Welcome to Salem, Massachusetts! So if today Salem is a quite peaceful and charming city of the Massachusetts, or at least as it seems to be on Google Street view as I have never been there, perhaps one day, who knows, back in the days, in 1670, it was another story. At least it was a peaceful place, but, a war between the two important families, the Porter and the Putnam, was ongoing.

Now, for understanding the story that is to come, let’s start with setting the context on how it takes place. In 1670, we were not yet in the United States. In fact, the idea of uniting the States was not even in anyone’s mind at this time. It all started in Europe with someone named Martin Luther, four hundred years before. Back in the days, the Catholic Church had a strong influence over lives in the Middle Ages, and, of course, this was widely accepted that, no one would ever believe that something different could exist. In fact, everyone who could think differently that there is only one God was made a pariah, being called a heretic. So that included scientific, as we’ve seen in the Dark Matter episode with Kepler and Newton, and unfortunately, many great minds, called heretics afterwards, as well as Jewish people paid the hefty price for the society global intolerance.

But back in 1410, a famous king of England, named Henry VIII, turned 40. And, as age was kicking, despite the fact that he was still a handsome man, he was married to Catherine of Aragon, and… you know, the midlife crisis kicked in. And there was this so pretty girl roaming in Hampton Court, named Anne Boleyn. He had a very bad crush for her. Like, the very bad one. But after all, who cares, he’s the king, he can do whatever he wants.

So as he was the type to do what he said and to say what he wanted, Catherine grew old, and, the fact that he had only one daughter with her, was turning the turning point of his reign quite bitter. He would have loved to have a baby boy, but, things went differently. And there was this Anne, who couldn’t leave his mind. In fact, he was in love with her, and, I think someone should have told her that remaining too close to the King was perhaps not the greatest idea she may have had considering the outcome of this future marriage. So, Henry was like, “nah, I want Anne so bad”, so he did what any man would certainly do, started thinking about a divorce. But, remember, we were in a Christian society back in the days, so divorcing was not really well observed and was a controversial move, even more for a King.

Yet, for breaking up with the old one, he wrote to the Pope, as the Pope was the highest authority, even beyond kings back in the days, to request his permission to divorce, citing… well, phoney motives. The pope was like, “nah, bro, you’re married, you made your choice, it is what it is!”. Henry didn’t like that, and he wasn’t the type of guy to whom you’d actually refuse something. Like, he didn’t like that at all. So he replied to the pope, “I’ll tell you what, mate, you don’t grant me my divorce with Catherine, then you know what? Well I won’t recognise the authority of the Catholic Church in my Kingdom! You’re out, mate!” The pope replied that, “do whatever’s the best for you, mate!”. Okay, those letters weren’t precisely written in those terms but the idea was there. So in order to divorce, Henry, rather than obeying to the orders of the pope, created, in a surprising move, his very own religion. Breaking up with the Catholic Church as well as his wife.

And if that story reminds you of a recent event occurring in 2016 in the United Kingdom… it’s a pure coincidence.

Anyway, now that Henry was very pleased, as he did his very own Brexit and was now free to marry the lovely Anne Boleyn, what is called a schism would start to operate in England. And the people of England were summoned to convert to this new religion, as, the Catholic Church was now no longer welcome in the kingdom. In fact, throughout Europe, a new movement of Christianity was born, and it was called Lutheranism. From Martin Luther. This movement was questioning a lot of things that we are not gonna be talking about because, this would take forever, but in a nutshell, it was a sort of revision of the bible. And Henry VIII kind of joined this movement, that we know nowadays under the name of Protestantism, and created a branch of this movement, called the Anglicanism. In fact, this movement still exist today, and our Noble King Charles III is the leader of the Anglican Church, alongside being the King of the United Kingdom.

Anyway, the thing is, the transition between Catholicism and Protestantism didn’t go smoothly in England. In fact, during the reign of Henry VIII, it was more of a period of transition, but the decline of the Tudor era, whose Henry VIII was one of the kings, changed somehow the face of the world. But Henry died, and his young son Edward, whom he didn’t have with Anne Boleyn but the one after her, ascended to the throne. But not for long. During his reign, Edward kept the changes his father initiated, but died very young. And Mary, the first daughter he had with Catherine of Aragon succeeded. And the idea of a new religion didn’t really please Mary, whose mother paid the hefty price in the shade of this rehearsal of Brexit. And she was a profound catholic. She wanted to avenge her mother, and brought a strong halt the changes that her father initiated by the mean of… of the classic persecutions. Burning churches and everything. This in favour of the Catholics, as she tried to destroy everything, but… unfortunately unsuccessfully. I mean, unfortunately, why am I saying that… unsuccessfully, because she died. She died, and now, the one, the final Queen Tudor ascended the throne. Daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, she was come to be known as Queen Elizabeth I.

