, no.
Bucky and Mac.
Piece of cake for you.
So gross.
Yeah, it's pretty fowl.
The idea is that the dogwould eat the piece cake.
Take on the bad.
Juju, and. Yeah, offense, like,get get the beer. Which meant,
(15:13):
obviously this didn't work.
So I like the a pet dog orjust a random dog in the woods.
I imaginethe idea is it's a pet dog.
Poor dog. Yeah.
It just seemspretty mean to the poor hound.
Obviously, the piece of cakedidn't work, and all it did was
spread the word through the townabout the weird piece cake.
(15:33):
Piece cake?
Yeah, and not like thelittle ones that are in urinals.
Not a not a tasty urinal cake.
This is a piece of cake.
What did you, takesto get to the,
I don't know, it was a joke.
I had one time.
Why do they keepputting these tasty treats in?
Gross.
(15:53):
Reminds me of Joseph Park.
Have you ever seenJoe's apartment?
No. We're gonna have to add thisto the cheeky watch.
Oh, man, it's alreadylong enough.
Joe's apartment was likeone of the first MTV movies.
And as a kid growing up,I loved the bra.
Okay.
I think it was the first MTVmovie.
Okay. It'sabout seeing cockroaches.
(16:13):
Gross. Hilarious.
Well, another girl wouldcome down with similar symptoms.
This time, 12 yearold and Putnam junior not happy.
Oh, that's right,the Putnam. Yeah. Yeah.
The daughter of a powerfulfamily.
Did you talk about earlier? Did,
that her issues with everyone.
That were also closeallies of the Paris family.
(16:35):
So the Putnam's in the Paris's.
Paris's are notwell, are not universally loved.
Because of.
Wanting. More money.
Well, the piece of cake didn'thelp, but not because of that.
Just because
he's like,give me the ownership of
this housethat you rent out to me.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So it was like,they have fights with everybody.
They're having fightswith everybody.
(16:55):
Their friends. Like. Yeah.
A fourth casewould quickly develop as well.
17 year old Elizabeth Hubbard,
the adopted servantof the doctor
who was called to diagnosethe original two girls.
Okay.
The girl was,
the girl was relatedto the doctor,
but after family deathshad been indentured to him.
Funny howit's all connected like that,
(17:17):
And it's all,
within the same, like,single, supportive group.
Like they all fallon each other.
And it's also like young teenagegirls in a time where they
would get very little attention.
They're not gettingany attention in at ten.
So I can see.
So what you're saying isnow that the first two
are just being brats,
(17:40):
I mean, I mean, that'swhat it looks like.
They get an attentionfrom people. Yeah.
And then other girls are. Like,oh, I like a bit of that.
Yeah. Okay.
So being a little olderthan the other girls, Elizabeth,
convincedmore people in the village
that something was up.
And when she started to saythat she had recognized
the demons that hounded heras people from the village,
all hell started to break looseon the town.
(18:02):
Pun intended.
Because the demons.
Yep. Devil and the town.Hell breaks loose.
Yep, I got it.
As the days went on, moreand more girls
started to say they're afflictedin the same way.
And the symptomsgrew into complaints
from the girls
of being pinched and poked whilethey had their screaming fits.
They started falling downin the street in fear and pain,
and the town started topush them to give up the names.
(18:24):
Baby Paris,under intense scrutiny
and more than likelya bit of coaching,
would be the first to give inand start naming names
to her father, Reverend Samuel.
The names stopped flowing.
ReverendSamuel would push his daughter
to give up a name and anything
that could cause the hauntingshe was experiencing.
And eventually she confessed
(18:45):
that she'd been taking partin the fortune, telling me.
The Reverend's fury forcedBetty to claim that
it was the slave Titubawho had been coercing her.
You know.
With Abigail andand Elizabeth quickly backing up
the claim that Titubawas the one bewitching them all.
They would also accuse two otherwomen from the town, Sarah
(19:06):
Goode and Sarah Osborne. Bad,
Boom!
The Teachable and Sarah Goodewere not churchgoers,
and with Titubabeing a different race
to all the othersand Sarah, a homeless beggar.
The two made good scapegoatsfor the behavior going on.
Sarah Osborne was an older woman
(19:27):
who had been married to the,to a man who died.
She had inherited his land,but gave it up
to a former servantthat she married later on.
She also had a longstanding disagreement
with the Putnamfamily over land.
There's that too.
There's, motive. Yeah.
So she's got quitea scandalous life,
considering she married
(19:49):
this person that livedwell below her stature. Yeah.
And so, alongside the other two,it would be an outsider
making them the perfect peoplefor the accusations
of the childrento be taken seriously.
Reverend Parris was not ableto cast judgment himself
in any legal sense.
So with the assistanceof the Putnam family,
he would turn to the larger
Salem town Courtsto investigate and prosecute
(20:10):
the accused women.
Two local magistrates were in
charge,John Nathan and Jonathan Cohen.
Nathan was a landowner
who considered himselfa defender of the faith.
And that while Corwin camefrom a powerful mercantile
family who had deep connectionswith the elite of the area,
the two would receiveformal complaints
(20:32):
from the villageabout the three women.
Warrants would be issued
and the women would be arrestedthe next day.
It's interesting because whenyou think Salem witch trials,
it was kind of like,point the finger,
drag them offto the stake. Burnham.
But it seems like there's a bitof an actual legal process.
Yeah, there wasthat was like March.
(20:52):
I think. Thosefirst accusations.
Kind of like warrantswere issued.
Yeah.And come before magistrates.
You know, when you think ofSalem witch trials. Trials?
You don't think that's just.
You, which. You. Wear?You a witch?
No, that's exactly what a witchwould say. Off to the stake.
You know,I imagine the legal procedures
are about to get really bad forwhat's going to happen.
(21:14):
Yeah. At the moment,it all seems aboveboard.
Yeah. Look, it's all great.
Nathan was known for
his aggressive prosecution.
Which.
Which is a visual joke.
Sorry. If you're listening.
You might have to check out the.
Yeah.
By the way, if you're
(21:34):
not watching on YouTube,you should get on it.
Put a lot of effort to that.
Nathan was knownfor his aggressive prosecution,
and he would demonstrate thisin the questioning of the women.
I'm glad I covered that.
Yeah.
So they were
good, would deny the allegationsand point to Osborne
(21:57):
and Osbornewould point to teach you about
Titubawould be questioned twice,
with the first questioningbeing a denial
and the second questioninghappening the next day
after a beatingby Samuel Parris.
There's no proofthat she got beaten.
Okay.
But there's quitea lot of speculation
and there was quite a lotof circumstantial. Evidence,
(22:19):
just bruised and cut all over.
Yeah. Why are you bleeding?
Because I'm a witch.
Suddenly,in the second questioning.
Fell down some stairs.She would confess.
I yelled at some stairs.
Also claiming there is a groupof at least 4 or 5 witches.
Yeah, yeah, puttingsome more people into this one.
Even being a manworking together in the town.
(22:42):
Was his name Aaron? Oh, no.
I couldn'thave been alive in 1692.
For which he could be.
A loan to me.
Tituba would also admitto speaking with the devil,
who instructed herto hurt the girls.
She would also say that Sarah
Goode and Sarah Osborne
were the ones actuallyhurting the girls directly.
(23:02):
There is significant events,
especially the later wouldof teach you bar,
that Samuel Parris had beatenthe confession out of her
and coached her onto say what he wanted to hear.
Yeah, okay.
I was I was about to ask,
why would you say thesekind of things?
But you're getting beatenfor it. Yeah.
I guess the hope would bethe beatings would stop.
I guess so it's, Yeah.
(23:22):
On this side of it,
we can say that it gets worse,but in the moment, I'm sure.
Yeah.
There was no
way she could see how bad it'sgoing to get.
Yeah.
I'm going to say somethingnow that I don't think I said
in the end of the episode.
Tituba doesn't get killed.
She was the first and confessedshe doesn't die.
She just like, lives.
(23:42):
Okay, then ignore everythingI just said.
Yeah. Yeah.
Regardless of the factthe confession was nonsense,
the three women would bequestioned again and again
before being thrown in prisonto wait for their formal trial.
With these women now in jail,the town would start to put
a lot more weightbehind their accusations.
And from here, the net was castfar and wide
for who would be next to facethe court.
(24:19):
Churchgoers start to be accused.
Scandalous. Oh.
From here.
There was a flurryof accusations sent around.
A woman named Bridget Bishopwould find herself accused,
being accused by the girlswho claimed that she had
been one of the peoplehaunting, hurting them.
And it didn't help
that she had been accusedof witchcraft in the past.
(24:39):
Others claimedthat they had seen
her apparitionthrowing them from bed,
and even her own husband claimedthat she praised the devil.
Husband and wife pairMartha and Giles Corey
found themselvesaccused after openly
speaking out about not believingthe girl's story and citing
the trials for witchcraftwere a sham.
Oh, obviously there witchdefenders Sunday.
(24:59):
I think secondly.
What a witch would sayafter the hangings.
They're part of the covenant.
Yeah, considering.
Coven.
Coven.
Not covenant. Coven.
Oh, I don't like it.
Don't refresh your browser.
People aren't. It's just.
I can't remember whothis line was written about,
(25:20):
considering she'd been accused
of having a child
insideof a marriage in the past,
she was a prime targetfor mistrust.
I think that was about Martha.
I think.
I can't remember, okay.
I wrote it, can't remember,
a well-loved older woman namedRebecca Nurse, who just happened
to have a long running landdispute with the Putnam's.
Weird.
