We are looking at the Salem Witch Trials today and going to be talking about some of the background that took place before the Puritans and then the Puritan view on witchcraft and practices and then ultimately how the Salem Witch Trials took place and why and the ultimate outcome. So early witchcraft and the reality is that You know, witchcraft was believed to exist. It wasn't really in question.
And this wasn't something that was new to the Puritans. In fact, Europe had a witch trial period as well, that they actually had lots of accusations. And there's a couple of things. Largely, women were accused.
And we're going to look at that as far as what were the things of traits or attributes that... be targeted with but women were seen as the likely suspects because of the nature of the deal with the devil had a sexual component to it and as we have talked about that's a natural choice to be witches and part of this was because of the view Well, I mean, witchcraft, men that were witches would be often called druids or other things that way. Sometimes witches as well, but men were not as likely because, of course, remember women were seen as sexual beings and dangerous. And the deal with the devil. was seen as connected to a sexual component as well.
So there's that. Now in Europe, how they did stuff is witches were burned at the stake, and the reason for this was, I mean, also just cruel and painful. The belief was connected to fire as cleansing the spirit. And at the time in Europe, I want to make sure that's clear here, this is in Europe, this is not the Puritans. Puritans, we'll get to what they change with it, but not the Puritans.
So the fire was necessary because it cleansed the spirit and destroyed the witch, essentially. which was seen as a good thing that they were helping in that sense obviously killing the person in the process but that it separated the soul from the devil or from the evil and so fire was necessary now at one point in Europe along with why witches were burned they didn't um how they determined if their witch was somewhat of a a lose-lose situation and this wasn't the only way but this was one way that they did was if there was an accused witch they did a trial by water and trials um are actually something common that's happened in various times through history and there's it's always the trial by and then whatever and um the idea being if you you know Usually it was if you survived, but it could also be if there was a certain sign, then you would either be deemed guilty or innocent based on the trial. And not in the case with Europe, but in other societies, sometimes it was believed that the gods were the ones with the trials, you know, showing if they succeeded.
It was because the gods showed that they were innocent versus or. they are guilty in Europe in this case you have the Christian religious component so they don't have the gods per se other than the different beliefs about what was a witch or what a witch could do and not not so that or whatnot so the trial by water was essentially they tied them up and threw him in the water right and so then the idea was twofold in that sense if You drowned because of course you were tied up and hard just you can't really swim then you were not a witch But of course, you know, oops are bad, you're dead, but at least you weren't a witch. And then you could get a Christian burial. So I guess that was a consolation prize on that, is that you got the Christian burial. If you somehow managed to float and save yourself, then you were a witch.
Which then proceeded to being burned at the stake. Horrible situation. There is no way to win this.
Like you are essentially if you are not guilty you're dead. If you are guilty you're dead And and that was again, this was not the only way this is one of the ways especially during one part of the witch trials in Europe Sometimes they just get that all together and and went straight to the stake as well based on other signs some of the traditional signs of course were witches marks We'll do not all of the different ways of why certain women were targeted, but physical signs and connections. One was a witch's mark. Actually, well, the devil's mark that meant you were a witch. Devil's mark.
And this could be, unfortunately, this could be lots of things. A birthmark. scar right they really you really could make it anything at that point they had what was also called which is teats which was essentially a third nipple and the belief with this was connected to specters specters were like a spirit, ghouls, ghosts, a spirit that which is controlled. And the idea was that then with the third nipple you fed the witch, fed the spirit.
And a specter was seen as a negative thing. to do the evil deeds of the witch. Alright, so this is the background that was already there before you even get to the Puritans. Alright, now what happens to the Puritans coming in there in New England area, they do change some of this because they saw one They did not burn witches. This was seen as cruel.
Instead, they were home. This was seen as a faster and more humane way to dispose of them. Death. All right, so that was now the reality though, right?
And this only happened if you could prove they were a witch. The reality is if we look at the trials with the Puritans, most of the time they were exiled. Because they couldn't prove 100% that they were a witch.
And that goes on. The second part of what the Puritans did is that they had a trial that they deemed to be fair. It's not going to be what the Salem Witch Trials are like.