Yeah, the hell of a Karma.

And OF COURSE, she was a Protestant. Yes, you guys know what that means. All the way back through persecutions, again. But now, changes were made for good. And she would settle the religious question in England once and for all. But, during the fantastic ages of persecutions, Protestants started to flee. Because, the promised land that was England for them was somehow jeopardised by all those changes, and and the problem was, most of the kingdoms in Europe, France being the most important, were mostly all stronghold for Catholicism. And they were rejected everywhere. So they settled in Holland, which, back in the days, was in fact a republic and, some of them, who are called the Puritans, purchased a boat, to move back to England, and to settle in what everybody talks about at the moment, the New World. It’s a Newfound land away from there, after the Atlantic Ocean, and no one really knows anything about it, except that it’s inhabited by many tribes of people we called Indians back in the days but that I will respectfully call Native American today. This land is what we know today as America.

And I’m sure you guys have heard about this boat, at least once. It’s the Mayflower. And, basically, today, a lot of American are descendant of the mayflower passengers. They travelled during an extended and certainly nightmarish journey from Plymouth, England, to the Cap Cod, Massachusetts, where they will settle down and build a town, a town that they’ll call… Plymouth too. Perhaps as a tribute from where they left. Or a lack of inspiration. One of them, no one has ever said.

But anyway, when the settlers, today known as the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in the Cape Cod, they came with absolutely nothing apart from a boat and not a lot of food left, and life was a real challenge for them. But, they didn’t claim the new land as a new independent country, no, they claimed the land in the name of the King of England, and thus, the Massachusetts became one of the new thirteen colonies that England would establish in America, under direct rule of the United Kingdom. The thing was, these colonies had special rules and were not administered like the United Kingdom would, and therefore had their own system. But London would have its word to say over decisions taken there, which would lead to certain consequences, such as the future American War of Independence a hundred years later. But more importantly, the settlers, at the moment before they left the Mayflower, signed all a document, promising to help each other and remain brothers. And this document will be seen in a way by many historians as the very first Constitution of the country that they’ll ultimately build through their descendants, that we will soon be called the United States of America.

But… we weren’t there in the United States yet. We were still in the colonies. And the US was not even drafted back in the days.

Now, that’s for the context. But now, let’s talk about the technical aspects: what is a witch? You’re gonna say, it’s someone who has special powers and who’s able to cast spells and all that kind of stuff. If you’re an enthusiast of Harry Potter, you’re gonna have plenty of examples… But that’s not what I’m talking about. From a historic point of view, what is a witch? Well, it’s a serious accusation. It’s actually a very bad one, along with heresy. In comparison, it would be like, as if you were accusing someone of being a paedophile or a terrorist today. Back in the days, this was really serious and not taken lightly. But, hopefully, just like today we have the NCA here in the UK or the FBI in the US to track down special offenders or the MI6 or CIA for hunting down terrorists, in 1600 we had inquisition to make sure everybody was believing in God in the correct way to believe in God. And, we had a lovely German Inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer who wrote a crazy little book named… the Malleus Maleficarum, and I’ll certainly talk about this in a further episode because… yeah, what a story there again!

Witchcraft has long been forbidden by the Catholic Church. Of course, amongst many other things, such as homosexuality, it were types of behaviours considered as demonic and would deny you the entrance to eternal life. But, it may have been condemned, there was no papal bull, or law, that would formally condemn this behaviour or even manual to give a legal threshold of, how to sentence a witch. Because, there have been, according to the church, cases of witchcraft, but no text or law to sentence them. So… Pope Innocent VIII worked on this in 1470. And, as a result, Heinrich Kramer wrote this.

So, the thing was, the Catholic Church, throughout Europe, was seeking people who were not believing in God the official way. The reason behind this, was that, if you do not go to the Church and follow what priests are telling, then you can disagree with the Church teachings and thus, not recognising the Pope or the King of France (or whichever country) as legitimate and the authority, so that’s why so much energy was placed to make sure everyone would be kindly obedient. And, as such, the society was globally intolerant and, everyone who would be different was meant to be eliminated or made a pariah. For this, the Inquisition was made as the Police of the Catholic Church to make sure everyone would believe in God the normal way. And the thing the inquisition enjoyed was to go from villages to villages, hunting down poor religious behaviours. And seeing the inquisition, for the villagers, was usually a bad news… that’s something you could eventually avoid if you’re subscribed to this channel and turn on all the notifications, or you could be also following on my networks… links in bio. I mean… you know, just saying.