Found herselfaccused by Anne Putnam, junior.
(25:44):
Even a former town minister,
George Burrows,
would find himself staring downthe prospect of a trial.
It must have been boring.
Yeah. I mean,what else are you doing?
You can only go to the tavernso many times,
you can eventually just be like.
You knowwhat? I think John's a witch,
Let's.
Let's spice up this town a bit.
Let's trysome witch accusations.
(26:04):
I'm. A little bored.John's a. Witch.
Let's have a witchhunt. John's a witch.
Things were getting out of hand.
And with the jowls alreadystarting
to fill up, Governor Phippsin Salem Town moved quickly,
setting up the fast trackedCourt of Oyer and Terminer,
which means to hearand determine.
The jury would be made upof mostly wealthy landowners,
(26:25):
owners, landowners,
landowners in the regionwho were part of the church,
and likely friendsof the Putnam family.
So not exactly peers for thosewho had been accused first.
The court would hear evidence
from anyonethat wanted to provide it,
but of course
the girls would be frontand center to put on a show.
The first person to face
the court would be BridgetBishop.
(26:47):
So as we heard, Bridget had beenaccused by her neighbors.
They said that she had coercedtheir crops,
killed their livestockand even appeared
as a specter to them,assaulting them in the night.
Yeah, throwing them out of bed.
Of course, the
girls also made a big showof being haunted by her.
And it helpedthat she'd been accused
in the past of witchcraft.
When she spoke in the court,the girls would claim
(27:08):
that her words hurt them to hear
and that when her home and thenwhen her home was searched
during the trial, they foundlittle puppets called puppets
that were,
apparently used by witches
in a very similar wayto voodoo dolls.
Despite protesting thatthey were planted in her home,
it didn't take longfor the wailing of the girls
to convince a jurythat she was guilty.
(27:30):
Why would I not?
Puppets?
You said they were planted.
Well, boo boos.
Bridgetwould be the first to be hanged.
Oh. On 10th of June, 1960, 1692.
But by no meanswould she be the last.
Not nice. You said 16 nine.
(27:54):
That was a rage even for us.
Yeah. No, boo.
Just because.
So these trials are basicallylike person gets brought in.
Hey, are you a witch? No.
Hey, girls.
Oh, she's a witch.I'll save the devil.
Oh, she's hurting me.
She's a witch.
Yeah, yeah.
Jury, what do you think?
(28:16):
Guilty. Yeah.
Pretty much. Off you go.
So there was.
How old were these girls?
They were, like,between 12 and 17.
Okay. Yeah.
So there's a flurry of trialsoff of this. Yep.
People start getting.
Bang, bang, bang. Yeah.
But there's one trialthat seems like a tipping point.
Okay.
After the verdict started flow,it seemed that
(28:36):
the hunt was building a hit.
A building ahead of steam.
One trial exemplifiesthat feeling more
than the others in the earlystages, that of Rebecca Nurse.
You remember that she waswell loved. Yes.
And in a disputewith the Putnam family.
And so her trial
was the closest thing to fairthat there would be.
Just the onethat, married someone below her.
(28:58):
No, that was that was Bridget.
Oh. Was it was it?
No, that was Osborne.
Oh, yeah.
That was Sarah Osborne. Sure.
So Rebecca Nursevery well loved.
So she actually got more supportthan most people got
in the court.
Dispute with the police.
As Landis dispute with Putnam's.
Amy Putnam junior.
(29:20):
And Putnam junior.
But one of the things I didduring these trials was
I would get people into speak to their character,
okay, that'swhere you'd have people
coming and be like,she coerced me. Crops?
Yeah. She saidI would regret something.
And then my tool broke.
But they'd also get peoplecoming in and saying good things
about them.
And character witnesses.
So Rebecca would,of course, face
(29:40):
the girls who would screamand say they could see the devil
and they saw,
Rebecca would pleadher innocence to the court.
And for once, the packed house
in the courtroomwasn't entirely against her.
She had neighborswho had signed a petition, 39
of them, stating that she wasa holy woman who followed God,
and that none of the accusationsagainst her could be true.
The jury would debateafter the arguments,
(30:01):
and as the court heldits breath,
many in disbelief thatthey had gotten to this point.
The verdict of not guiltywas handed down.
Okay, not a witch.
Not a witch.
While this was a moment of joyfor Rebecca
and her supporters,it wouldn't last long.
The girls would immediatelybreak into some of the worst
(30:21):
fits of hysteria seen, yetthey screamed louder for longer,
collapsing on the floorand screaming
that they sawSatan himself in the room.
The Chief Justice wouldbe unnerved by these scenes,
and told the jury that theycould reconsider their decision.
Oh come on.
I know, right?
Not guilty.
(30:44):
After a few hushed words,the jury would
loudly proclaim proclaimthat she was, in fact, guilty.
Oh, yeah?
How about.
Sorry, jury, would you.
Can you please.Are you sure about that?
Take note of this new evidence.
There. Yeah.
You know that thingthey were doing before,
but now they're doing louderafter you said not guilty?
(31:05):
Yeah.
Rebecca would be sentencedto hang, and weeks later
would find herselfat the gallows with Sarah Goode,
one of the first accused.
Rebeccawould proclaim her innocence
until the end, and Sarah Goodewould tell the chief justice
that killing herwould lead to punishment.
By God.
The death of Rebeccashocked the community,
and the doubts about the trialswould only grow from here.
(31:28):
But ofcourse, that wouldn't stop them.
Because.
Those who were accusing people
were starting to make bankon their seized assets.
Okay. Yeah.
So somebody gets prosecutedfor being a witch?
Yeah. They get hung,they guilty.
So the state takes their moneyand takes their property,
and that gets redistributed outto the people in town
(31:51):
that were making the accusationsas repatriations.
So there's like, judgesmaking money.
The Putnam family'smaking money, like.
Yeah, the business is a.
Booming business is. Booming.
However,
the wealthy and prominentstart to be in the crosshairs.
The prosecutorsare the biggest bank.
(32:13):
They do the prosecutors, judges.
And of course,the Putnam family was seizing
the assets of thosewho were convicted
and so would start to aim alittle higher in their targets.
John Proctor and his wifeElizabeth would be next,
as they had largeswathes of farmland
and a successfultavern to their name
that would be a primetarget for wealth redistribution
(32:34):
and would both face the court.
Elizabethwould be the first accused,
and when John defended her,
he was found to be accused
of being a witch by AbigailWilliams.
Proctor had also been outspokenabout his belief
that the trials were a sham,
and that spectral evidence waslittle more than a performance.
The spectral evidenceis the what?
(32:54):
The gospel I saw the devil.Yeah, yeah.
Both John and Elizabethwould be found guilty.
And while John was hanged,Elizabeth was given a reprieve
until her unborn child was born.
Thankfully,Elizabeth would give birth
after the trials endedand so was spared.
But John was hungon the 19th of August 1692
with his assets redistributedthroughout the town.
(33:18):
So Elizabeth, because she wasalso proven proven guilty.
Was not ableto keep any of the assets.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another notable victimat this time was the preacher
I mentioned before,George Burrows.
He was a preacher.
He would face the same fateas Proctor, but when standing at
the gallowswould do the unbelievable.
Callie's broom and fly away.
(33:40):
Oh he would saythe Lord's Prayer in full,
which was thought to beimpossible for a witch I. Yep.
Okay. Oh, becausethey're. They're the devil.
Yeah.
Okay. Can't say somethingso holy.
This,along with the obvious attack
against the proctors,would continue to fuel
the growing fire of distrustagainst the court and the girls.
(34:00):
Further was to come, thoughwith one particularly gruesome
end for another of the accused.
Do you rememberI said that, Tituba got beaten.
The pressing.
If you remember earlier,there was a couple,
Martha and Giles Corey,who were accused very early on.
(34:22):
What do you thinkthe pressing is.
There was lots of
awful torture devicesin the old days.
I don't think it's a murder.
I'm thinking of wherethey're like over a wagon wheel.
No that's breaking.
Yeah. Breaking.
There's also I believethere was one like on the water
(34:42):
wheels yettied to a water wheel.
And you go under the waterand stuff like that.
I'll tell you pressingwould be what it sounds like.
You might be in between things,
and I probably use a horseor something to stand on it.
Something heavy.
Squishy.
Good thinking.
So as the trials progressed,those accused were asked
to submit a plea
(35:03):
and while Martha had submittedas not guilty,
Giles had decided not to acceptthe court's authority
and so refused to submit a plea.
Which that's real.Witch behavior.
Without submitting a plea,he couldn't be tried.
The procedure for dealing withthis was to torture
the accused, and this was doneby pressing okay.
(35:24):
So the idea was thatthey would torture a plea
out of them so that they couldthen prosecute. Yep.
Giles would be laidnaked on the ground with a board
across his chest, with stonesbeing placed in an effort
to literally squasha plea out of him.
Sheriff George Corwin was taskedwith pressing Giles
Giles, and after two daysof stones being added
progressively, Corwinwould ask Giles for his plea
(35:48):
in the most badassmoment of the whole affair,
Gileswould reply simply more white.
Nice. Yeah.
According to onlookers,Corwin would stand on top
of the stones,
shifting his weight aroundto make it even worse for Giles,
and when his tongue was pressedout of his mouth by the weight,
Coen would push it back inwith his cane.
(36:08):
So just a real deek. Yeah.
Despitethe unimaginable torture,
Giles would diewithout giving up a plea.
The immense bravery meantthat he would never face trial
and so couldn't have his estateseized by the government.