The trials early on, because it wasn't like no one was accused of witchcraft until the Salem Witch Trials. You do have accusations of witchcraft prior to this. And we have court records of how they actually dealt with these situations. And the trials, basically you had to prove, you had to have proof of witchcraft, which of course is difficult to do 100%.
And the accused were able to defend themselves. And they did, they took it, it was, you know, like I said, out of all the cases, only a few witches, only a few people were actually accused of witchcraft fully. Most of the time, the...
What happened, time, the outcome, was that not enough evidence. And so for some, that meant nothing happened. Actually, you do have other cases. Remember we talked about that the Puritans could sue people? And if not found guilty, we do have court records of Puritans that then sued the accuser.
for slander. You can remember with Puritan society reputation was important and so if you were accused of witchcraft that kind of hung to you even if you were found not guilty and therefore the way they would enforce and show everyone that they were innocent is to then turn around and sue the accuser and then if you won and it was for monetary value it was a way to reinforce to the community that it was a slander that was the accusation and not a reality that there was still potential for witchcraft. If there was more doubt with the person but they still couldn't prove it, then as mentioned, exile was another option. And many people that were found guilty, even if they did sue, voluntarily left.
That would be the other is leave the community on their own terms. Because of course like I said it would have been hard for those who accused in and as we'll see the sandwich shows there were Connections once you had some accusation in your past it could haunt your family your your your brothers your sisters your parents your children Your children's children with this air of suspicion now for the most part they wouldn't think about it But then when you have something like this in which trials come up all of a sudden Oh, wasn't your you know aunt a wit accused of witchcraft? Well, no, you know she wasn't found guilty and you know she's successfully sued and because of the hysteria that amounts with the Salem witch trials that kind of came back to bite those people so it there were various things could happen but it really was more of a reasonable step-by-step process if someone was accused of witchcraft where they went through the process and and for the most part did not find people guilty of witchcraft even though they firmly believed witchcraft was real It existed and was dangerous. They rarely accused or found people guilty of that because that was this idea of proof, which with the European witch trials, the, you know, at most the proof was thrown in the water. At other times, as mentioned, they didn't even do that.
You just were guilty by, you know, popular mob style accusations or someone who just didn't like you and accused you of such. And so they, that was something that was in the Puritans. consciousness of the past and what had happened and not want to happen again.
Now of course, fortunately for them, the Scylla Mastralis, you know, takes this crazy twist and turn, but it was not what they wanted to do and certainly the way that they set it up was an active attempt to avoid that whole process. possible. Okay, so what you have that's that's the background with the system of what's going on.
Witchcraft is seen as I mentioned as dangerous. It's still a Puritan so it will actually here let's go real quick a couple other things with that. So Witchcraft was dangerous.
It was believed to be an issue. And of course, if you look at the, you know, why was it taken so seriously? Seriously. One, as mentioned, it was believed to be real.
Something that no one questioned. No one, not no one, but most people, it was something that was the potential to happen. The devil was real. Witchcraft was real and connected to the devil and it was dangerous, right? It was a danger to the community.
Remember, the whole system of the Puritan community was to create essentially a safe, healthy religious community that could thrive and not be impacted by the dangerous outside world, if you will. Um, and This idea that if a witch ended up in the community, it could then infect and spread to others. And they really did see the world as this dangerous place where, you know, the Native Americans, non-believers, anyone who wasn't within their community was a potential threat for. infecting them in that sense and so it was seen as a direct danger to the community and of course the fact that it's connection to the devil which is everything against the beliefs with God and and everything else so this is why I was taken so seriously for them why they set this system up because they believed it was necessary to protect the community Now with the system of the, oh one other background that is important too, see if I can get several, is that there was things that were already written about witches within the Puritan community that certainly played a role and his name was Cotton Mather who was certainly a leader along with his father, Increase Mather, were really religious and political leaders of the Puritan world during this time. And he had actually written a book, The Wonders of the Invisible World, and he also, there was another one, The Hammer of Witches.
Let's see, The Hammer of Witches. The Hammer of Witches was written about... that described it as, of course, women and dangerous, that they were liars. It was very misogynistic and very much targeted towards this negative example of how you had to be careful of them and they could infect them. So you already have this, the best example of such a negative portrayal of women.