Anyway, as I said, the Inquisition was travelling from villages to villages, mostly to hear gossips. And let’s imagine you have a neighbour with whom you have a problem, over, let’s say that your horse if going to eat in their field for example, then… Oh, you know, this guy, he’s not a nice guy… I heard he practices witchcraft from times to times. But of course, since the Inquisition made sure all accusations would remain private, so they were coming, knocking at your door, and taking you away. So what was new with the Malleus Maleficarum was this: it was recommended to use torture to make sure to obtain a confession from the person accused of witchcraft. Yeah, because, we can never be too sure. And it was recommended to use the worse means in order to make sure the witch would talk.

So without entering into everything that the Malleus Maleficarum was saying because… for some parts it’s absolutely revolting and disgusting, and mostly misogynistic, it gave a legal threshold and indeed paved the way for what would become the witch trials in the future. And, there were many witch trials, thousands, where mostly women died, some of them remaining in history… And it’s this way that we arrive in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692.

So, Salem, back in the days, was in fact divided in two cities: we had Salem Town, on one part, and Salem Village, which is nowadays the city of Danvers. So, if you paid attention to the date, and you know a bit about history, you may know that, back in the days, in the English World, things went a bit funny, in the outcome of troubles in mainland England, due to the glorious revolution and troubles within the political landscape. What made the Massachusetts a colony was a Royal Charter of 1629, but this area was settled by many groups. All of them deeply religious, at some extends, but the community of Salem was, let’s say… a bit extremist in their own view. For example, in their community, the Human, in their global term, is a preacher since they were born. Everyone was mostly rejecting the ideas of the Catholic Church, and of course even more of the Anglican Church, and had their own way, but still: the idea of witches remained, and this was still a gross accusation that could sentence you to death. But how a community of settler worked was simple: they were all obeying to a central government, so the governor of Massachusetts, but everyone was doing the law and local enforcement the way they wanted, there was no central government. And this, obviously, included justice, unless the governor would put his nose into this.

But in every villages, the Reverend, or the Minister as I will refer to him in this episode, was the authority in the city and, everyone saw him as the chief of the community.

But Salem was far, at this time, to be a peaceful place to be, and the settlers, even though living within the same community, were most of all divided. Love Island, in a nutshell, in a more fanatic religious style. The subjects of divisions were mostly about property lines, grazing rights, and churches privileges. In fact, everybody described the community of Salem as a drama-land. But since every community were electing a minister of their own, in 1672, Salem elected James Bailey, who ran Salem between 1673 to 1679. George Burroughs succeeded him, officing for a few years between 1680 to 83, departing after the congregation composed of the five people which would be seen as the advisors to the reverend, or the ministers of a cabinet, failed to pay him his full salary. Burroughs would nevertheless be arrested during the trials and have a night in prison. For a complaint purchased, the night in jail is offered.

Anyway, after Burroughs, someone named Deodat Lawson succeeded him, between 1684 to 1688, leaving after the church refused to ordain him, creating even more dramas. Samuel Paris succeeded him in 1689, but this led to a drama between Salem Town and Salem Village because both disagreed as to how they should pay Paris, and therefore a deal was agreed, to give him £66 annually… which today would be laughable considering the inflation but it was pretty good money back in the days, and paying for the provisions. So now you’ve got this: the community was deeply rooted into dramas, as ministers, were not remaining in office very long.

But Paris wasn’t seen as a great leader. In fact, even though he was the one who remained the longest time as minister of Salem, the state of drama culminated, and Paris made sure to amplify all those divisions rather than solving them, as he was in fact making sure to please the important people, or those who could help him. On top of that, Cotton Mather, a minister of the Boston North Church, became a prolific publisher of pamphlets, all of them talking about witchcraft, and most of them ended up in hands of Salem settlers. This was certainly one of the factors that would lead to the ultimate drama.