Smart considering SheriffCorwin had been set to receive
some of the estatefrom the quarries,
(36:30):
you can see whyhe was trying so hard
to unjustly persecute this man.
Bravo, Giles.
Awful, but well done, sir.
Good effort to get through that.
And more. White is a.
That's pretty.
Badass. Yeah. That's.
Yeah. All right.
Giles defiance added yet morefuel to the fire of discontent,
(36:52):
especially when,just three days later,
his wife would be hungafter facing trial.
By this point, over
200 people had been accusedand 22 had been killed.
The public outrage wasn't belowthe surface.
Now is bubbling to the top.
People have begun publiclyspeaking out against the trials
much more and thankfullythe tide was changing.
Do you have a total populationfor some.
(37:15):
It was like a few thousand.
Okay, yeah.
There'squite a lot of the population.
So you're looking at maybe 10%,
being accused and then 1% being.
It's also. Executed.
Spreading out of the villagenow. Yeah. Okay.
So it's like making its wayinto Salem Town.
It's like making its wayto other areas. Yeah, yeah.
So the end of the trials,
(37:36):
Governor Phipps had been the oneto set up the Court
of Oyer and Terminer,
but he had promptly left forCanada to fight for the crown,
so hadn't been aroundas the trials
descended into the self-serving,
vindictive madnessthat we've seen.
Maybeit was the injustice of it all.
Maybe it was the fact thatspectral evidence is nonsense.
Maybe it was the clear influenceof the Putnam's
and other families
(37:56):
that took all the landand wealth from those convicted.
But something
made him decide
that spectral evidence shouldn'tbe admissible in court.
And then, after allthe cases started falling apart.
He was bewitched.
And then after all the casesstarted falling apart
because there was no evidence,
he disbanded the court of OIAand Terminer altogether.
(38:18):
While that didn't immediatelyend the accusations,
it did stopthe convictions and hangings.
Oh yeah, there was one thing
about about all Governor Phipps.
A bit of a side note.
His wife was accusedof being a witch.
I'm absolutely certainthat's just a coincidence.
Like,
And that absolutelydid not end in him just going,
(38:39):
oh, you know what?All this is nonsense.
Maybe we should shut itall down.
You know, this is a coincidence.
All right, well,
when the guy in chargehas accusations against someone.
Of his family, it's just.
Yeah, he card. It'sjust going to happen.
Yeah, it's just. Timing.You know?
Yeah.
But whateverthe reason, who knows.
(39:00):
What. Whatever the reason,
I think the right decisionwas made.
Yeah.
So without the escalation,
of the convictions and hangings,everything started to kind
of die down
over the next few years,
after things settle down, bookswould be written
with competing viewpointson the trials.
Some supported them strongly,believing in spectral evidence
(39:20):
while others gave
a more honest appraisalof everything that had happened.
Over time,the magistrates involved
would start to make publicapologies, and most notably,
some of the girls that had madethe initial complaints,
and Putnam junior,
who had been the most fatalof the accusers
with the most hangingson her testimony. Bitch.
Sorry we talked. I
(39:42):
would apologize and acknowledgedthat she was in the wrong.
Also, coincidentally,
she was in her 30sand unmarried,
which was incrediblyrare at the time.
And many speculate
that she had been tarredby the trials
and had men staying clear of herbecause of that.
Probably just a coincidence.
Probably not related to her
suddenlyhaving a change of heart
and thinkingit was all awful again.
(40:03):
Coincidence? Yeah. That's crazy.
In terms of legal fallout,
in 1702,the courts of Massachusetts
would declare that the trialshad been illegal, and in 1711
there would be a compensationpackage
put together and givento some of the families.
Of course,
not every victim would receiveappropriate compensation.
Of course, the slaves
(40:24):
and familieswould fight for years
to get appropriate compensation.
They would also be officialexonerations for some over
the years, but many weren'texonerated until 2001.
Oh, and the last exonerationwas in 2022,
three years ago. How?
Because it was just like,we'll get to it.
(40:45):
Exactly.We'll get to it. Yeah. Okay.
So it wasn'tbecause they didn't want to.
It was justit just got pushed back.
They kept putting things out
that werelike the trials were wrong.
Yeah, but who who was
illegally.
Convicted.
The trials were wrong,and we shouldn't have done them.
So like, families for yearskept pushing like,
(41:06):
hey, can you just say thatthis person.
Was not a witch, a.
Witch, and this was a like,this conviction should be
off a tent. And they're like,
oh, oh, look at allthis paperwork we got to do.
So yeah, it was 2022that finally.
Crazy that that was afterwe'd started this podcast.
Yeah. Yeah.
(41:27):
During the run of this podcast,
the last person from the Salemwitch trials was exonerated.
That is pretty wild.
1692 year, 333 years.
That's crazy.
Actually,I think it's 334 to 333.
So 2022 if you're 1692,
so 300 years would be 1992.
(41:51):
Yeah.
And then another 30 yearswould be it's 330 years.
There's like three of them. 33years. It's a lot.
What do you get? Oh
I mean it's all pretty.
The witch trials were real.
As for the reason whythe girls were in such a frenzy
and stuck to their story,many of theorized
that it was a mass psychosisor hysteria,
(42:15):
that they'd been workedinto a frenzy
by the Puritanvalues of the time.
My belief,
based on the very obviousinfluence of the Putnam's,
is that the girls were pressured
into making,their symptoms worse,
and then pressuredinto naming the people
that the Putnam's and otherswanted to get out of their way.
In any case, Salemwitch trials have
obviouslyhad an impact on culture
through the years since, witchhunt has become a term
(42:37):
for any sort of vindictiveprosecution.
Many would know of the playThe Crucible, which was written
in the 1950sto dramatize the events
and provide a commentary
on the communist witch huntthat was happening at the time.
I had to read it
in English class,
and I think we dida little play of it,
and I think I playedJohn Proctor.
Okay.
Old Salem Village is a populartourist attraction today,
(42:58):
with many of the buildingsstill intact to visit.
Obviously, themost important of all cultural
references, though, is the Catand Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Salem.
That sassy little a hole
is the perfect wayto remember the events of 1692.
Oh, black kitty cat!
I loved Salem as a kid,especially
(43:19):
because I had a black. Cat.
Clause who lived to be 23,which is incredible.
Is he alive from the dayhe would have been alive
when the last person wasstill no.
No, close was close.
Passed away in like 2012.
Yes. I mean,there was still someone.
There was still someonethat wasn't exonerated. Yeah.
When my 23 year old cat died.
(43:39):
Yeah. In 2012.
Yeah.
That's 2023 too.
It's wild. Hey.
Sometimes. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
But that is the Salem witchtrials.
What'd you think?
I loved it becauseobviously, like you said,
you know, of them,but you don't know them.
(44:00):
Yeah,unless you read The Crucible.
Also,if you have read The Crucible,
the bit where John Proctor wasborn and Abigail Williams.
Not true.
Because I was like,I was reading the, you know.
How did that happen in the play?
Abby got Wings and bonkand John Proctor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did.
You didn'tyou say you were Jim Proctor
having that work out for you.
(44:21):
Can't quite remember.
I just remember the loft bed.
Not happy in the play.
It's like.I was three weeks ago.
In the in the play.
I think Abigail Williams is likea servant in their house.
Okay?
Because she was the adoptiveniece.
Yeah, she was the adaptive nieceof, Samuel Parris.
(44:41):
Yeah.
But in the play,she's like the servant
in the proctorhousehold, and they're like,
Williamsand Proctor were banging,
and Elizabeth,his wife, was like, get it out.
And then Abigail's like,you're a witch.
And, okay.
Yeah, that that actually doessound familiar.
Yeah, yeah.
(45:02):
But I was reading.
I was like, didn't John Proctor,like, bang one of these girls?
And that's really gross.
Yeah, she's super youngand it's not true.
Okay. Yeah. Exonerate him. Yeah.
Exonerate him from the Crucible.
Yeah, yeah.
But otherwise,yeah, it's a bit of a,
It's a perfect exampleof why you should not,
(45:22):
you should you shouldread into things yourself.
Yeah. Look at the connections.
Work outwhy people doing things?
Because this all centered aroundthe Putnam's and the Paris's.
And, like their issueswith people in town.
And then it justgot out of hand.
Their vision for how they cantake the town, I suppose.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did they have a hanging tree?
(45:44):
No, they had Gallows Hill.
Okay.
Apparentlythey were not proper gallows.
So it was like a stranglinghanging rather than a neck snap.
And hanging. Oh yeah. Soit's pretty gross. Yes.
Oh yeah. Awful.
Way to go. Yeah. Awful.
Yeah.
There were like
there were a few peoplethat were saved by
Governor Phipps being like.
(46:04):
Holed up.
Wait a minute.
Something ain't right. Yeah.
So there were a few peoplethat survived because of that.
But weirdly, it was like,
yeah, theythey weren't allowed at a prison
until they paidtheir prison fees.
It's like.
But you just exonerated them.
But they said probably.
Yeah,they had to pay to be in prison.
Where do you get the moneyif you're in prison?
(46:25):
I don't know, man.
Especiallyif you've been convicted.
Your money's probably beenredistributed already. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
And like it took,it took quite a while to get.
Yeah. 2022.
Well yeah I'm talking about the,
the compensation packagelike that was 1711.
That was what11 and eight, 19 years later.
(46:45):
That's pretty bad.
Anyway not very interestinglike I said you know of them
but you don't knowthe details of them.
So yeah. Super interesting.Thanks. Bye. Thanks.