And from there, how that leads to them being involved in witchcraft. Okay, so, oh, and yeah, so Negapatera women, and they were tools of the devil, which was potential to infect. Cotton Mathers wrote, and he, Cotton Mathers actually wrote, so the Hammer of Witches was before the Salemage Trials.
And then Cotton Mather's book, one of the books that he wrote was The Wonders of the Invisible World, which was in many ways a defense of the Salem Witch Trials and harkened back a lot to this. So the Hammer Witches played an important role in that view. So let's look at how the Salem Witch Trials started, which women were, why they were likely to be selected, and all of that.
Now, the Salem Witch Trials were 1692 and went into 93. 1692 is usually the date that it attacks. That's when it started. So. The start had to do with, at least how the story goes, that there were actually, just before 1692, when a group of adolescent girls, a group of young girls, were messing around. And remember I mentioned too that young preteen girls were probably the most...
Ignored besides servants and slaves of the Puritans the most kind of ignored They weren't really serving their purpose yet as women, but they weren't young children anymore And the young girls are the story goes as they went into the woods And we're playing a game and the game and there's a couple different stories with it But the game was that they were shown how to See the future So they're playing a game and the game was that you dropped an egg white into a cup of water and then as it was in the water it would show shape of a letter right and that letter would then be the start of the person's name You would marry. Alright, I mean so this actually is actually similar to a game With the Apple where you twist the Apple and hold on to the stem and say the alphabet ABC until it breaks off So a similar version now the story was all with this that how they learned this Was from tituba who was a slave for one of the girls family and she had shown them how to do this. At some point supposedly one of the girls or a couple of the girls thought they saw the egg and turned into the shape of a coffin.
And the important to understand as far as why this one leads to the hysteria and reaction of the girls was you know what they were doing was seen as you know not necessarily witchcraft but what they would have been taught that this wasn't just in they you know that they would see this as just this wasn't an innocent game we'll say Puritan belief here right so it's not just an innocent game They certainly, and not that it was witchcraft, but that they were flirting with, put this up here because this is over there, not an instant game, that they were flirting or skirting the edge, flirting with, you know, black magic. They were doing something that would have been seen as wrong. Right, oh, this is, this is, we shouldn't be doing this, this is so bad. And so, not surprisingly, after seeing the shape of the coffin, they, some of the girls, not all, began to freak out. And acted as if, so there was a couple different reactions.
Some had various fits, and the fits were that they were being attacked, bitten. um acting just in general acting weird another uh thing that happened was that uh one or two girls ended up just not talking going you know not comatose because they you walk around but becoming mute and and um staring off so they just non-reactive And of course, this then leads to the adults trying to figure out what was happening. And they didn't jump to witchcraft right off the way.
So that was important. When they started saying, hey, why are these girls acting so weird? They actually, you know, had a doctor come check out the girls. and look for sickness and other things.
When the doctor ruled that out, they were still perplexed as what was eventually. So again, it's important. It was not witchcraft was not the first assumption.
It wasn't even the second assumption, but at some point someone suggested witchcraft. And once that got suggested and the girls didn't get better, more and more people began to wonder, suspect that perhaps they were possessed. So not that the girls were witches, but that they had been possessed. by the devil or basically that they had been victims of witchcraft.
So that's important too. No one ended up believing that the girls were practicing witches or that they made a deal with the devil, but that they'd been possessed, that they'd been the victims of witchcraft. Now at some point, they didn't, and even the girls didn't start naming names or blaming witchcraft either. But as this began to be suggested more and more, one of the girls ended up saying, well, Tituba was the one that showed us this thing that we did, and that's the cause.
So Tituba ends up being accused, and of course, she's a slave. So you're in the worst position here, and ends up being blamed. for the situation with the girls. She then begins to be pressured on, they didn't believe that she could have done this on her own, there had to be other people involved, because she was just a lowly slave. I essentially saw the writing on the wall, I'm screwed here, I'm a slave, I'm not gonna believe anything I say.
So she ends up agreeing with and essentially trying to give them what they wanted, which was other names. And the two that were then initially picked were Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. And Sarah Good was seen as, she was poor.
outspoken and what was seen as a beggar at some. And then Sarah Osborne was an older woman, and important because we'll talk about how this might have played a part, she also was in a feud with Ann Putnam's family who was one of the girls that had done that was part of this Event and then Putnam's family was a wealthier family and which will also be important in the process, too So this gets the ball rolling out what they usually did was Traditional if this had come up and it hadn't led to the hysteria that it did for the truth traditional methods and trial what they would have done is You would be asked, you know, are you a witch? If you denied being a witch, then it went to trial.