And the big one, or the culmination of all those dramas, started on this fine day of January 20, 1692. For the record, it was a Tuesday, when Abigail Williams, aged 11, and Elizabeth Parris (both being respectively the niece and daughter of Minister Parris), aged 9, started acting weird. So by acting weird, we’re talking about screaming uncontrollably, throwing things around the room, contorted strangely, crawled under furnitures… so they were brought to William Griggs, the doctor of the village. And the diagnosis, as the man of science he was, seemed pretty obvious: YES, this is witchcraft! I mean, it was obvious, wasn’t it? Very quickly, another girl, Anne Putnam Jr will start acting the same way. And Elizabeth Hubbard, aged 17, therefore on age to testify, will feel the new strange symptoms of hysteri… witchcraft. Sorry. Witchcraft. So, of course, this was the starting point of the big drama that would later be known as the Salem Witch Trials.

But this did not mark the beginning of the legal proceedings. No. Around the 25 of February 1692, Mary Sibley, who was a neighbour of the Paris family, asked John Indian, to ask his wife Tituba to make a Witch Cake, made of rye meal and the two girls’ urine in order to find out who were the witches. Yummy. The idea was to have this cake eaten by a dog so we could find out who bewitched the girls, but this was called out by the Reverend Paris, and asked for Tituba to apologise for having carried this out. But she was forgiven. Yet, meanwhile, Elizabeth Paris was under the spotlight, because, now, we needed names. And two names would quickly come out: Sarah Osbourne and Sarah Good.

Have you got the popcorns? Because now we’re gonna get started.

Of course, following the accusation, arrest warrants were immediately issued against Tituba, Osbourne and Good precisely on the 29th of February 1692, following the complaints of Thomas Putnam, Edward Putnam and Thomas Preston… surprisingly not from Reverend Paris who still had his daughter inflicted by a case of witchcraft but anyway, why not after all. The warrant was issued by Magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne. Immediately, Tituba, Osbourne and Good were arrested, and, as a result, interrogation immediately started between the 1st to the 7th of March. Indeed, the two accused women denied being involved in that story… but Tituba said something different: no, she admitted the witchcraft. Yeah, it was her. But Good and Osbourne were both their co-conspirators. But on the 11th of March, whilst everyone was talking about this mysterious outbreak of witches in Salem, Anne Putnam Jr comes up with another new story: not only she had another affliction of witchcraft, but Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren also had their fair share, even though they had no witnesses.

So, of course, these allegations were taken very seriously, even though we had no evidence to support those, but this was like putting another coin in the machine. Because this time, on the 12, Anne Putnam accuses Martha Corey. And on the 19th, Abigail Williams accuses this time Rebecca Nurse of witchcraft. So, on the 21st, Magistrates Hathorne questions Martha Corey about this accusation, and the next day, they also interrogate Rebecca Nurse… but in the meantime, they also arrested the daughter of Sarah Good, Dorothy Good, a 4-years-old kid, also accused of witchcraft, because… yeah, sometimes, they start very early, we are never too suspicious. And quickly, on the 28th, whilst all those lovely people are all in jail and questioned, another name comes up: Elizabeth Proctor.

Now, at this point, you might say, okay. This drama is created from people who are profoundly religious, and are using false evidences and looking for scapegoats, but, is it possible that the girls truly had something at the beginning? Well, it turns out that historians and scientists have been wondering the same question, and one theory emerged: ergotism. Back in the days, agriculture was important, even more in those colonies in America, and ergotism is the disease that comes from the accidental consumption of ergot, that is produced by a fungus developed on the rye, or other grains. Once consumed, it can have either a gangrenous form, so developing gangrene, or it can be convulsive. And, it kind of matches: ergotism can develop in spasms, diarrhoea, itching, or forms of psychosis amongst other symptoms. There is just a big problem with this theory: ergot is really hard to miss. It grows on the cereal and, it’s particularly visible. And, even, once smashed, ergot would make some sort of red powder, alerting anyone that consuming this would not be a great idea. But, it’s possible that, it could have been missed.

But this didn’t change anything to the situation. As the drama continued and deepened, slowly reaching a tragic point, new people started to be accused: Sarah Cloyce, who defended her sister Rebecca Nurse, was now accused of witchcraft. And John Proctor, husband of Elizabeth Proctor, became the first man to be accused and was jailed on the 11th of April.