So that's right
I thought,
I thought it
was a really interesting storyfor this spooky Halloween.
Even though it's opposite.
Much like our other.
(47:05):
Oh I don't know about thatat about.
Oh yeah.
So what episode have we done for
this is spooky spectacular four.
Is it with,
Like the horror.
MoviesI did the horror movies with?
Because the skeletonsonly just come up.
Those are inthat counted for you.
Yeah.
So it was. Yeah.
The horror movieswith the real skeletons.
And then I did the Annabelledoll. Yep.
(47:27):
And and then I think I did yearthree, but I can't, I think.
I think with the Annabelledoll also did the exorcism of
Annihilation did.
Yeah. The sexism of that.
That girl. Yeah.
Maybe you've donethree episodes. Of this now.
I did a couple because they wereshorter stories.
I did them together.
I can't remember what I did.
I must have donelike a haunting or something.
(47:48):
And didn't I do. Yeah. We,
Was that a spooky spectacular?
Yeah, we might have been.
I don't know.
How long ago did we dothe spooky spectacular?
Is itspooky? Spectacular number five.
It must be. Yeah.
Cleaning aisles.
I don't know, man.
I can't read what I did, I did,I did one, I remember that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed,
(48:11):
it was quite fundoing this episode.
A little bitof a little bit of silly one.
I mean, it's not silly, but,like, it's pretty silly.
Yeah. Like,you know what's going on?
People are silly.
Yeah. Anyway, silly billies.
Yeah. The Salem witch trials.
Silly, Billy.
Just a pack. Of silly Billy's.
I did the girls end upfacing any punishment for.
(48:35):
Oh, they just went. Sorry,we were wrong.
Did I even admit
to, like, making it up at anypoint or just,
They never said, like,we made it up.
But I know that at least.
And Putnam junior apologized,
and said that, like, oh,
I want to lay in the dustfor my pardon.
Yeah. You got peoplekilled, you muppet. Yeah.
I think a couple of the othergirls were like.
Oopsie. But
(48:56):
I think in general peoplejust kind of went,
that was crazy.
The real twist to
the story would bethey were the real witches,
and they were feeding offthe life energy.
The people they got hungkeep themselves young.
I think that we can safely saythat's exactly what happened.
There will be no furtherinvestigations into the Salem
witch trialsbecause we solved them some.
Witch hunt over.
Yeah. Great. Good job. Boy.
(49:18):
Well, with that,I think we should wrap up.
It has been very funspeaking to you
this spooky Halloween.
Enjoy your chocolate.
And it's. On a Fridaythis year to.
The spookiest day.
And we will see youin a fortnight.
Good night.
Good night.
You've been listeningto Cheeky Tales podcast.
(49:40):
If you'd like to see
supplemental imagesrelated to our episodes
or to interactwith us about our episodes,
hit us up on at Cheeky Tales
pod on Instagram, Facebookand YouTube.
You can
watch our episodes on YouTubeor listen to them on Spotify,
Apple Podcastsor ever. You get your podcasts.
As we've seen throughthe years of this podcast,
the people of the past had quite
a different view of the worldto what we do now.
In a world before modern scienceand much of the logic
that we know, there wereprevailing beliefs that centered
largely around the spectraland the spiritual.
It was much easierto blame demons for the problems
of the time than silly
(00:21):
little things like globalweather patterns, physics,
and the intricacies of thingslike luck and chance.
And between the late 1400sand early 1700s,
it was witchcraft that drewthe ire of the people.
In Europe, thousands were tortured and executed as the
wave of panic mistrust andreligious extremism sent
(00:41):
accusations flying against justabout anyone
for just about anything.
As the Americas were settled,some of the Puritans
that wantednothing more than to live
a godly life found their wayto modern day Massachusetts.
Just as Europeans startedsettling down and stopped
burning and hanging peoplefor crimes like “bad vibes”.
The futureAmericans were set off
(01:03):
by a couple of teenage girlsmaking a scene.
This Halloween spookyspecial on Cheeky Tales,
we're covering the most infamousof all witch trials.
Those of Salem, Massachusetts.
(01:27):
Didn't even
about bad about Canada, but.
So what did we do?
This is not about the episode.
We're doing this out of the wayright away.
We'll be straightinto the episode.
I swear
we did have an episodecoming out after it,
but we drove to Sydneyto watch the NRL grand final.
We did with a lot.
I think the last episode
we recordedwas the one where we're like,
oh boy, I hopethey make it through the finals.
(01:49):
And they won the grand final andwe were there and it was sick.
And we hopefully, you know,if you're following the socials,
we were posting a few picturesfrom the stadium from a cool.
It was a great time.It's a. Good trip.
Of course, it was a great time.They won you. Know.
To Brisbane Broncopremiership Saturday.
We did you know
it was the most shocking thingabout the whole trip.
(02:10):
We didn'tsay Cheese's nipples. One.
He had a shirt on at all times.
I don't know about old times.I think he was.
I'm pretty surehe showered with the shirt on.
Okay.
She's evil.
Confirmed.He walks around the house
shirtlessinto the shower, shirt on.
Yeah, it's a weird way to do it,
but you got to respect the man.
Well,
(02:31):
it is spooky season, boy.
And that's
why we've broken outthe once a year spooky lighting.
There is an orange lightthat's behind John there, but.
Oh, you can just see it,so that's good.
As of the episodecomes out with nine days until
All Hallows Eve. That's it.
Yeah.
(02:51):
Wait, is that what they call anAll Hallows?
Well, that's what it was called.And now it's Halloween.
Isn't there a school calledAll Hallows in Brisbane?
Spooky.
Anyway,have you ever hung someone for.
Being a witch?
Cause I haven't. No.
Yeah.
What a question. Have we lived?
What a question.Yeah. Apparently.
(03:13):
And was it hangingsor was it burning at the stake?
I think the if you talk about.
Think about a tribeburned at the stake.
Yeah. That's not whatthey were doing in Salem. Okay.
They also didn't do the,the classic,
chucker in the water and say,if she floats.
Oh, she's a witch.
If she drowns,she's she's innocent.
That is a no win situation.
No, no, not really.
(03:35):
Thinking it was good,but if you float.
Yeah,we get burned at the stake.
You're just like,for being a witch.
Like, Should I get into it?
Yes. We cast your spell on mewith your story.
I'd like to get it on the recordthat I'm not a witch.
I know that's what a witchwould say, but I'm not a witch.
He's a wizard.
(03:57):
No, he got me.
Was wordplay.
You're. Is it Harry?
Oh, my. What?
As covered in the introduction.
Europe was going nuts
for witch huntsas early as the late 1400s.
Religious extremism was the maindriver in starting the hunt.
But as time went
on, other motivesintroduced themselves,
like vindictivenessagainst neighbors,
(04:18):
with perceived slotsbecoming targets.
I just let's just.
Yeah, I had a funny thought.
Get the old letter in the mailfrom the council.
Like a complaint,like dogs barking
or the green grassor something like that.
Which activity.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh you should just be likeneighbors.
(04:40):
Don't mean there are witch.
I mean, we'll get to it.
But like that,that's pretty much what happens.
Considering much of the evidencewould be
fantastic stories of hauntingsand spiritual attacks.
Many were convinced,
were convictedon the words of their neighbors
rather thananything from the real world.
(05:00):
During the
1600s, Europeans startedto migrate to the New World,
with many ofthe Puritan movement
finding their way to
what is now knownas New England,
bringing with themnot just their way of life
and devotionto moral and holy living,
but also their preexistingprejudice as well.
Go, patriots! No.
Salem was a small town.
(05:20):
And not Sabrina's cat.
Oh, that's the last thingI reference.
Salem was a small town justnortheast of Boston and Boston,
and had a history of fracturedrelationships
between the local churchand the people.
It's like you just, Yeah, I.
Just said, oh, that's right.
What episode was that?
I don't know.
(05:41):
I feel likeit was one of the space ones
where I first did the.
I wasn't at the, molasses floodbecause that was in Boston.
Yeah. Boston?Yeah. It must have been.
Anyway,
Salem had a history of fractured
relationships betweenthe local church and the people.
As well as betweenthe people themselves.
They were land disputes,
(06:02):
disputes overgrazing areas and issues
between the churchand the people.
Particularly there was a feudbetween the Putnam
and Porter families over landand religious factions,
which would rear its headduring the events to come.
Remember the name Putnam.
Putnam and the porters.
You know, the portersdon't really come out much.
Nobody had the name Porterthat came up in the story, but,
(06:24):
the Putnam's had problemswith just about everyone.
Okay.
I with that family.
Yeah. Yeah.
The Puritans were borderlineobsessed with the idea
of holiness,with any unfortunate
event blamed on the deviland his demons.
All failed crops, broken tools,sickness, poorly cooked meals,
maybe even a bad haircut
(06:45):
would be blamed on allthat was unholy.
Poorly cooked meals.
This was driven by the newminister in the area, Reverend
Samuel Parris, who would deliverfire and brimstone sermons
that would stokethe already high
tensions of the religiousfolk in the area.
There's a lot of surnamesat the moment.
There is? Yeah. Putnam. Porter.
(07:07):
Parris. Yeah. Puritans.
The Puritans?
Yeah. It's a.
Heavy episode.
So that actually gone throughlike two different reverends
in the last couple of yearsbefore this.
They just kept like
having issueswith the reverend in the area.
Yeah.
What year was this again? 1692.
Okay. So we'll will after
(07:29):
the church in,
England.
Yeah. That's, part of the reasonwhy these people were there.
Yeah.
