- 1692, Salem Village, Massachusetts. This tight-knit Puritan community lives a deeply religious and strict way of life. - The Puritan settled in Salem about 70 years before the outbreak of the Salem witch trials. They had fled England where they had been persecuted for their religious beliefs by the Anglican Church. - Puritans are not fans of this church, not because it's too strict, but because it's not strict enough. They have established themselves in Massachusetts Bay and they sought to build a godly city on a hill. - Their first settlement, Salem Town is a port city, but as the years go by, the settlers gradually move inland and eventually they form Salem Village. - But at some point, there's really a kind of a division that starts to take place between Salem Town and Salem Village. - Salem Town developed into a bustling port city with trading connections all over the region. - [Laurence] In contrast, Salem Village is a poor rural community. It's more than 500 inhabitants spread out over a much larger area and make a living mostly as farmers. - [Laurence] It's against this backdrop that the stage is set for the most infamous witch hunt of all time. The events leading to the Salem witch trials are believed to begin at the end of 1691 in the Salem Village home of Reverend Samuel Parris. - Reverend Samuel Parris and his wife leave their daughter Betty, who's nine years old, and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail alone when they go off on trips for various things. They're not totally alone. They're actually with their enslaved house servant Tituba. - Some historical sources say that she's of African ancestry, but most likely she was from what is present day of Venezuela or Guyana. - Tituba decides let's play a game, which is already kind of uncommon because kids in Puritanical societies are also not allowed to engage in any sort of fun. - Young girls' voices are not heard. Children are expected to be quiet and to listen to whatever their parents say and to grow up without a personality. That's what was expected of the young girls in Salem. - Tituba teaches them a game called the Venus Glass. - They would take an egg white and drop it into a glass of water and try to interpret the shape, and they thought that they would get some insight into who their future partner would be, - But when they're looking in the glass, they see something that terrifies them, the image of a coffin. - [Laurence] Soon after, in the midst of an especially bitter winter, Betty and Abigail both come down with what appears to be an unexplained illness. - It starts with a fever. But then from there, it progresses into very strange forms. They become catatonic. They start hiding under furniture. They start barking like dogs, and they feel like they're being pinched or pricked all over their bodies, even though there's no visible marks that could be seen and nobody has a clue what's going on with these girls. - [Laurence] February, 1692, with no improvement in their condition, the Parris girls accused Tituba of bewitching them. - A court is convened in the town of Salem. Tituba is brought before a court, before a council, and they asked her, "Are you a witch? Did you bewitch the Parris girls?" - One of the peculiarities of the Salem witch trials is that those who confess are granted clemency. - If you maintained your innocence but you were found guilty, then you were put to death. Tituba understands this. She can read the room pretty easily, so she confesses, "Yes, I'm a witch, I bewitched these girls." - Tituba testifies that she does something called signing the devil's book, and she says further it's not just her, there are other people that she knows in the town who did it too. Who they were, nobody exactly knew, - And it breeds an atmosphere of paranoia and anxiety within the village that spurs further denunciations - [Laurence] Over the course of the three-day trial, Tituba will go on to name several women. - So these women are thrown in jail, but the accusations don't stop. The next wave of people that are accused and arrested are both men and women. It's not just one or the other. - [Laurence] Ultimately, more than 200 men and women wind up accused, over 50 confessed and are committed to prison, 20 refused to confess and are executed. - The key question of the Salem witch trials is, what caused these afflicted girls to start falling into these fits? - The politics of this small village are very neighborhood-based. In an environment like this, you have to depend on your neighbor in order to make it past all the immense challenges of life at this time. - Everything was very close knit. There wasn't a police force. Everybody just knew everybody else's business. - But behind all of this hysteria, behind all of this gossip, behind all of this everyone getting into everyone's business, in the background, there's something that's been brewing for about 20 years and it's gonna come to a head right around the time of these witch trials. - One factor in the Salem witch trials is the feud between the Porters and the Putnams. - The Putnams are an old, extremely conservative farming family, while the Porters run the local sawmill and are newer and more liberal in their outlook with stronger links to nearby Salem town - In 1672, a dam that's owned by the Porters breaks open and it floods land that belongs to the Putnams. And so the Putnam will actually file a lawsuit against the Porter family for damages. - It causes immense tensions between these two families because the fields and the fertility of the fields is absolutely central to their survival. - Tensions between these two families came to a head when it was time to elect a new religious leader. - The Putnam felt that the people in Salem Township were becoming more and more liberal, and they wanted to preserve the traditions that exist in Salem Village, and so they bring in this more conservative, more authoritarian minister. Samuel Parris is stern. He's very fire and brimstone. He's a fundamentalist at a time when we would've thought they were all fundamentalists. - Samuel Parris becomes a lightning rod for controversy within Salem Village. - He's bombastic, he's pompous, he's loud, and many people don't like him. - Once established as Minister, the village splits further over his accommodation and expenses. 26 members of the Village Council, 11 of whom are Putnams, vote to give the reverend's family a house, a barn, and two acres of land. - The Porters believe that installing Parris is a bridge too far. - They're unwilling to pay for what they see as large scale expenses for Samuel Parris and his work as religious leader. - The Porters also decide to remove members of the Putnam family off of the governing board for Salem Village. - [Laurence] In October of 1691, just a few months before the girls are supposedly stricken, the new committee members installed by the Porters vote down a tax levy that would pay Reverend Parris' salary. With powerful figures opposing him, it seems that Parris could soon be out of a job. - So this feud between the Putnam and the Porters has been brewing for about 20 years. So by the time we get to the first accusation that's been made, the line in the sand has been drawn and this feud is going to find a whole new battlefield to play out on. - [Laurence] In all, eight members of the Putnam family are either accusers or part of the team prosecuting the suspected witches. - Thomas Putnam files 12 legal complaints and testifies against 24 individuals who are accused of witchcraft, but his daughter Anne takes it all one step further. - Anne Putnam in the end actually levies accusations against 48 people. So nearly one quarter of all the people who get accused of witchcraft in Salem Village. - Now, in response to all of these testimonies made by Thomas Putnam and his daughter, the Porters come out and try to start mobilizing the villagers of Salem to try to put up stop to these witch trials. As they're trying to mobilize these villagers, subsequently, 19 of their friends end up being accused of witchcraft. - The legal system in Puritan New England gave essentially those accused a witchcraft no way to make an effective defense. - If you were pointed at and called a witch, that was an accusation and you were immediately put on trial. - There are people who think that it's entirely possible that the Putnams and Reverend Parris were responsible for more or less manipulating their kids into making these kinds of accusations. - From the Putnam's perspective and from Parris' perspective, this is a great thing 'cause not only do they get to eliminate their enemies by accusing them of witches and potentially killing them, but they also create a kind of hysteria that brings people closer to their fundamentalist viewpoint.