But that was far from being over. In the midst of the storm, Mary Warren started to say that she lied, and she accused everyone who started accusing people of witchcraft to be liars too. This change of attitude didn’t slow down Ann Putnam Jr, who, instead, continued accusing, this time Giles Corey, whom she alleges that a man who died at his place still haunts him and he’s being possessed. In addition to this, Abigail Hobbs, Bridget Bishop, Giles Corey, and now Mary Warren herself are all examined by the Magistrates. Mary Warren is now accused to be part of the plot, being out in a somewhat uncomfortable position within this drama as she was previously an accuser and, thus, reversed her statement of early April saying that, they were all liars, now she miraculously say that, she was confused and comes back as one of the accusers. On top of that, Deliverance Hobbs, Abigail’s daughter confessed practising witchcraft.

But Mary Eastey, who defended her sister Rebecca Nurse is examined by the Magistrates, who also examined a bunch of new people, including Nehemiah Abbott, Sarah Wildes, William and Deliverance Hobbs, Edward and Sarah Bishop, Mary Black and Mary English. But that’s not over: the former Minister, George’s Burroughs… you remember the guy who went to prison because he asked his salary when he was a minister of Salem? Well, turns out that he was now accused of being a witch. Like I said, we can never be too sure, with witches. Anyway, in May, on the 4th, Burroughs is arrested in Maine and sent back to Salem to be examined by the Magistrates, before being moved to a Boston jail. Meanwhile, on the 10th, they examine George Jacob’s, Margaret Jacob’s. Meanwhile, Sarah Osbourne sadly dies in prison on the same day.

Now, the attention over Salem becomes somewhat important, and something quite important happens: on the 14th of May 1692, the Reverend Increase Mather and Sir William Phipps are appointed governors of the colony, and they brought in Boston the new charter establishing the Province of Massachusetts Bay. That indeed meant a complete change in legal proceedings, that nothing seemed to be able to stop now, now that we were still examining suspects and just throwing them to jail. Soon enough, things would escalate to the next level. Later, on the 18th of May, Mary Eastey, previously arrested because she was defending her sister, was released from prison, but following protests from her accusers, is rearrested. Roger Toothaker is also arrested, now accused of witchcraft too. But it was raining accusations, bringing the total number of people in custody to 62.

So, now, May 1692 would mark the end of the first round of examinations, because Governor Phipps appoints a commission to oversee the outbreak of witches in the city of Salem, constituting a court that was called the Court of Oyer and Terminer. This commission is composed of John Hawthorne, Nataniel Saltonstall, Bartholomew Gedney, Peter Sergeant, Samuel Sewall, Wait Still Winthrop and Lieutenant William Stroughton. But before proceeding to the next act of the show, Hawthorne, Corbin and Gedney examined on May 31st Martha Carrier, John Alden, Wilmer Reed, Elizabeth Howe, and Philip English. Despite this, Alden and English would manage to escape from prison and never return.

But now, the time of examinations was over. Now, we started the round two: trials. Now, it meant business!

And the spectacle started with Bridget Bishop. Now, one of the reason why Bishop got arrested was because, her lifestyle was deemed as being too provocative towards the Puritan community. For example, she was wearing black and strange costumes and as a result, it was not okay. In the day of her trial, she was asked to reverse her coat and everybody said to have seen cut and torn in different ways. She was indicted on the 2nd of June, tried and convicted of witchcraft. She was hanged at Gallows Hill on the 10th of June. She opened the party. On the 16th, Roger Toothaker dies in prison. Sarah Good is tried between the 28th and 29th of June and is found guilty. On the 29, too, Susannah Martin and Rebecca Nurse are also tried and found guilty. 30, Elizabeth Howe is tried and found guilty. 2nd of July, Sarah Wildes is tried, and found guilty, now, all of them, Good, Martin, Nurse, Howe, Wildes will all be executed by hanging on the 19th of July at Gallows Hill, in Salem.

But that’s not over. August was also a busy month and the bloodbath continued. The nominees were: on the 3rd, Martha Carrier, on the fourth George Jacobs Sr and John Willard, on the fifth George Burroughs, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor. All indicted, found guilty and sentenced for execution. Execution scheduled for all of them on August 19. Elizabeth Proctor would, however, be spared of being executed as she was pregnant.