So the Puritans were a groupthat were like,
hey, the reforms that you did,
they didn't go far enough,and we're pissed.
And so they were like,you know what we're going to do?
We can go to New England.We're going to make it better.
That'swhy it's called New England.
Yeah.
I was just trying to think of,like,
(07:49):
all the different denominations
that would be coming inat that point.
So, like, you have,it sounds very Pentecostal.
I would assume that it wasChurch of England.
You'd think soif they were in New England.
So, yeah, this, this ReverendParris was the newest one.
But he would also raise tensionswith his actions.
Not in the sermons.
(08:09):
Oh. Demanding that he be giventhe deed to the parsonage
that he was housed inrather than just,
you know, living in it? Yeah.
And demanding morepay and privilege from the town.
Some of the communitywould support him
and others would denounce him.
I have another wordfor this guy.
Prick.
Yeah. Well,
(08:30):
yeah.
It turns outhe is a bit of a prick.
It would be all too fitting thatthe paranoia that would grip
the town would beginin his very own home.
Yeah.
He accused his wifeof being a witch.
No, no, no, actually,I don't even know if I know.
He must have had a wifebut he had a wife.
Yeah. Children's.He had. Children.
(08:51):
Yeah. Betty Paris.
This section is calledThe Hunt Begins.
Betty Parris,the daughter of Reverend Samuel
and his adoptive niece,Abigail Williams,
would sit downone day in January of 1692
for a very unchristian sessionof fortune telling. Oh.
I'm going to say Ouija board.
(09:14):
Yeah.
I mean, like the Ouija boardwas on the invented, like
60 years ago. Yeah.
Do you know it was a Hasbro toy.
That's for how the Ouija boardexisted. Really. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just a toy that Hasbromade.
Yeah.
So you got Betty Parrisand his adoptive niece
Abigail Williams.
They're drawingpentagrams on the.
(09:34):
Yeah.They were doing basement floor.
I mean not quite.
What they were doing
was trying to use egg whitesand a glass of water
to predict their futurehusbands.
While the reverendwas out of the house one day.
So, like, crack an egg?
Yeah, the yolk it.And then it's like.
Blue and say, water.
See what happens? Yeah.
They would be under thesupervision of the family slave
(09:55):
native American woman.
Tituba. Wow.
You got to be droppingthe this word in you.
I mean, I can, becausethat's kind of what she was.
Okay. Yeah.She was from Barbados.
So she was, Native Americanfrom the West Indies.
Is this where they got thepractice from the stands for,
(10:15):
witches culture type of.
Yeah.
She never said.
Yeah, I did it like the I taughtthem, but, she probably did.
Or she at leasttalk to them about it or like.
Yeah.Because she wasn't churchgoing.
So Tituba was kind of keepingto her all like her own stuff.
And that's kind of a thing.
Like, one of the reasonswhy some people got picked out.
(10:37):
Anyway, we'll get to it.
So Tituba would bein the other room making lunch.
And the girls would absolutelyfreak themselves out
when one of themspotted a coffin in the water,
leaving them screaming
as I left the house in fear withTituba to clean up the mess.
Yeah.
So, like a bloop.
That's a coffin. Oh,my parents died.
(10:57):
I think it was AbigailWilliams, the adoptive niece.
Yeah,but the parents would like.
To just coincidenceand seeing things that.
Aren't they.What's the word for that?
Being a dumb. Ass?
No, there's actually,
like, a specific wordfor when you see things that,
like your brain creates an imageout of something that's not,
you know whatthat is? Projection.
(11:17):
Whatever. Something. Yeah.
Within days of this incident,Betty
Powers started to come downwith a weird illness.
It started off with herbeing a little bit withdrawn,
but quicklydeveloped to include symptoms
of distraction and agitationwithout cause.
But then further still,developed
into spasms, angry outburstsand screams out of nowhere.
(11:40):
Okay, so she's
just a teenage girl?
Yeah. Little bit.
Yeah. Yeah.
It seems a normal thingsfor any teenager.
It's getting mad out of nowhere.Yeah.
The thing with the Puritanswas that
they didn't see childrenas children.
Those little adults.
So they were like, you need tostart acting like an adult.
As soon as they were born,basically. Like.
(12:01):
Get yourself in line.
Abigail, who lived withparishes, started to have
the same symptomsnot long after.
Both would go into these fitstogether screaming and barking
and claiming to see demonsand the devil all around them.
Obviously this wasn't greatambiance in their household.
All right.
Let's look at the devil.
(12:22):
He's on the couch.
He's on.
He's watching Love Island.
Stop changing the channel.
Try. To watch the cricket.
It's just before a week. It'staking the train to the church.
That would be such a thingthe devil would do.
Yeah. What a dick.
Yeah, a daddy.
Hey, I bet he channels thislike o fo.
(12:44):
On the SBS channels, too.
He'd be all.
About the late nightdifferent language stuff.
Yeah.
I bet he watches the great news.
I bethe watches the radio channels.
So there's no image. It's just.
A. Hey, I'll have you know thatABC jazz is a fantastic
radio station.
I wasn't specifically calling itABC, just.
(13:04):
As I know you weren't.
But I want to get iton the record that ABC
jazz is the best of the TVradio station.
Foreign radio channelsthat are on the TV.
There's a lot of them.
Reverend Parris wouldn'tsee this as childish behavior,
but rather would immediatelystart
to suspect foulplay from the spectral world.
A doctor would failto diagnose the girls
and so would declare the girlsunder an evil hand.
(13:27):
Shock, horror. Yeah. He couldn't
diagnose somethingthat doesn't exist.
Couldn't diagnose.
This girl keeps screaming
and gets mad at her dadfor no reason.
Weird.
So under an evil handwas shorthand for witchcraft.
Spooky.
Spooky old voodoo doll.
Ooh, the voodoo doll.
(13:49):
Obviouslyin the home of a reverend.
This wasn't great.
I would not have.
The optics. Optics ain't good.
Not these, funky optics,little camera jug,
obviously in the home, Reverend.
This wasn't great.
And the reverend would set outto find who was responsible.
The neighborswould start to talk,
(14:09):
and they neighbor Mary Sibley,who does not feature again,
would,without telling Paris, instruct
the slaves in Paris's houseto make a witch cake
to try andbreak the spell on the girls.
Never heard of a witch cake?
What's a witch?
A witchcake was made of rye meal.
And the girls pierce
and would be fed to a dog.
(14:32):
Yeah.
Why don't we do this anymore?
Ha ha ha.
Boy, if you do feel a bit ill,
give us a be a piece.
I gotta make a cake.
So next timemy daughter has a random
outburst of angerand just disobedience.
Come on, I got the wrong meal.
Yeah. What elseis. Needed in the bout?
(14:52):
Oh, hey, Bucky. And.
Oh, no.
Bucky and Mac.
Piece of cake for you.
So gross.
Yeah, it's pretty fowl.
The idea is that the dogwould eat the piece cake.
Take on the bad.
Juju, and. Yeah, offense, like,get get the beer. Which meant,
(15:13):
obviously this didn't work.
So I like the a pet dog orjust a random dog in the woods.
I imaginethe idea is it's a pet dog.
Poor dog. Yeah.
It just seemspretty mean to the poor hound.
Obviously, the piece of cakedidn't work, and all it did was
spread the word through the townabout the weird piece cake.
(15:33):
Piece cake?
Yeah, and not like thelittle ones that are in urinals.
Not a not a tasty urinal cake.
This is a piece of cake.
What did you, takesto get to the,
I don't know, it was a joke.
I had one time.
Why do they keepputting these tasty treats in?
Gross.
(15:53):
Reminds me of Joseph Park.
Have you ever seenJoe's apartment?
No. We're gonna have to add thisto the cheeky watch.
Oh, man, it's alreadylong enough.
Joe's apartment was likeone of the first MTV movies.
And as a kid growing up,I loved the bra.
Okay.
I think it was the first MTVmovie.
Okay. It'sabout seeing cockroaches.
(16:13):
Gross. Hilarious.
Well, another girl wouldcome down with similar symptoms.
This time, 12 yearold and Putnam junior not happy.
Oh, that's right,the Putnam. Yeah. Yeah.
The daughter of a powerfulfamily.
Did you talk about earlier? Did,
that her issues with everyone.
That were also closeallies of the Paris family.
(16:35):
So the Putnam's in the Paris's.
Paris's are notwell, are not universally loved.
Because of.
Wanting. More money.
Well, the piece of cake didn'thelp, but not because of that.
Just because
he's like,give me the ownership of
this housethat you rent out to me.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So it was like,they have fights with everybody.
They're having fightswith everybody.
(16:55):
Their friends. Like. Yeah.
A fourth casewould quickly develop as well.
17 year old Elizabeth Hubbard,
the adopted servantof the doctor
who was called to diagnosethe original two girls.
Okay.
The girl was,
the girl was relatedto the doctor,
but after family deathshad been indentured to him.
Funny howit's all connected like that,
(17:17):
And it's all,
within the same, like,single, supportive group.
Like they all fallon each other.
And it's also like young teenagegirls in a time where they
would get very little attention.
They're not gettingany attention in at ten.
So I can see.
So what you're saying isnow that the first two
are just being brats,
(17:40):
I mean, I mean, that'swhat it looks like.
They get an attentionfrom people. Yeah.
And then other girls are. Like,oh, I like a bit of that.
Yeah. Okay.
So being a little olderthan the other girls, Elizabeth,
convincedmore people in the village
that something was up.
And when she started to saythat she had recognized
the demons that hounded heras people from the village,
all hell started to break looseon the town.