And then as we talked about, there were the various outcomes for that, which again, used to be more reasonable. If you confessed to witchcraft, then you were executed. I mean, That was the end result. Now, that's not what happened though, because, uh, new methods.
And why did it change? Because there was this increased fear at the time. And there was some, there had been tensions with, uh, outside world. There'd been tensions with dissidents, Ann Hutchinson, Roger Williams.
So We'll say because of tensions in the community, as well as with Native Americans in the area, there was what was essentially heightened fear that the community was in danger. Right, that they were going, they were susceptible to, well, essentially what they believe, that, you know, that this was trials and testing of their faith. And if they let this, they basically, with the girls and then these accusations, that the Salem community. had been infected with evil.
So the most important thing that they needed to do was root out all of the evil, right? Because they needed to do this because the idea was if you left any behind, any individual, that this would continue to spread. So if left anyone unchecked. the evil would continue to spread.
Therefore, the most important thing they needed to do was to find all which is possible that were there or connections to the devil so that they could eliminate it. So with this in mind and this concern, you have a new method. If you denied the charges, you still went to trial.
But as we'll see, the trial was no longer reasonable and almost always ended up, almost always ended with guilty. And we'll look at the trials here in a minute. Guilty. And normally, right, if you were, if you confessed, You were executed, but you were not in this case. So, not executed.
And instead, they wanted you to name people, other witches, anyone involved. And the idea was, by naming other people, they could root out the problem. So this was new to the Salem Witch Trials. Along with actually this part too. So here and here were new things that developed because of the circumstances and tensions that were going on and the fear of this expanding problem.
You know how this created a problem for people because of course one of the biggest sins in Puritan society was to lie and they really were in a conundrum though because as it continued more and more people realized Like I'm screwed and I either lie, but that's creating a community and a sin in the process, or I name some people's names and confess, but I'm not executed. And that, you know, was a huge role in this continue. It certainly gave incentive for them to name names, because if you named other people and confessed, you weren't immediately executed. You were, you were stayed in jail.
Some were allowed to be exiled. because it was more important they thought to get to the root of the cause than to just kill off the few, because they felt like if they did that, they wouldn't find the end of this. And so this leads to, you know, many people being accused and the trials, which were a farce, which we'll look at.
So I want to look at first, though, excuse me, five, six. Why, what were the characteristics that women had? that ended up being accused because it was specific in that.
And we'll also look at some of the other factors such as a map that kind of shows where the accused versus the accusers were and trying to explain why some of this happened. But the characteristics of women accused of witchcraft and were seen as potential witches. There were several.
So the first was if you were, if you did not have a male head of the household, a male presence. Okay, so a male presence. And this could be either that you were single, that you had not been married, or that you were a widow.
Now remember, with both of these things, the Puritans had seen this. Again, right, women are dangerous. and needed to have, and the Puritan side was very patriarchal. With widows, remember they, what we talked about with the widows, unlike the Chesapeake area, they were looked on with suspicion.
They in fact were supposed to live with a good family for years so they could be kept an eye on to make sure that they weren't going to cause trouble. And women without men cause trouble. So that right there was one.
If you were poor, If you did not have kids, and this could be either that, and it wasn't even just not kids, all right? It was, one was, you never had kids, or they were grown, so they were all adults. And again, why with this? Because all of these. things are going to be what they saw as not falling in line with the traditional roles of women.
Okay, so not having, doing traditional roles. Remember, with a Puritan role, you were a good wife. That's what they called them. And a mother.
These were the two important roles for women. And then the other one would be having a male presence, you know, so that you could be kept in line because of this. So the poor did not have kids.
If you were older, okay, so why older? Because that goes back to likely. potentially not having a male presence if you were outspoken and and and the reason for that is again women were supposed to be submissive women were supposed to follow the church order and male authority and women who were outspoken were seen as challenging that even if they weren't directly challenging it they still were seen as doing so if you were seen as well so less religious, which is kind of, you know, i.e. not a visible saint.