September, Round 3: Dorcas Hoar, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator (not to be confused with Elizabeth Pudeator, that’s another story that I recommend you guys to read, link in description) Martha Corey, Mary Bradbury, Mary Eastie, Samuel Wardwell, Wilmot Reid, Mary Parker and Samuel Scott are all found guilty after trial on the 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, and 16th of September. All of them would be sentenced to death on the 17, after Abigail Faulkner Sr got also tried and found guilty.  Rebecca Earnes, Mary Lacy Sr, Ann Foster, Abigail Hobbs also plead guilty to the charges of witchcraft and were awaiting sentencing. On September 19, however, Giles Corey is pressed to death as he refused to be tried “before God and the Country”, or, in front of a court. He eventually died three days after the beginning of his execution. September 22, Corey, Eastey, Parker, Pudeator, Scott, Redd, Wardwell, and Parker are all hanged. Mary Bradbury, however, managed to escape and is, as a result, not hanged. But now, since things went ballistic in Salem and, of course, they started to attract attention, things would very swiftly change. Unfortunately, too late for some people.

Because on the third of October, Reverend Increase Mather started denouncing the use of the spectral evidence in the trials.

So, you guys remember when I spoke about the Malleus Maleficarum? Well, right: the spectral evidence was something very common in the cases of witch trials. It’s perfect to make evidence a proof that is not even one. The idea behind this is simple: let’s imagine that you go to a court and you say that someone is tormenting you. Through spectral images, so, you know that… I don’t know, your colleague, your manager, your neighbour, or someone you don’t like is tormenting you. This will be taken as evidence that this person is a witch. How? Well, because it is considered that this person has given the devil’s permission to impersonate them and as a result, to torment you. Now you may say, but what if the person lies… but, no, guys. That’s absolutely not an option. No. Don’t even think about it. So once the court has taken note of this, they will say, yes, this person is a witch and, it’s theoretically impossible to refute.

So this is why, Governor Phips saw that now, the Court established at Salem started to become a ridiculous and cruel joke. And many women and men already paid the hefty price of their lives for accusations that were more than questionable, especially as to how trials were effectively carried. So in October 29, he simply overturned the court, forbidding them to carry out any further proceedings, after having written to King William and Queen Mary of England. With the court effectively dissolved in October 29, this gave some hope to those already in custody that now, the death machine was effectively stopped and, perhaps, their lives would be spared.

But meanwhile, all the drama profoundly affected Salem, and the village was now no longer functioning as it should as the bloodbath was on everyone’s mind and, of course, many people were in custody due to the story. The cattle weren’t fed, and many services important to the village was simply no longer done or carried out because people in custody were just not replaced. Its under these conditions that the trial resumed, but this time, under the supervision of the governor’s people. And this time, reason was more coming back to the court. As the legal proceeded in January 1693 now, twenty three of the last people were trialled and afterwards found not guilty. Three were still found guilty, and thirteen were cleared by proclamation. One died in custody, and one ended up not even indicted. According to Governor Phips, 53 people have been cleared by either not being indicted by grand juries or being found not guilty at trial. And the masquerade of what was to become famous as the Salem Witch Trials ended there, in May 1673, with a macabre result.

As of today, many theories emerged as to what happened in Salem, amidst conspiracy theory, or even the Huntington theory as well as ergotism. All that we know is that, some of the victims have been pardoned on various occasions. Some memorials have been erected around Salem, but the questions remains unanswered: was it really witchcraft? Or was it just… an incredible manipulation story that went horribly wrong? All that we know was that, in the aftermath of this, on August 1706, Anne Putnam, one of the accusers of the trials, declared that:

“I desire to be humbled before God for that sad and humbling providence that befell my father's family in the year about ninety-two; that I, then being in my childhood, should, by such a providence of God, be made an instrument for the accusing of several people for grievous crimes, whereby their lives was taken away from them, whom, now I have just grounds and good reason to believe they were innocent persons; and that it was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time, whereby I justly fear I have been instrumental, with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon myself and this land the guilt of innocent blood; though, what was said or done by me against any person, I can truly and uprightly say, before God and man, I did it not out of any anger, malice, or ill will to any person, for I had no such thing against one of them; but what I did was ignorantly, being deluded by Satan.”

As we close this haunting episode, the echoes of the Salem Witch Trials reverberate through the annals of American history, a grim chapter marked by fear, superstition, and a failure of justice. It’s a tale that not only unsettles but forces us to confront the darker aspects of human nature and society’s propensity for hysteria. In the grand scheme of things, Salem serves as a cautionary tale that challenges us to question our collective values and the mechanisms of our justice system. As you mull over this disturbing period, I invite you to share your thoughts in the comment section below. How does the tale of Salem reverberate in today’s conversations about fear, prejudice, and due process? Until our next rendezvous with the enigmatic and the inexplicable, keep your minds sharp and your sense of justice keener. See you next week, fellow travellers of the unknown.