(18:02):
Pun intended.
Because the demons.
Yep. Devil and the town.Hell breaks loose.
Yep, I got it.
As the days went on, moreand more girls
started to say they're afflictedin the same way.
And the symptomsgrew into complaints
from the girls
of being pinched and poked whilethey had their screaming fits.
They started falling downin the street in fear and pain,
and the town started topush them to give up the names.
(18:24):
Baby Paris,under intense scrutiny
and more than likelya bit of coaching,
would be the first to give inand start naming names
to her father, Reverend Samuel.
The names stopped flowing.
ReverendSamuel would push his daughter
to give up a name and anything
that could cause the hauntingshe was experiencing.
And eventually she confessed
(18:45):
that she'd been taking partin the fortune, telling me.
The Reverend's fury forcedBetty to claim that
it was the slave Titubawho had been coercing her.
You know.
With Abigail andand Elizabeth quickly backing up
the claim that Titubawas the one bewitching them all.
They would also accuse two otherwomen from the town, Sarah
(19:06):
Goode and Sarah Osborne. Bad,
Boom!
The Teachable and Sarah Goodewere not churchgoers,
and with Titubabeing a different race
to all the othersand Sarah, a homeless beggar.
The two made good scapegoatsfor the behavior going on.
Sarah Osborne was an older woman
(19:27):
who had been married to the,to a man who died.
She had inherited his land,but gave it up
to a former servantthat she married later on.
She also had a longstanding disagreement
with the Putnamfamily over land.
There's that too.
There's, motive. Yeah.
So she's got quitea scandalous life,
considering she married
(19:49):
this person that livedwell below her stature. Yeah.
And so, alongside the other two,it would be an outsider
making them the perfect peoplefor the accusations
of the childrento be taken seriously.
Reverend Parris was not ableto cast judgment himself
in any legal sense.
So with the assistanceof the Putnam family,
he would turn to the larger
Salem town Courtsto investigate and prosecute
(20:10):
the accused women.
Two local magistrates were in
charge,John Nathan and Jonathan Cohen.
Nathan was a landowner
who considered himselfa defender of the faith.
And that while Corwin camefrom a powerful mercantile
family who had deep connectionswith the elite of the area,
the two would receiveformal complaints
(20:32):
from the villageabout the three women.
Warrants would be issued
and the women would be arrestedthe next day.
It's interesting because whenyou think Salem witch trials,
it was kind of like,point the finger,
drag them offto the stake. Burnham.
But it seems like there's a bitof an actual legal process.
Yeah, there wasthat was like March.
(20:52):
I think. Thosefirst accusations.
Kind of like warrantswere issued.
Yeah.And come before magistrates.
You know, when you think ofSalem witch trials. Trials?
You don't think that's just.
You, which. You. Wear?You a witch?
No, that's exactly what a witchwould say. Off to the stake.
You know,I imagine the legal procedures
are about to get really bad forwhat's going to happen.
(21:14):
Yeah. At the moment,it all seems aboveboard.
Yeah. Look, it's all great.
Nathan was known for
his aggressive prosecution.
Which.
Which is a visual joke.
Sorry. If you're listening.
You might have to check out the.
Yeah.
By the way, if you're
(21:34):
not watching on YouTube,you should get on it.
Put a lot of effort to that.
Nathan was knownfor his aggressive prosecution,
and he would demonstrate thisin the questioning of the women.
I'm glad I covered that.
Yeah.
So they were
good, would deny the allegationsand point to Osborne
(21:57):
and Osbornewould point to teach you about
Titubawould be questioned twice,
with the first questioningbeing a denial
and the second questioninghappening the next day
after a beatingby Samuel Parris.
There's no proofthat she got beaten.
Okay.
But there's quitea lot of speculation
and there was quite a lotof circumstantial. Evidence,
(22:19):
just bruised and cut all over.
Yeah. Why are you bleeding?
Because I'm a witch.
Suddenly,in the second questioning.
Fell down some stairs.She would confess.
I yelled at some stairs.
Also claiming there is a groupof at least 4 or 5 witches.
Yeah, yeah, puttingsome more people into this one.
Even being a manworking together in the town.
(22:42):
Was his name Aaron? Oh, no.
I couldn'thave been alive in 1692.
For which he could be.
A loan to me.
Tituba would also admitto speaking with the devil,
who instructed herto hurt the girls.
She would also say that Sarah
Goode and Sarah Osborne
were the ones actuallyhurting the girls directly.
(23:02):
There is significant events,
especially the later wouldof teach you bar,
that Samuel Parris had beatenthe confession out of her
and coached her onto say what he wanted to hear.
Yeah, okay.
I was I was about to ask,
why would you say thesekind of things?
But you're getting beatenfor it. Yeah.
I guess the hope would bethe beatings would stop.
I guess so it's, Yeah.
(23:22):
On this side of it,
we can say that it gets worse,but in the moment, I'm sure.
Yeah.
There was no
way she could see how bad it'sgoing to get.
Yeah.
I'm going to say somethingnow that I don't think I said
in the end of the episode.
Tituba doesn't get killed.
She was the first and confessedshe doesn't die.
She just like, lives.
(23:42):
Okay, then ignore everythingI just said.
Yeah. Yeah.
Regardless of the factthe confession was nonsense,
the three women would bequestioned again and again
before being thrown in prisonto wait for their formal trial.
With these women now in jail,the town would start to put
a lot more weightbehind their accusations.
And from here, the net was castfar and wide
for who would be next to facethe court.
(24:19):
Churchgoers start to be accused.
Scandalous. Oh.
From here.
There was a flurryof accusations sent around.
A woman named Bridget Bishopwould find herself accused,
being accused by the girlswho claimed that she had
been one of the peoplehaunting, hurting them.
And it didn't help
that she had been accusedof witchcraft in the past.
(24:39):
Others claimedthat they had seen
her apparitionthrowing them from bed,
and even her own husband claimedthat she praised the devil.
Husband and wife pairMartha and Giles Corey
found themselvesaccused after openly
speaking out about not believingthe girl's story and citing
the trials for witchcraftwere a sham.
Oh, obviously there witchdefenders Sunday.
(24:59):
I think secondly.
What a witch would sayafter the hangings.
They're part of the covenant.
Yeah, considering.
Coven.
Coven.
Not covenant. Coven.
Oh, I don't like it.
Don't refresh your browser.
People aren't. It's just.
I can't remember whothis line was written about,
(25:20):
considering she'd been accused
of having a child
insideof a marriage in the past,
she was a prime targetfor mistrust.
I think that was about Martha.
I think.
I can't remember, okay.
I wrote it, can't remember,
a well-loved older woman namedRebecca Nurse, who just happened
to have a long running landdispute with the Putnam's.
Weird.
Found herselfaccused by Anne Putnam, junior.
(25:44):
Even a former town minister,
George Burrows,
would find himself staring downthe prospect of a trial.
It must have been boring.
Yeah. I mean,what else are you doing?
You can only go to the tavernso many times,
you can eventually just be like.
You knowwhat? I think John's a witch,
Let's.
Let's spice up this town a bit.
Let's trysome witch accusations.
(26:04):
I'm. A little bored.John's a. Witch.
Let's have a witchhunt. John's a witch.
Things were getting out of hand.
And with the jowls alreadystarting
to fill up, Governor Phippsin Salem Town moved quickly,
setting up the fast trackedCourt of Oyer and Terminer,
which means to hearand determine.
The jury would be made upof mostly wealthy landowners,
(26:25):
owners, landowners,
landowners in the regionwho were part of the church,
and likely friendsof the Putnam family.
So not exactly peers for thosewho had been accused first.
The court would hear evidence
from anyonethat wanted to provide it,
but of course
the girls would be frontand center to put on a show.
The first person to face
the court would be BridgetBishop.
(26:47):
So as we heard, Bridget had beenaccused by her neighbors.
They said that she had coercedtheir crops,
killed their livestockand even appeared
as a specter to them,assaulting them in the night.
Yeah, throwing them out of bed.
Of course, the
girls also made a big showof being haunted by her.
And it helpedthat she'd been accused
in the past of witchcraft.
When she spoke in the court,the girls would claim
(27:08):
that her words hurt them to hear
and that when her home and thenwhen her home was searched
during the trial, they foundlittle puppets called puppets
that were,
apparently used by witches
in a very similar wayto voodoo dolls.
Despite protesting thatthey were planted in her home,
it didn't take longfor the wailing of the girls
to convince a jurythat she was guilty.
(27:30):
Why would I not?
Puppets?
You said they were planted.
Well, boo boos.
Bridgetwould be the first to be hanged.
Oh. On 10th of June, 1960, 1692.
But by no meanswould she be the last.
Not nice. You said 16 nine.
(27:54):
That was a rage even for us.
Yeah. No, boo.
Just because.
So these trials are basicallylike person gets brought in.
Hey, are you a witch? No.
Hey, girls.
Oh, she's a witch.I'll save the devil.
Oh, she's hurting me.
She's a witch.
Yeah, yeah.
Jury, what do you think?
(28:16):
Guilty. Yeah.
Pretty much. Off you go.
So there was.
How old were these girls?
They were, like,between 12 and 17.
Okay. Yeah.
So there's a flurry of trialsoff of this. Yep.
People start getting.
Bang, bang, bang. Yeah.
But there's one trialthat seems like a tipping point.
Okay.
After the verdict started flow,it seemed that
(28:36):
the hunt was building a hit.
A building ahead of steam.
One trial exemplifiesthat feeling more
than the others in the earlystages, that of Rebecca Nurse.