Remember, the visible saints were the ones that were of the higher order of the church and were most likely saved. So if you were, and we know this is true because at the very beginning of the Salem Witch Trials, some women were accused that were visible saints, and they just dismissed it and said, no, they just obviously threw that name in. or they have a personal beef. So it was only later that they started considering when there was really no one else.
But for a while, being a visible saint kind of held you above suspicion because if you were a visible saint, you couldn't possibly be a witch. Oops, back into there. Didn't mean to hit that.
Oh, okay. It's going to be difficult now. Hang on.
Let me fix this. There we go. Sorry about that. Hit the wrong thing and it went away.
Okay, so not a visible saint, not less religious, outspoken, old, did not have kids, poor, doesn't have a male presence, which could be single or widow. If you, these were the main ones, what's going to add to it is if you had. a relative who had been accused of witchcraft remember how i mentioned that that could follow you around well it came back to bite people here is that you then were deemed suspicious if you had a relative that had been accused of witchcraft so what are these things um And any other thing that did anything, let's put anything here, that was not deemed appropriate for the behavior of women.
Anne Hutchinson, if she had still been around, would have certainly fit into that category. So these were the people who were initially chosen. The other one that they noticed, and we can go to that map, is that rural women were also more likely to be accused.
Remember, we'll go to the map, I have a map of this here. Remember I talked about the structure of the town. Right, was, here was your town center, and then you had the town with the homes, and then you had the country, and the homes were more spread out.
And that the town homes here the thing was this was done on purpose remember we talked about that this was This structure and setup was intentional because the whole idea was you could keep an eye on people Well out here in the country you couldn't keep an eye on people as much and so they started to be more deemed Suspicious so if you look with a majority of the accused were versus the accusers and especially right here, right? You have a very, almost a line, you can see this, this space right here, that this gap between, get rid of that one just for a minute, so between the accused and the, the, the accused and the accusers. And so this is, this is the town.
Center area and you have country areas over here here's Salem Village right and the reason for this was That they're more spread out. They're not it's like we well, we don't know what's going on with you We're not sure and and so it's it's part of that The other thing that's going to be an argument is going to be wealth the wealthy that we're having feuds with some of the others and that more poor women but of course part of that is because of that view so uh rural women were also more likely to be accused um and and the poor everything else yeah so this is the list this is what got you which was actually quite a few things and outspoken could be several things that could be just that you said what was on your mind it could be you know if you were a woman who you know got had a temper or got on people Oh gosh, you know, you'd be one of those first choices. So Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were perfect choices for that. Poor, outspoken, and a bigger and older woman, so she's not fulfilling her role that way.
And then on top of it, the few that they think might have played a role in that as well, they were the likely candidates, if you will. for the first choices. What we'll see at the Salem Witch Trial as it continues, less and less likely candidates emerge.
But when it started, the first people that were picked were people that they would have said, oh yeah, that makes sense. I could see them as a witch. So the trials themselves, the trials were a farce because of how it was structured. So Those women who, the women who actually refused to confess were probably actually the more religious ones that they ended up executing because they knew, knowing that you were not likely to win after the first couple. You know, the first couple didn't know what was going to happen.
They would have assumed it would have stayed like it would, like it had in the past. But the, once you saw the pattern, the people knew, the women knew, like if I... you know, refuse to confess, I'm not going to win this trial. And the why, so why do that?
Why not save yourself? Because again, it was a bigger sin to say, as they saw it, that they were a witch. And that one was a lie, and almost then by second degree, ending up associating yourself with the devil in the process of saying you weren't.
So when the trials were brought in they had, I mean a lot of people attended, you had the judges, you had the accusers which were the part and not only the accusers like the individuals but you also had the group of young girls. that were of that original the original group and actually several others ended up joining them and new ones joined that were at the trials as there as evidence if you will and then what they did with a trial is you know asked you if you're a witch so they almost always you know it was they asked questions Inevitably, after they started asking questions, the girls would go into a fit. The judges would say, you know, what are you doing to the girls?
You know, you are attacking them. they would respond with no when they say i know or i wasn't there when this other one was accused you can see i'm standing here and then what would be blamed is well it doesn't matter because you your specter could do it so specters and the old trials before the sandwich trials were not seen as evidence because you couldn't prove it But in the Salem witch trials, they were. Which this is going to kill you every time because no matter the situation.