You remember that she waswell loved. Yes.
And in a disputewith the Putnam family.
And so her trial
was the closest thing to fairthat there would be.
Just the onethat, married someone below her.
(28:58):
No, that was that was Bridget.
Oh. Was it was it?
No, that was Osborne.
Oh, yeah.
That was Sarah Osborne. Sure.
So Rebecca Nursevery well loved.
So she actually got more supportthan most people got
in the court.
Dispute with the police.
As Landis dispute with Putnam's.
Amy Putnam junior.
(29:20):
And Putnam junior.
But one of the things I didduring these trials was
I would get people into speak to their character,
okay, that'swhere you'd have people
coming and be like,she coerced me. Crops?
Yeah. She saidI would regret something.
And then my tool broke.
But they'd also get peoplecoming in and saying good things
about them.
And character witnesses.
So Rebecca would,of course, face
(29:40):
the girls who would screamand say they could see the devil
and they saw,
Rebecca would pleadher innocence to the court.
And for once, the packed house
in the courtroomwasn't entirely against her.
She had neighborswho had signed a petition, 39
of them, stating that she wasa holy woman who followed God,
and that none of the accusationsagainst her could be true.
The jury would debateafter the arguments,
(30:01):
and as the court heldits breath,
many in disbelief thatthey had gotten to this point.
The verdict of not guiltywas handed down.
Okay, not a witch.
Not a witch.
While this was a moment of joyfor Rebecca
and her supporters,it wouldn't last long.
The girls would immediatelybreak into some of the worst
(30:21):
fits of hysteria seen, yetthey screamed louder for longer,
collapsing on the floorand screaming
that they sawSatan himself in the room.
The Chief Justice wouldbe unnerved by these scenes,
and told the jury that theycould reconsider their decision.
Oh come on.
I know, right?
Not guilty.
(30:44):
After a few hushed words,the jury would
loudly proclaim proclaimthat she was, in fact, guilty.
Oh, yeah?
How about.
Sorry, jury, would you.
Can you please.Are you sure about that?
Take note of this new evidence.
There. Yeah.
You know that thingthey were doing before,
but now they're doing louderafter you said not guilty?
(31:05):
Yeah.
Rebecca would be sentencedto hang, and weeks later
would find herselfat the gallows with Sarah Goode,
one of the first accused.
Rebeccawould proclaim her innocence
until the end, and Sarah Goodewould tell the chief justice
that killing herwould lead to punishment.
By God.
The death of Rebeccashocked the community,
and the doubts about the trialswould only grow from here.
(31:28):
But ofcourse, that wouldn't stop them.
Because.
Those who were accusing people
were starting to make bankon their seized assets.
Okay. Yeah.
So somebody gets prosecutedfor being a witch?
Yeah. They get hung,they guilty.
So the state takes their moneyand takes their property,
and that gets redistributed outto the people in town
(31:51):
that were making the accusationsas repatriations.
So there's like, judgesmaking money.
The Putnam family'smaking money, like.
Yeah, the business is a.
Booming business is. Booming.
However,
the wealthy and prominentstart to be in the crosshairs.
The prosecutorsare the biggest bank.
(32:13):
They do the prosecutors, judges.
And of course,the Putnam family was seizing
the assets of thosewho were convicted
and so would start to aim alittle higher in their targets.
John Proctor and his wifeElizabeth would be next,
as they had largeswathes of farmland
and a successfultavern to their name
that would be a primetarget for wealth redistribution
(32:34):
and would both face the court.
Elizabethwould be the first accused,
and when John defended her,
he was found to be accused
of being a witch by AbigailWilliams.
Proctor had also been outspokenabout his belief
that the trials were a sham,
and that spectral evidence waslittle more than a performance.
The spectral evidenceis the what?
(32:54):
The gospel I saw the devil.Yeah, yeah.
Both John and Elizabethwould be found guilty.
And while John was hanged,Elizabeth was given a reprieve
until her unborn child was born.
Thankfully,Elizabeth would give birth
after the trials endedand so was spared.
But John was hungon the 19th of August 1692
with his assets redistributedthroughout the town.
(33:18):
So Elizabeth, because she wasalso proven proven guilty.
Was not ableto keep any of the assets.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another notable victimat this time was the preacher
I mentioned before,George Burrows.
He was a preacher.
He would face the same fateas Proctor, but when standing at
the gallowswould do the unbelievable.
Callie's broom and fly away.
(33:40):
Oh he would saythe Lord's Prayer in full,
which was thought to beimpossible for a witch I. Yep.
Okay. Oh, becausethey're. They're the devil.
Yeah.
Okay. Can't say somethingso holy.
This,along with the obvious attack
against the proctors,would continue to fuel
the growing fire of distrustagainst the court and the girls.
(34:00):
Further was to come, thoughwith one particularly gruesome
end for another of the accused.
Do you rememberI said that, Tituba got beaten.
The pressing.
If you remember earlier,there was a couple,
Martha and Giles Corey,who were accused very early on.
(34:22):
What do you thinkthe pressing is.
There was lots of
awful torture devicesin the old days.
I don't think it's a murder.
I'm thinking of wherethey're like over a wagon wheel.
No that's breaking.
Yeah. Breaking.
There's also I believethere was one like on the water
(34:42):
wheels yettied to a water wheel.
And you go under the waterand stuff like that.
I'll tell you pressingwould be what it sounds like.
You might be in between things,
and I probably use a horseor something to stand on it.
Something heavy.
Squishy.
Good thinking.
So as the trials progressed,those accused were asked
to submit a plea
(35:03):
and while Martha had submittedas not guilty,
Giles had decided not to acceptthe court's authority
and so refused to submit a plea.
Which that's real.Witch behavior.
Without submitting a plea,he couldn't be tried.
The procedure for dealing withthis was to torture
the accused, and this was doneby pressing okay.
(35:24):
So the idea was thatthey would torture a plea
out of them so that they couldthen prosecute. Yep.
Giles would be laidnaked on the ground with a board
across his chest, with stonesbeing placed in an effort
to literally squasha plea out of him.
Sheriff George Corwin was taskedwith pressing Giles
Giles, and after two daysof stones being added
progressively, Corwinwould ask Giles for his plea
(35:48):
in the most badassmoment of the whole affair,
Gileswould reply simply more white.
Nice. Yeah.
According to onlookers,Corwin would stand on top
of the stones,
shifting his weight aroundto make it even worse for Giles,
and when his tongue was pressedout of his mouth by the weight,
Coen would push it back inwith his cane.
(36:08):
So just a real deek. Yeah.
Despitethe unimaginable torture,
Giles would diewithout giving up a plea.
The immense bravery meantthat he would never face trial
and so couldn't have his estateseized by the government.
Smart considering SheriffCorwin had been set to receive
some of the estatefrom the quarries,
(36:30):
you can see whyhe was trying so hard
to unjustly persecute this man.
Bravo, Giles.
Awful, but well done, sir.
Good effort to get through that.
And more. White is a.
That's pretty.
Badass. Yeah. That's.
Yeah. All right.
Giles defiance added yet morefuel to the fire of discontent,
(36:52):
especially when,just three days later,
his wife would be hungafter facing trial.
By this point, over
200 people had been accusedand 22 had been killed.
The public outrage wasn't belowthe surface.
Now is bubbling to the top.
People have begun publiclyspeaking out against the trials
much more and thankfullythe tide was changing.
Do you have a total populationfor some.
(37:15):
It was like a few thousand.
Okay, yeah.
There'squite a lot of the population.
So you're looking at maybe 10%,
being accused and then 1% being.
It's also. Executed.
Spreading out of the villagenow. Yeah. Okay.
So it's like making its wayinto Salem Town.
It's like making its wayto other areas. Yeah, yeah.
So the end of the trials,
(37:36):
Governor Phipps had been the oneto set up the Court
of Oyer and Terminer,
but he had promptly left forCanada to fight for the crown,
so hadn't been aroundas the trials
descended into the self-serving,
vindictive madnessthat we've seen.
Maybeit was the injustice of it all.
Maybe it was the fact thatspectral evidence is nonsense.
Maybe it was the clear influenceof the Putnam's
and other families
(37:56):
that took all the landand wealth from those convicted.
But something
made him decide
that spectral evidence shouldn'tbe admissible in court.
And then, after allthe cases started falling apart.
He was bewitched.
And then after all the casesstarted falling apart
because there was no evidence,
he disbanded the court of OIAand Terminer altogether.
(38:18):
While that didn't immediatelyend the accusations,
it did stopthe convictions and hangings.
Oh yeah, there was one thing
about about all Governor Phipps.
A bit of a side note.
His wife was accusedof being a witch.
I'm absolutely certainthat's just a coincidence.
Like,
And that absolutelydid not end in him just going,
(38:39):
oh, you know what?All this is nonsense.
Maybe we should shut itall down.
You know, this is a coincidence.
All right, well,
when the guy in chargehas accusations against someone.
Of his family, it's just.
Yeah, he card. It'sjust going to happen.
Yeah, it's just. Timing.You know?
Yeah.
But whateverthe reason, who knows.
(39:00):
What. Whatever the reason,
I think the right decisionwas made.
Yeah.
So without the escalation,
of the convictions and hangings,everything started to kind
of die down
over the next few years,
after things settle down, bookswould be written
with competing viewpointson the trials.
Some supported them strongly,believing in spectral evidence
(39:20):
while others gave
a more honest appraisalof everything that had happened.