So they could say, you know, you were accused of attacking this person when they were sleeping or inflicting them with pain, you know, on this date. Well, okay, perfect. I wasn't even in town that day. I was visiting family in the nearby town. They say, well, that doesn't matter because your specter could have done it.
Even if you weren't here, there's no way out of this you you know, and then the other thing would be okay You know, did are you did you practice witchcraft? No, I did not, you know, did you ever make a deal the devil? No, I didn't I'm a good Christian Okay. Well The girls start throwing fits and screaming in pain and you know, I'm being attacked Can you not see that that what is going on? Why are you hurting them?
I'm not hurting them I'm standing here doing nothing your specter could be doing it right now Well, no, I'm not controlling the inspector. Clearly, they are being attacked, but it's not by me. And then the judges would come back and judge them guilty.
And so, inevitably, after all of these questions, they would be found guilty and then hanged. Not immediately, but shortly thereafter. So this is how the trials went and they kept getting new names because as people didn't want to be hung you give people names and so you kind of had this continued supply.
Here I wanted to show you was some of the trials and I did this is on Canvas so you can look at these too and there's all of these you can see you want to see how many people were accused and the different people. Some of these are witnesses, but most of them are accused. It's a lot of names, right? So here's what the trial. This is the examination of Sarah Good.
Sarah Good, what evil spirits have you familiarity with? She says none. Have you made no contact with the devil?
No. Why do you hurt these children? I don't hurt them. I would scorn that.
Why do you employ them to do it? I employ nobody. What creature do you employ?
So this here, no, skipped way far down. Why do you employ? Uh, what creature do you employ?
Right? This is what they're asking is, is, is there a specter? No creature. I am falsely accused.
Right, so she's saying, no, no, no, I don't hurt them. Why did you go away muttering from Mr. Parris' house? So seeing muttering, I didn't mutter, but I thanked him for what he gave my child.
Have you made no contact with the devil? No. Desire the children, all of them, to look upon her and see if this were the person that had hurt them. And so they all did look upon her and said this was one of the persons that did torment them. Presently, they were all tormented.
So one of the judges said, girls, please look at her. Is this who was? attacking you and tormenting you.
They all look at her. These are the young, pretty teenage girls. And this is where then they start going into fits. So he tells them to look upon him. They say yes, and then whoa!
And it's chaos, right? Sarah, good. Do you not see now what you have done?
Why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you thus torment the girls? So this was seen as clear evidence that she is guilty.
And again, it's important. In the past, this wouldn't have been used as evidence. They wouldn't have had all these girls in there making this scene.
I don't, I do not torment them. Who do you employ then? I employ nobody.
I scorn it. How can, then why are they acting like this? That's what's that saying.
Acting like this. What do I know? You bring others here and now you charge me with it. Why? Who was it?
I do not know, but it was some... you brought into the meeting house with you. So she's kind of seeing the writing on the wall and says, probably it was someone else. We brought you into the meeting house, but you brought in two more.
Who was it then that tormented the children? It was Osborne. Yeah, so she totally blames Sarah Osborne.
Because clearly what she sees here is she's screwed. It's clear that they're not going to believe her. What is it you say when you go muttering away? Let me go back to this muttering, this suspicious activity, right?
That this means that she must be doing something wrong. If I must, I'll tell you. Do you tell us then? If I must, I'll tell you. It is the commandments.
I say my commandments. My commandments, I hope. So again, now it's trying to show that she is religious. Do not do anything wrong.
If I must tell you, I will tell you it is a psalm. What psalm? Then she muttered over some part of Psalm.
Who do you serve? I serve God. What God do you serve? And then she says, and she ends up being accused, right? Um, this is, this is how they all went.
You, you didn't have a choice. So this went on for quite a while. As you can see, they named a lot of names.
Um. Lots of people were accused of women mostly. There were some men.