Over time,the magistrates involved
would start to make publicapologies, and most notably,
some of the girls that had madethe initial complaints,
and Putnam junior,
who had been the most fatalof the accusers
with the most hangingson her testimony. Bitch.
Sorry we talked. I
(39:42):
would apologize and acknowledgedthat she was in the wrong.
Also, coincidentally,
she was in her 30sand unmarried,
which was incrediblyrare at the time.
And many speculate
that she had been tarredby the trials
and had men staying clear of herbecause of that.
Probably just a coincidence.
Probably not related to her
suddenlyhaving a change of heart
and thinkingit was all awful again.
(40:03):
Coincidence? Yeah. That's crazy.
In terms of legal fallout,
in 1702,the courts of Massachusetts
would declare that the trialshad been illegal, and in 1711
there would be a compensationpackage
put together and givento some of the families.
Of course,
not every victim would receiveappropriate compensation.
Of course, the slaves
(40:24):
and familieswould fight for years
to get appropriate compensation.
They would also be officialexonerations for some over
the years, but many weren'texonerated until 2001.
Oh, and the last exonerationwas in 2022,
three years ago. How?
Because it was just like,we'll get to it.
(40:45):
Exactly.We'll get to it. Yeah. Okay.
So it wasn'tbecause they didn't want to.
It was justit just got pushed back.
They kept putting things out
that werelike the trials were wrong.
Yeah, but who who was
illegally.
Convicted.
The trials were wrong,and we shouldn't have done them.
So like, families for yearskept pushing like,
(41:06):
hey, can you just say thatthis person.
Was not a witch, a.
Witch, and this was a like,this conviction should be
off a tent. And they're like,
oh, oh, look at allthis paperwork we got to do.
So yeah, it was 2022that finally.
Crazy that that was afterwe'd started this podcast.
Yeah. Yeah.
(41:27):
During the run of this podcast,
the last person from the Salemwitch trials was exonerated.
That is pretty wild.
1692 year, 333 years.
That's crazy.
Actually,I think it's 334 to 333.
So 2022 if you're 1692,
so 300 years would be 1992.
(41:51):
Yeah.
And then another 30 yearswould be it's 330 years.
There's like three of them. 33years. It's a lot.
What do you get? Oh
I mean it's all pretty.
The witch trials were real.
As for the reason whythe girls were in such a frenzy
and stuck to their story,many of theorized
that it was a mass psychosisor hysteria,
(42:15):
that they'd been workedinto a frenzy
by the Puritanvalues of the time.
My belief,
based on the very obviousinfluence of the Putnam's,
is that the girls were pressured
into making,their symptoms worse,
and then pressuredinto naming the people
that the Putnam's and otherswanted to get out of their way.
In any case, Salemwitch trials have
obviouslyhad an impact on culture
through the years since, witchhunt has become a term
(42:37):
for any sort of vindictiveprosecution.
Many would know of the playThe Crucible, which was written
in the 1950sto dramatize the events
and provide a commentary
on the communist witch huntthat was happening at the time.
I had to read it
in English class,
and I think we dida little play of it,
and I think I playedJohn Proctor.
Okay.
Old Salem Village is a populartourist attraction today,
(42:58):
with many of the buildingsstill intact to visit.
Obviously, themost important of all cultural
references, though, is the Catand Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Salem.
That sassy little a hole
is the perfect wayto remember the events of 1692.
Oh, black kitty cat!
I loved Salem as a kid,especially
(43:19):
because I had a black. Cat.
Clause who lived to be 23,which is incredible.
Is he alive from the dayhe would have been alive
when the last person wasstill no.
No, close was close.
Passed away in like 2012.
Yes. I mean,there was still someone.
There was still someonethat wasn't exonerated. Yeah.
When my 23 year old cat died.
(43:39):
Yeah. In 2012.
Yeah.
That's 2023 too.
It's wild. Hey.
Sometimes. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
But that is the Salem witchtrials.
What'd you think?
I loved it becauseobviously, like you said,
you know, of them,but you don't know them.
(44:00):
Yeah,unless you read The Crucible.
Also,if you have read The Crucible,
the bit where John Proctor wasborn and Abigail Williams.
Not true.
Because I was like,I was reading the, you know.
How did that happen in the play?
Abby got Wings and bonkand John Proctor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did.
You didn'tyou say you were Jim Proctor
having that work out for you.
(44:21):
Can't quite remember.
I just remember the loft bed.
Not happy in the play.
It's like.I was three weeks ago.
In the in the play.
I think Abigail Williams is likea servant in their house.
Okay?
Because she was the adoptiveniece.
Yeah, she was the adaptive nieceof, Samuel Parris.
(44:41):
Yeah.
But in the play,she's like the servant
in the proctorhousehold, and they're like,
Williamsand Proctor were banging,
and Elizabeth,his wife, was like, get it out.
And then Abigail's like,you're a witch.
And, okay.
Yeah, that that actually doessound familiar.
Yeah, yeah.
(45:02):
But I was reading.
I was like, didn't John Proctor,like, bang one of these girls?
And that's really gross.
Yeah, she's super youngand it's not true.
Okay. Yeah. Exonerate him. Yeah.
Exonerate him from the Crucible.
Yeah, yeah.
But otherwise,yeah, it's a bit of a,
It's a perfect exampleof why you should not,
(45:22):
you should you shouldread into things yourself.
Yeah. Look at the connections.
Work outwhy people doing things?
Because this all centered aroundthe Putnam's and the Paris's.
And, like their issueswith people in town.
And then it justgot out of hand.
Their vision for how they cantake the town, I suppose.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did they have a hanging tree?
(45:44):
No, they had Gallows Hill.
Okay.
Apparentlythey were not proper gallows.
So it was like a stranglinghanging rather than a neck snap.
And hanging. Oh yeah. Soit's pretty gross. Yes.
Oh yeah. Awful.
Way to go. Yeah. Awful.
Yeah.
There were like
there were a few peoplethat were saved by
Governor Phipps being like.
(46:04):
Holed up.
Wait a minute.
Something ain't right. Yeah.
So there were a few peoplethat survived because of that.
But weirdly, it was like,
yeah, theythey weren't allowed at a prison
until they paidtheir prison fees.
It's like.
But you just exonerated them.
But they said probably.
Yeah,they had to pay to be in prison.
Where do you get the moneyif you're in prison?
(46:25):
I don't know, man.
Especiallyif you've been convicted.
Your money's probably beenredistributed already. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
And like it took,it took quite a while to get.
Yeah. 2022.
Well yeah I'm talking about the,
the compensation packagelike that was 1711.
That was what11 and eight, 19 years later.
(46:45):
That's pretty bad.
Anyway not very interestinglike I said you know of them
but you don't knowthe details of them.
So yeah. Super interesting.Thanks. Bye. Thanks.
So that's right
I thought,
I thought it
was a really interesting storyfor this spooky Halloween.
Even though it's opposite.
Much like our other.
(47:05):
Oh I don't know about thatat about.
Oh yeah.
So what episode have we done for
this is spooky spectacular four.
Is it with,
Like the horror.
MoviesI did the horror movies with?
Because the skeletonsonly just come up.
Those are inthat counted for you.
Yeah.
So it was. Yeah.
The horror movieswith the real skeletons.
And then I did the Annabelledoll. Yep.
(47:27):
And and then I think I did yearthree, but I can't, I think.
I think with the Annabelledoll also did the exorcism of
Annihilation did.
Yeah. The sexism of that.
That girl. Yeah.
Maybe you've donethree episodes. Of this now.
I did a couple because they wereshorter stories.
I did them together.
I can't remember what I did.
I must have donelike a haunting or something.
(47:48):
And didn't I do. Yeah. We,
Was that a spooky spectacular?
Yeah, we might have been.
I don't know.
How long ago did we dothe spooky spectacular?
Is itspooky? Spectacular number five.
It must be. Yeah.
Cleaning aisles.
I don't know, man.
I can't read what I did, I did,I did one, I remember that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed,
(48:11):
it was quite fundoing this episode.
A little bitof a little bit of silly one.
I mean, it's not silly, but,like, it's pretty silly.
Yeah. Like,you know what's going on?
People are silly.
Yeah. Anyway, silly billies.
Yeah. The Salem witch trials.
Silly, Billy.
Just a pack. Of silly Billy's.
I did the girls end upfacing any punishment for.
(48:35):
Oh, they just went. Sorry,we were wrong.
Did I even admit
to, like, making it up at anypoint or just,
They never said, like,we made it up.
But I know that at least.
And Putnam junior apologized,
and said that, like, oh,
I want to lay in the dustfor my pardon.
Yeah. You got peoplekilled, you muppet. Yeah.
I think a couple of the othergirls were like.
Oopsie. But
(48:56):
I think in general peoplejust kind of went,
that was crazy.
The real twist to
the story would bethey were the real witches,
and they were feeding offthe life energy.
The people they got hungkeep themselves young.
I think that we can safely saythat's exactly what happened.
There will be no furtherinvestigations into the Salem
witch trialsbecause we solved them some.
Witch hunt over.
Yeah. Great. Good job. Boy.
(49:18):
Well, with that,I think we should wrap up.
It has been very funspeaking to you
this spooky Halloween.
Enjoy your chocolate.
And it's. On a Fridaythis year to.
The spookiest day.
And we will see youin a fortnight.
Good night.
Good night.
You've been listeningto Cheeky Tales podcast.
(49:40):
If you'd like to see
supplemental imagesrelated to our episodes
or to interactwith us about our episodes,
hit us up on at Cheeky Tales
pod on Instagram, Facebookand YouTube.
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