And it got so bad that what you ended up having, so near the beginning, one woman, Martha Corey, she actually was outspoken, which is going to get you every time, and called out the trials. called out the girls and trials and wouldn't you know that then she was accused was picked as a witch soon after so if you defended the women that were being accused it was likely to do so her husband giles corey Ends up being accused because he defended his wife. He was actually pressed to death not him they what they did is it's what it is is you have a You lay down and then a board is placed Over your chest and then they add more and works the weight until what they were hoping from him is that he would actually confess and and then they wouldn't have to kill him but he ends up dying from that too so um if the husbands defended their wives too much that became a problem you had her name was dorcas good she was a four or five year old child Right. and connected to Sarah Goode related to Ciaz.
So relatives were being accused, even young children. And finally, now there was a lot of other names, right, but just seeing the progression, right, of how it was. You had the traditional, let's put it here, traditional women. that would have been that had the characteristics of someone who was traditional and that would be seen as as a witch like the likely suspects right we'll call them that the likely suspects and then you had others and then finally visible saints right they got they basically so many people accused picked out as witches Only people left were visible saints.
And at one point, mostly women still at first, near the end, even a judge, a judge was accused. Finally, actually, how it ends... Let's see.
You have Increase Mather. He was away for the whole trial, the whole event. He comes back and is like, what are you doing?
And Cotton Mather. had been directly involved in all of this and you know I mean he was biased Cotton Mather was his son I believe I think is it his grandfather is in crest mother was either cotton mothers father grandpa I think father cotton matter already was biased based on his beliefs of it and was leading part of this and so you know what it took is someone to have perspective that wasn't there right he didn't get caught up in the hysteria so he basically tells everyone that like this is insane this is not how we do things they do things you know this isn't this you're you guys are not we don't do specters we don't do this we don't name names and and hang the other people but not the people that are confessing and so His presence finally brings it to an end, but in the end they don't even say like, oh, oops, our bad. It was, must be the end because all of the witches have been found.
The idea being, if visible saints... and the high-ranking families are being accused, then it must be over because they can't possibly be witches. And so it ends. What's crazy with this too is that they did let everyone out of jail that they hadn't. already killed but you had to pay for your stay it says absurd you're you know falsely accused of witchcraft thrown in jail and then if you were poor you couldn't say so one with a couple people a couple women were in jail for over a year Until the family members could get money to pay to release them.
There was no apology as you see Cotton Mather Defended only one girl later wrote something saying that she was sorry for her process What you do see one of the consequences of this is You start to see a decline in the Puritan communities. Understandably so, right? The people who wants to live there after you've been through this process. You're never going to be looked on fully without suspicion. Plus just the the hurt of being accused.
There's not going to be a loving community anymore. And so we see from this time we're on is the beginning of the decline of Puritan communities. It doesn't mean all the Puritans go away, but this this city upon the hill system slowly begins to fade away. because people don't want to participate anymore.
They've exiled or alienated everyone in the process. So again, it's the start and not all end of Puritan belief, but the communities. So why did it happen?
we talked about a couple, why did it happen to such an extreme that they were willing to ditch their ideas? It, some of it was like said this, um, the issues and tensions in community due to what they saw as dissidents. Again, think Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams.
There were others, too. They weren't the only ones, just the best known. As an example, they felt that that community was obviously under attack. And so it makes, to them, the logical conclusion was the devil.
was trying to tear them down. And if that was the case, he could do that with witchcraft. The second part was, and we talked about with it why it went so far, was of course trying to root out all evil in community.
We clearly see that there is some rural versus town at play. There was also some rich versus poor at play. And visible saints versus non-visible saints.
So you have all of these tensions with the community that are obviously problematic. And it just kind of spirals out of control. Why the girls? Well, one is that they got themselves in over their heads.
They don't want to get in trouble. They're afraid. And it goes too far. So it goes too far, so it's clear.
there is this also concept of mob mentality and it was a good excuse to blame for any issues you had going on they also got a lot of attention we don't know for sure you know why but these are certainly some of the possible reasons okay so that's the Salem witch trials what went on how it happened and ultimately does start this decline of the puritan community because of the realization i mean this this shows it right here too there were lots of problems with this structure society and it wasn't as all homogeneous and happy-go-lucky as it appeared on the outside And the Salem Witch Trials kind of was that culmination of those issues and thus a dissipation of people wanting to be involved in it afterwards. And it's going to shift to more normal towns with this decline. Again, not that necessarily all Puritans went away, but that the Puritan ideal, the city upon the hill, does begin to fade. So that's for Salem Witch Trials.